On Feb 14, 2006, at 11:44 PM, John Howell wrote:
Under ASCAP, publishers and composers split performance royalties.
Not quite correct. All incoming royalties go into a common pot, which is split up among the various composers and publishers according to what things of theirs have been performed where and by whom. An unpublished composer does not lose royalties by becoming published; rather, the amount of royalties for a given performance *doubles,* with the additional amount going to the publisher. Nor does the performer pay any more for the right to perform a published work than an unpublished one. The royalties picked up by a composer or publisher are not a 1-on-1 match for those paid by the performer.
Arrangers are working for hire, unless they have signed a contract with a publisher that says otherwise.
This used to be so, decades ago, but after a series of highly publicized cases in which poorly-educated songwriters had been rooked out of any share of popular songs that earned millions for publishers and the recording industry, the law was changed. Nowadays, any copyrighted music, whether arranged, composed, or edited (the copyright form makes no fundamental distinction among these) is assumed *not* to be "work made for hire" unless a box is checked that specifically asserts that it is.
Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
