Duplicate Songs

[John Baumgartne]

Jimbo,

I have never heard of a writer or publisher being able to deny the right to print. The way the Copywriting works is like this, if I write lyrics to a song and Jimbo writes the music we both own 100% of the Song. In other words I wouldn't be able to use the the song on one of my recordings without paying you 50% of the total royalties and vice versa. The more people who have collaborated on a song the smaller everyones piece of the pie gets. Still if 10 People collaborated on it then 10 people have the right to use the song and get paid. What may be the snag is getting licenses or approval from everyone on the song. Typically this is where the publishing company comes into play and acts as a rep for the Writers however there can also be more than one publising company involved when songs are collaborated and there may be a power struggle or monitary negotiations going on between all parties involved.

Like I said I have never heard that printing the lyrics can be denied on a licenses. You could be right though.

Perhaps the reason some companies have songs that others don't is because they are either not licensing the music or they are better connected in the music industry. One thing that I am fairly sure of is that almost all publishers and writers would want credit for their work and would require their names to be displayed either before or after a song. Many songs that I have in my Karaoke Library have these credits and most are from Chartbusters, however allot of my stuff is from Sweet Georgia Brown. Most of the time they don't say who wrote the songs, who the publisher and usually don't even say who the original Artist that performed the song was. If I were a betting man then I would bet that they have no licenses for their songs whereas Chartbusters probably does.

Garry,
As you see above when the music for a song is written and is identifiable as that song (lets say Sweet Home Alabama from My Hometown Hero's Lynyrd Skynyrd) then Yes it is always going to be that song even without the words. You can change the notes around but if in listening you can tell that it's Sweet Home Alabama then someone is loosing Royalty Money.

There is the case that some songs are in the public domain and the music can be used, recorded and performed till the cows come home and no one looses any money. For Example, the melody for The House Of the Rising Sun by the Animals is was originally an old Irish Song written I believe in the 1600 and the original lyrics was written in the 1700's here in the US by a couple of folks but with a little different version of the lYrics than what the Animals Recorded. They had to pay nobody to use the song but anytime someone uses their version of the Lyrich they collect royalty money. But you can still play the Music at no charge because it's in the public domain. I doubt seriously that that is the case of the folks you are speaking of and they are surely Pirates!