Song writer credit - what counts?

[The Expendable Clay]

I am talking about this in terms of the music for a song specifically. (lyrics are separate)
My opinion is when a song exists and you come up with a bass line for it - you aren't really writing anything. But if there is no existing music/chords/melody/harmony and you come up with a portion of that then you can become a partial song writer.
But there are no hard rules in the industry.

So I ask -
what makes one a song writer?

 

[Hoochie Coochie Man]

I don't know the answer to your question from a legal standpoint, but I will say that (in my opinion), once lawyers become involved in most questions they may end up being the real winners of any disagreement.

 

[Stylee Mousse]

I have been a part of acts that do “lyrics by Sad Boyo, music by band (band is x, y, z,).

That way group written music credits the writers of the parts, which may individually be critical to the complete tune.

 

[Hoochie Coochie Man]

Now that in a previous post I have insulted lawyers, I will mention that there is/was a TB member who went by the name Music Attorney who has experience in entertainment law. He may be able to provide some information regarding the legal implications when it comes to song writer credits.

 

[Pdaddy1978]

There was a day when being the producer of the song, the manager of the band, the owner of the studio, the DJ who played it first, ALL counted as a songwriting credit.

 

[jerry]

There was a day when being the producer of the song, the manager of the band, the owner of the studio, the DJ who played it first, ALL counted as a songwriting credit.

Some of that is still going on.

 

[ceetee]

There was a day when being the producer of the song, the manager of the band, the owner of the studio, the DJ who played it first, ALL counted as a songwriting credit.

There was a time, the label boss' toddler got songwriting credits.

 

[Kubicki Fan]

There was a time, the label boss' toddler got songwriting credits.

Great gallows humour, dude.

 

[funkinbottom]

Depends on the writers you are working with and the agreement you both come to. If real concerned, hash out the agreement and get it in writing.
I write a lot of changes, grooves, program instruments and such. I'm the writer. I don't sing and not good at that lyrics/melody thing so anyone I colab with (friends) that writes lyrics/melody and sings, is co-writer. If an instrumental, whoever comes up with the melody is co-writer.

 

[dreamadream99]

Our Canadian band is a member of SOCAN, which is like BMI in the states, for tracking royalties. The rule here for a new original song is 50% for the words and 50% for the music. How the band collaborates and divides up those royalties, is up to them.

• if I write the words and music to an original song, I get the whole 100%.
• If I write the words and the five piece band all collaborate to write the music, I get 50% for the words, and one fifth (10%) of the music, for a total of 60% of royalties.
• If I don’t write the words but collaborate on the music, I just get 10%.

 

[Stylee Mousse]

I’ve been party to MANY bootless arguments about this stuff. When 60% of nothing and 10% of nothing (ok imaginary future money) lead to destruction.

 

[ERMAL]

One word, one third…one line , half mine.

 

[Dave Hill]

Melody and Lyrics. The rest is arrangement.

 

[FullumMusic]

Melody and Lyrics. The rest is arrangement.

^^^This is pretty much the "letter of the law," having learned about copyright law in music school without me also being a lawyer. I am not and should not be relied upon for legal advice, and if anyone wants to challenge me about it, i'm not saying anything without a lawyer present.

Then there's separate copyright law for mechanical rights (ownership of the recording of the song, which is separate from ownership of writing the song aka melody & lyrics).

That said, percentages of writing credits are often negotiated regardless of who exactly wrote what.
- Sometimes bands will share credits equally for every song, or will give partial credits just so everyone gets something for their shared work even if they didn't write the Melody or Lyrics.
- Sometimes someone in the studio will edit or change a word on the lyric sheet and demand credits. There's stories about Madonna or JLo doing this.
- Sometimes songwriters will give musicians or other members of the band percentages for coming up with their individual part.
- Dr Dre would hire musicians to show up in the studio and pay them to just jam. He'd pull parts of their jams and make songs out of them and Dre would get writing credit because the musicians lost their rights to it because they were "works for hire."

There's so many exceptions to the rule, but those exceptions need to be spelled out in contracts ahead of time. Really the best way to determine who gets credits is to discuss it and come to an agreement before songwriting starts. And at the end of the day, if you didn't specifically write the Melody and Lyrics, whoever did doesn't have to give you partial credit.

 

[waveman]

I am not an expert in this, but I did write, perform, copyright, and distribute my own songs as an exercise to understanding all of this the best I can.

What I know is this: There are two sets declarations for the copyright. One is the lyric, one is the music. It is explained that this is a %200 division (which is silly IMO, but I get why they are doing that). Anyway 100% of that is divided between the agreed upon percentages for the lyric rights and the other %100 of that is the performance rights which ideally is properly credited and rights assigned. As a bass player, you are definitely eligible to get a percent of the performance rights. As far as the lyrical part, that is up to the writer(s) if they want or think they should share a part of that. So you should look at coming to an agreement for performance rights.

As a side note, this why ahole bands re-record old songs to cut out performance rights to musicians who only had performance rights ala Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Ozzy, etc

Edited to add more to this...
That is not all there is to it though. For example often times in the studio musicians can agree to just be payed a flat sum as a musician, and that is all you get, no performance rights. It's all about what is agreed upon.

 

[Dave Hill]

^^^This is pretty much the "letter of the law," having learned about copyright law in music school without me also being a lawyer. I am not and should not be relied upon for legal advice, and if anyone wants to challenge me about it, i'm not saying anything without a lawyer present.

Then there's separate copyright law for mechanical rights (ownership of the recording of the song, which is separate from ownership of writing the song aka melody & lyrics).

That said, percentages of writing credits are often negotiated regardless of who exactly wrote what.
- Sometimes bands will share credits equally for every song, or will give partial credits just so everyone gets something for their shared work even if they didn't write the Melody or Lyrics.
- Sometimes someone in the studio will edit or change a word on the lyric sheet and demand credits. There's stories about Madonna or JLo doing this.
- Sometimes songwriters will give musicians or other members of the band percentages for coming up with their individual part.
- Dr Dre would hire musicians to show up in the studio and pay them to just jam. He'd pull parts of their jams and make songs out of them and Dre would get writing credit because the musicians lost their rights to it because they were "works for hire."

There's so many exceptions to the rule. Really the best way to determine who gets credits is to discuss it and come to an agreement before songwriting starts. And at the end of the day, if you didn't specifically write the Melody and Lyrics, whoever did doesn't have to give you partial credit.

Right. Just ask Bob Daisley…

 

[Nedmundo]

I'm an attorney who has handled some copyright cases, but none involving music. I found a web page that provides a good but general summary:

Link Removed

Then, out of curiosity, I logged into LEXIS, one of the major legal research databases that includes statutes, judicial opinions, law review articles, etc. It now has an AI function, so I asked the AI about the type of contribution to a song required to get songwriting credit under U.S. copyright law. It answered the question, then I instructed it to draft a memorandum, which included the following. I haven't checked these authorities, but this summary is consistent with my understanding:

To qualify for songwriting credit under copyright law, an individual must meet the following criteria:

1.Contribution to a Joint Work: The individual must contribute to a work that is intended to be a joint work. For songs, this typically involves the integration of music and lyrics, which are considered interdependent parts of a unitary whole Malloy v. Emi Christian Music Grp., Inc., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 208740 BTE v. Bonnecaze, 43 F. Supp. 2d 619. For example, a lyricist and a composer who collaborate with the intent to create a song would meet this criterion. Janky v. Farag, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21781

2.Non-Trivial Contribution: The contribution must involve a sufficient level of creative expression. For instance, a lyricist who writes original and creative lyrics or a composer who creates a unique melody would likely qualify Marino v. Usher, 22 F. Supp. 3d 437 Brownstein v. Lindsay, 742 F.3d 55. However, contributions that are too minimal, such as short musical phrases or generic textual phrases, would not meet the threshold for copyright protection. Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd., 988 F. Supp. 2d 879 Johnson v. Gordon, 409 F.3d 12

3.Intent to Merge Contributions: Both parties must intend for their contributions to be combined into a single work at the time of creation. This intent can be demonstrated through explicit agreements or implied through the nature of the collaboration. For example, if a lyricist writes lyrics with the understanding that they will be set to music, and the composer creates music with the intent to pair it with those lyrics, the requisite intent is established.

 

[andrus108]

I think there are two schools of thought from songwriter's perspective:
a) I wrote the lyrics and underlying music, so I get 100%, all you guys do is interpret to stuff I wrote > no credit to anyone besides the songwriter
b) you guys help the song I wrote to go out and exist in the world, even though I wrote all the parts, and that counts to me > credit split evenly

Option a) leads to one rich songwriter, arguments in the band and high personnel turnover; b) to a somewhat resentful songwriter (depends on personality and emotional intelligence) and stable band membership, because everyone gets paid roughly the same.

There's also all kinds of shades between a) and b), which lead to a mix of results above (cowriting teams, percentage splits, hired musicians vs band co-owners...).

 

[Pings Bass]

It really doesn't matter unless you have a banger that goes big, because you'll never see any money from ASCAP/BMI unless it sells millions.

But in general:

Melody, chords and lyrics = composition credit

Bass lines, lead instrument solos and riffs = arrangement credit, maybe

 

[Nedmundo]

It really doesn't matter unless you have a banger that goes big, because you'll never see any money from ASCAP/BMI unless it sells millions.

But in general:

Melody, chords and lyrics = composition credit

Bass lines, lead instrument solos and riffs = arrangement credit, maybe

In general, this is how I understand it. Often, bass parts and lead instrument solos will be "works for hire," which means the player has no copyright in the song. Show up to the studio, play your part, get paid, done.

On this issue, I think about a video about the creation of Who's Next, which I think reflects how The Who operated generally. Townshend created demos of all the tracks on which he played all the parts, so there was no question about who wrote the chord progressions, lyrics, and melody. He then presented the demos to the band, who created their parts and approaches. All the songwriting credit remained with Townshend (apart from the Entwistle track of course), and they probably had agreements reflecting this.

Until recently, I played mostly in original bands, and this was never an issue because we never made any money. But, like The Who, there was no question about who wrote the songs, and the other band members' contributions would have been "arranging."

But not always. For example, one band had a track I thought could be improved by adding a bridge section. So I wrote one, with an entirely new chord progression that worked its way back into the verse progression. We never recorded it, but we did play it live with that bridge section. In that case, I think I would have deserved songwriting credit.

In a subsequent band, I thought the guitar solo break in one track needed some contrast with the rest of the track. I didn't write a new chord progression, but suggested changing the rhythm for the drums and for playing the chords, which changed the feel and produced the contrast I wanted. Even though this wan't "trivial" to the final track, I think it constitutes arranging, not songwriting. (In that band, I think our drummer deserved songwriting credit on a couple of tracks, but again, it didn't matter.)