I Don't Like Mondays: Geldof fesses up, Fingers vindicated

[Monkey Steve]

10 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

Bill Wyman also got screwed, he wrote the riff for Jumping Jack Flash, or so I read somewhere

I read Bill Wymans big book of memorabilia (can't remember exactly what it was called) and as I recall he said that in the early days there was an agreement that anything that the band wrote together/jammed was credited to a pseudonym (again, can't remember the name they picked, but if you look at the earlier albums it'll be credited on there) which was an equal split between the band members.  However, when Jagger/Richards took off, suddenly that name wasn't used any more and they got all the writing credits.

I seem to remember Ronnie Wood saying, or at least implying, that the song writing credit was made very clear to him on joining, and he got paid far more by being in the Stones and not getting the writers royalties than kicking off about it to get the royalties and not being in the Stones any more

[Lozz196]

17 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

if you walked out because they were musically pony that's fair enough, must admit I was disappointed with them at Butlins last year, extended songs just so his Bobness could prance around, should have gone to see Sham instead, still think it's a bit much for (so called) punks to be walking out because he was winding them up, they fell for it, when I first went to punk gigs 1977 that was part of the fun

Totally agree, seemed odd to me that people who support a music that essentially was an “up yours” to everyone would be so sensitive at having the pee taken out of them.

[skankdelvar]

48 minutes ago, Monkey Steve said:

anything that the band wrote together/jammed was credited to a pseudonym (again, can't remember the name they picked

Nanker / Phelge.

[Deanol]

17 hours ago, Monkey Steve said:

I read Bill Wymans big book of memorabilia (can't remember exactly what it was called) and as I recall he said that in the early days there was an agreement that anything that the band wrote together/jammed was credited to a pseudonym (again, can't remember the name they picked, but if you look at the earlier albums it'll be credited on there) which was an equal split between the band members.  However, when Jagger/Richards took off, suddenly that name wasn't used any more and they got all the writing credits.

I seem to remember Ronnie Wood saying, or at least implying, that the song writing credit was made very clear to him on joining, and he got paid far more by being in the Stones and not getting the writers royalties than kicking off about it to get the royalties and not being in the Stones any more

I would have thought that any songs Ronnie Wood wrote would have been sold at commercial rates to others (he has his own music company separate from The Stones), or to the Stones, where it got renamed as a Jagger/Richards composition. I suspect RW is a canny enough businessman to get the best deal for himself.

I remember Albert King complaining that SRV et al ripped off all his licks (which was true, and t'was ever thus in blues) but as was said upthread you can't copyright a lick or a riff, no matter how famous it becomes. It is only the lyrics and melody that are protected by copyright, so only those people who write the lyrics and the melody get songwriter credits unless stated in any contracts.

I don't really have much sympathy for Andy Summers because he signed the contract that set out the financial split with the other Police members. If he was confident that his riffs would be the making of their songs, he should have insisted on getting co-writing credits on any songs he contributed riffs to, and got that put into the contract. Neither do I have any sympathy with Bill Wyman for the same reasons.

I guess the moral of the story is to ensure when you join a band you have contracts that set out how the profits are divided up. We work in the music BUSINESS, not the MUSIC business.