Not an expert, but I've been learning a lil about this lately. Royalties for performances of someone else's song are paid to the writers of the words and the music. The melody and words can be copyrighted, not the chords or style. So you can use the chords of an existing song and give it new melody and words, and it is your own song. Style has nothing to do it.
I love this quote from the classic The Manual: How To Have A Number 1 The Easy Way by KLF:
...the copyright laws that have grown over the past one hundred years have all been developed by whites of European descent and these laws state that fifty per cent of the copyright of any song should be for the lyrics, the other fifty per cent for the top line (sung) melody; groove doesn’t even get a look in. If the copyright laws had been in the hands of blacks of African descent, at least eighty per cent would have gone to the creators of the groove, the remainder split between the lyrics and the melody. If perchance you are reading this and you are both black and a lawyer, make a name for yourself. Right the wrongs.
That doesn't have anything to do with black or white people. We don't need black people to change this copyright system, just people in general who want to make sure that musicians get paid. Saying this is an issue between black and white people is extremely ridiculous.
I'd love to know if (the downvoters think) that has factual errors. I'm a jazz musician who will soon be releasing music online—some my compositions, some not—and planning to pay license fees etc. Thanks—I'm a totally at a loss what could have made people downvote it!
I think the problem with that post is that race (black and white people) are unnecessarily brought into it. I'm sure that musicians of all races would want this issue addressed. Making it about race is extremely ridiculous.
The book is from the UK, I'm in Australia, it didn't seem a ridiculous thing to say to either of us. Maybe the problem was...US sensitivities. I, like I believe the KLF also, am white and have dedicated most of my life to the music of "blacks of African descent". The issue is how much more important groove is in black music, and how copyright is in origin a white thing. Changing copyright would no doubt be a massive, heroic, lifelong task. Like the way it took Douglas Nicholls[0] 30 years work to remove a racist sentence and a bit from the Australian constitution! I just don't hear calling for a hero here as a negative thing at all, the way evidently some people do.
Did any black people have a problem with the quote? I am curious.
Groove is just as important to many non-black people, so saying that only black people would care about this is annoying me. Anyway, I don't have the ability to downvote things, I can only speak for why I didn't like the phrasing.
Small world I guess, I used to be a random nobody, I guess now people have something to recognize me by. I also release music under the name Dream Scatter by the way.
> saying that only black people would care about this is annoying me.
..But I think no-one said "only black people would care about this".
Like also I think no-one said "We need black people to change this copyright system" or "this is an issue between black and white people".
I'm not sure the quote is 100% serious, if they really thought things can or will be changed in their suggested way. But if I think about it, which I didn't until people said stuff like "Making it about race is extremely ridiculous."—it just seemed a commendable but unremarkable sentiment, one I never dreamed anyone could have a problem with—suggesting a black lawyer seems apt, for reasons something to do with what could be called self-determination. It would be more awesome and appropriate if black people righted the historic wrong, than if white people did it for them because poor black people can't do it on their own. Etc.
Ok, thanks, I think I learnt something about what your and other peoples' problem was/is, and I hope you learnt something about "my side", where what is extremely ridiculous is someone having problems with the noble desire expressed in that quote. But I guess it's hard here where we don't know each other at all, and don't know about what it seems are the unshared assumptions and beliefs that made my quoting a few lines on fixing copyright from a classic book from the 1980s into something extremely ridiculous and annoying in 2021. ..Ok thanks again.
I love this quote from the classic The Manual: How To Have A Number 1 The Easy Way by KLF:
...the copyright laws that have grown over the past one hundred years have all been developed by whites of European descent and these laws state that fifty per cent of the copyright of any song should be for the lyrics, the other fifty per cent for the top line (sung) melody; groove doesn’t even get a look in. If the copyright laws had been in the hands of blacks of African descent, at least eighty per cent would have gone to the creators of the groove, the remainder split between the lyrics and the melody. If perchance you are reading this and you are both black and a lawyer, make a name for yourself. Right the wrongs.