to those of you discussing the court case, get your facts straight Part 1: Music Biz for Dummies

D

dove from above

Guest
What do you think these (so-called) 'performance royalties' and 'songwriting royalties' you keep mentioning are? You clearly don't know what you're talking about. The songwriters (Morrissey/Marr) share the royalties from the PRS, which stands for Performing Rights Society. This collects money to be distributed to songwriters for radio play, or being played in stores, restaurants, etc. (and in some instances for songs which are performed live) There is also MCPS, which is paid, usually in the same splits to the songwriters, and this is a small amount for each copy of a song that is pressed, and also covers things like sheet music.
There is also the money that comes from the record company - primarily the advances (which have to be repaid from earnings) - and the tiny percentage that the band gets from record sales - usually these would only be paid to members who are signed to the record company (Morrissey/Marr), although in that case, normally the unsigned members would be paid some sort of fee. Then there are tour profits, merchandise profits, etc. It is up to the band members to agree the splits between themselves, there really isn't any legal precedent that states how the various profits should be divvied up.
There was never any dispute over the songwriting, that was 50% to Morrissey for the words and vocal melody, and 50% to Johnny for the music. Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke were claiming 25% each (rather than the 10% each they had received) of ALL the above profits, with the exception of what is paid to the songwriters alone, i.e the PRS and MCPS. So their claim was for 25% each of a hell of a lot more than just the income generated by concerts.
Now read Part 2, which is more interesting.
 
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