Article: Morrissey's 30-year publishing term with Warner-Chappell Music ended; new offers for solo a

Re: Publishing

http://true-to-you.net/morrissey_news_140602_01

Morrissey's 30-year publishing term with Warner-Chappell Music has come to an end. If any publishing company has any interest in making a new offer for Morrissey's solo and Smiths catalogues, they should please contact [email protected].

The published email contacts crack me up. I can't even begin to imagine the troll mail they're going to get.

 

[Multi]

Publishing. - true-to-you.net

2 June 2014

Morrissey's 30-year publishing term with Warner-Chappell Music has come to an end. If any publishing company has any interest in making a new offer for Morrissey's solo and Smiths catalogues, they should please contact [email protected].

---

UPDATE Aug. 12, 2014:

Morrissey is still signed to Warner/Chappell - Complete Music Update
Wednesday 4 June 2014, 10:53 | By Andy Malt

Excerpt:

Now, with a new album imminent, you might think that this was an odd time to ditch your publisher. Because it would be. But don’t waste your time pondering that, because a spokesperson for the Warner publishing firm confirmed to CMU yesterday that “Warner/Chappell continues to be the long-term publisher of Morrissey’s interest in all Smiths songs as well as Morrissey’s solo works up to and including the forthcoming album”.

So, that means that Warner/Chappell will still be able to collect the publishing royalties on these lyric videos Morrissey has been putting out. Even though he has apparently completely misunderstood how lyric videos work.

 

[Jamie]

Soliciting leads for the publication of some of the most important pop lyrics in history via a drab fan site? This comes off very odd.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Publishing

Soliciting leads for the publication of some of the most important pop lyrics in history via a drab fan site? This comes off very odd.

"A drab fansite" - as opposed to a hateful online creche?

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Publishing

Soliciting leads for the publication of some of the most important pop lyrics in history via a drab fan site? This comes off very odd.

You mean via a site that has, thus far, been able to pass every Morrissey post as an official press release that's subsequently been picked up by all the major news/media outlets? Do you not see how he's managed to completely bypass the parts of the business that he'd rather not deal with?

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Publishing

Soliciting leads for the publication of some of the most important pop lyrics in history via a drab fan site? This comes off very odd.

A drab fan site? Are you fairly new to the Morrissey world.
True to You may ostensibly be just a fan site but it is effectively Morrissey's official mouthpiece.
Virtually every statement he's made over the last 10 years has been made directly on that site.

 

[Uncleskinny]

Re: Publishing

This strikes me as peculiar for two reasons. Firstly - I would have thought, like all previous negotiations, that this would have been investigated in private, throught the usual industry contacts. It really is strange to tout the catalogue in this manner. Have the normal contacts been exhausted? If so, why?
Secondly - and I genuinely don't know the answer to this, so please excuse my ignorance - is this offer for the catalogue itself, or the royalty stream? It says for the catalogue in the statement - I'm wondering what else can be done to it? Everything, bar Quarry, Ringleaders and Refusal has been reissued, remastered..., why would someone want to take up a catalogue they could do nothing with because it's all been done before? If it is just the catalogue and not the royalty stream, what is there to be done that hasn't been done, in some cases, 5 times before? Is this the thinking that has lead it to be offered via TTY in this way, because record companies genuinely cannot do anything with the catalogue that hasn't been done before? All thinking out loud, and total supposition.

P.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Publishing

This strikes me as peculiar for two reasons. Firstly - I would have thought, like all previous negotiations, that this would have been investigated in private, throught the usual industry contacts.

It probably has been then, and this will just be a publicity stunt to boost sales of the new album.

 

[Orson Swells]

Re: Publishing

This strikes me as peculiar for two reasons. Firstly - I would have thought, like all previous negotiations, that this would have been investigated in private, throught the usual industry contacts. It really is strange to tout the catalogue in this manner. Have the normal contacts been exhausted? If so, why?
Secondly - and I genuinely don't know the answer to this, so please excuse my ignorance - is this offer for the catalogue itself, or the royalty stream? It says for the catalogue in the statement - I'm wondering what else can be done to it? Everything, bar Quarry, Ringleaders and Refusal has been reissued, remastered..., why would someone want to take up a catalogue they could do nothing with because it's all been done before? If it is just the catalogue and not the royalty stream, what is there to be done that hasn't been done, in some cases, 5 times before? Is this the thinking that has lead it to be offered via TTY in this way, because record companies genuinely cannot do anything with the catalogue that hasn't been done before? All thinking out loud, and total supposition.

P.

I think we should all club together here and see if he'll sell his back catalogue to Morrissey-solo.

 

[Uncleskinny]

Re: Publishing

I think we should all club together here and see if he'll sell his back catalogue to Morrissey-solo.

What would we do with it, though?

P.

 

[Cornflakes]

Re: Publishing

This strikes me as peculiar for two reasons. Firstly - I would have thought, like all previous negotiations, that this would have been investigated in private, throught the usual industry contacts. It really is strange to tout the catalogue in this manner. Have the normal contacts been exhausted? If so, why?
Secondly - and I genuinely don't know the answer to this, so please excuse my ignorance - is this offer for the catalogue itself, or the royalty stream? It says for the catalogue in the statement - I'm wondering what else can be done to it? Everything, bar Quarry, Ringleaders and Refusal has been reissued, remastered..., why would someone want to take up a catalogue they could do nothing with because it's all been done before? If it is just the catalogue and not the royalty stream, what is there to be done that hasn't been done, in some cases, 5 times before? Is this the thinking that has lead it to be offered via TTY in this way, because record companies genuinely cannot do anything with the catalogue that hasn't been done before? All thinking out loud, and total supposition.

P.

Yes, I think what is for sale is the catalogue, including the Smiths catalogue. It's the publishing rights to the songs, not the recordings. Or approx 50% of the publishing rights, given that Morrissey has never written a song on his own. If someone bought it, they would make money each time a Morrissey song is bought, played on the radio etc, a share of which they would then forward to Morrissey. Buy it quick and you might make an early packet out of Miley Cyrus.

Who knows, maybe negotiations over this might start a new discussion about Smiths re-issues. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

 

[Jamie]

Re: Publishing

A drab fan site? Are you fairly new to the Morrissey world.
True to You may ostensibly be just a fan site but it is effectively Morrissey's official mouthpiece.
Virtually every statement he's made over the last 10 years has been made directly on that site.

Look at my profile - I've been here since virtually the beginning of Solo and a fan since 1992. I get that it is his "mouthpiece," which in and of itself does not exclude the fact that it is a drab fan site. Would your omniscient anonymity prefer "static" or "dull" instead?

The point I was trying to make before you got sidetracked by semantics is this: we're talking about a 30-year song catalog loaded with some of the most singular and superb songs in pop history, something a few "Journalists Who Lie"s or "That's How People Grow Up"s won't diminish. It's big business and odd to spark negotiations from true-to-you. After all, he didn't panhandle for a book deal, a record company, or a distributorship for Morrissey Live 25 via the site. So why this? It reads cheap and heaven knows the asking price will not be.

 

[bored]

Re: Publishing

What would we do with it, though?

P.

We could make pennies/pence.. maybe even dollars/pounds from spotify, pandora and the like.. EVERY YEAR!

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Publishing

...something a few "Journalists Who Lie"s or "That's How People Grow Up"s won't diminish.

I like "Journalists Who Lie"....

 

[surewhynot]

I don't know how much this may or may not correlate to the grand cost of purchasing publishing rights to such a grand catalog, but if you look at the collector market for Smiths and Morrissey media it's pretty astounding. I've maintained over the years that I've never known a more committed, obsessive, borderline insane fan base for any act than the Smiths -- not the stones, beatles, or any really cult-ey group with abnormally large followings vice versa (grateful dead, phish, maynard, kiss, black flag, iggy, type o neg, and lord forbid the icp juggalos, etc.) What does any average 7" original single cost for any of these groups? $5-8? Good luck getting a well cared for Smiths single for less than $20, even for the unimaginative and horrid variety like the dutch red Headmaster single. There's a reason they've repackaged, reissued, repackaged... Just a thought.

I also wouldn't rule out the entire catalog going to some mad collector.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

Maybe he's just trying to tell us he's a free agent now? It's probably a significant feeling to have so he TTY'd it.

 

[King Leer]

Perhaps a stupid question, but what's to stop Morrissey buying it himself? Just pride?

Directors would love a situation like this where they could get rights to their work back.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Publishing

You mean via a site that has, thus far, been able to pass every Morrissey post as an official press release that's subsequently been picked up by all the major news/media outlets? Do you not see how he's managed to completely bypass the parts of the business that he'd rather not deal with?

1) He's not used TTY for business dealings in the past, so no, I don't see how it has helped him bypass that part of the industry.
2) It's still a drab website.

 

[markem41]

Re: Publishing

Perhaps a stupid question, but what's to stop Morrissey buying it himself? Just pride?

Directors would love a situation like this where they could get rights to their work back.

I think agreeing a publishing deal would also involve handing over an advance to the artist and then hoping that you get back the advance + some extra via royalty payments. Moz would have to advance himself some money and then pay himself back. He'd end up in all sorts of financial problems dealing with himself!

 

[Johnny Barleycorn]

I handed over a quid for Roy's Keen but they didn't have any change. I'm out.