Return to main Advice page

Legal Eagle

Copyright

Q: Original recording royalties for compilations

What steps ought a music producer take when repackaging an original recording of an artist's earlier material for a compilation album, in order to ensure royalties issues do not arise?

A: There are three sets of rights to be considered, namely (i) the copyright of the songwriters, composers and lyricists; (ii) the copyright of the record producers in the original recordings and (iii) the performing rights of the recording artists.

Songwriters and recording artists usually, but not always, vest the management of their respective rights in music publishers, who, as in the case of record companies, usually but not always transfer responsibility for licensing their respective mechanical rights and collection of royalties to a collection society, which in the case of the UK will be MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society). The MCPS in turn operates various blanket licensing schemes at standard royalty rates authorised by the Copyright Tribunal - a body set up pursuant to statute - and has reciprocal arrangements with various affiliated societies overseas.

If you want to include only extracts from individual tracks in your compilation, this will need special permission from whoever is administering the rights. I therefore suggest you draw up a list of the songs you want to include along with the music publishers and record companies involved in respect of each. You can ascertain their identities from the record sleeves or inlay cards of the packaging of the original recordings you wish to copy.

You should then contact MCPS with that list to see whether they can confirm that their repertoire includes all the re-recording rights in all the songs concerned - or, if not, whether they can give you the contact details of whoever administers them. They can also tell you to what extent you can rely on their blanket re-recording licence or whether you must negotiate special licence terms for excerpts and what will be the applicable royalty rate.

The UK standard mechanical royalty rate for retail sales is 8.5% of 'dealer price', with which, if you are in the business, you should be familiar but which is to some extent dependent on whichever of the various MCPS licensing schemes is applicable.

If, after your initial contact with MCPS, you need to trace any of the publishers/record companies and/or songwriters and/or recording artists concerned but have difficulty in obtaining their contact details or ascertaining the extent of their rights, you may be able to get this information from MPA (Music Publishers Association), BACSA (British Academy of Songwriters Composers and Authors) and PAMRA (Performing Artists Media Rights Association) or AURA (Association of United Recording Artists) respectively.

Finally, if you intend to engage a remixer to alter the quality or sound of the original tracks or to introduce new musical arrangements, be sure to include an assignment of rights in your contract with him, or you might face an unwelcome claim for a share of the revenue from exploitation of your album.

First published January 19th 2006