THE MONKEES TV SERIES: Show Facts & Speculation About Possible Future HD Releases (1 Viewer)

[jcroy]

That's hard to say without a break down:

There are 2 different copyrights in play: Copyright in the song (known as publishing rights) and copyright in the sound recording (known as master rights). The publisher only deals with the publishing rights, which is the songwriting side and includes the music and lyrics.

The "publisher" gets paid any time a song is streamed, put on physical media, played on radio/TV, performed, basically when ever it's commercially "performed" (which can be a recording) anywhere in any fashion.

(On an offtopic tangent).

Was this the case of Michael Jackson owning the "rights" to a large portion of the Beatles catalog, which Jackson outbidded Sir Paul at an auction back in the 1980s ?

IIRC, EMI/Apple still had possession of the original master tapes of these same songs?

 

[The Obsolete Man]

That's hard to say without a break down:

There are 2 different copyrights in play: Copyright in the song (known as publishing rights) and copyright in the sound recording (known as master rights). The publisher only deals with the publishing rights, which is the songwriting side and includes the music and lyrics.

The "publisher" gets paid any time a song is streamed, put on physical media, played on radio/TV, performed, basically when ever it's commercially "performed" (which can be a recording) anywhere in any fashion.

Master rights are typically controlled by the studio releasing the songs in some manner (vinyl, tape, CD, digital, etc.) and involve a fee only for that copy but not when it's played.

One entity can control both copyrights or only one of them. Rhino for sure controls the "master rights" but I'd bet there's a publishing company (or more) controlling those rights. There were just too many different songwriters involved for me to believe Rhino holds the publishing rights as well as master rights.

From what I've always read in liner notes, books, whatever, Don Kirshner's standing rule was that any Monkees song's publishing had to be controlled by Columbia/Screen Gems. That's why "All Of Your Toys" didn't become the first single from Headquarters (or make it out of the vault until 1987), and the rule stood until '69, long after Monkees show music was a thing to worry about.

So, the question would be whether Columbia sold the publishing to Rhino along with everything else.

 

[Mark Y]

From what I've always read in liner notes, books, whatever, Don Kirshner's standing rule was that any Monkees song's publishing had to be controlled by Columbia/Screen Gems. That's why "All Of Your Toys" didn't become the first single from Headquarters (or make it out of the vault until 1987), and the rule stood until '69, long after Monkees show music was a thing to worry about.

So, the question would be whether Columbia sold the publishing to Rhino along with everything else.

I don't think they did, given that Michael Nesmith recently posted something on social media saying he recently made some kind of a deal with Sony for his songs. I think it was a lump sum instead of royalties or some such.

Besides "All Of Your Toys," one other Monkees song (released during the original era) was not a Screen Gems copyright -- the 1969 single "Someday Man."