Music law question

nyarlothothep

Hi, a band member is leaving the band and basically invoked a law to justify him taking the songs he cowrote with me.

"Since there are contributions on both sides, and one side does not want it to be used under another platform, both sides must adhere to the rule that no one party has rights over them for use.
So, no usage of the songs by me or you.
I cannot use the name Megalithic, and neither can you. I cannot play those songs or claim any ownership over them. Neither can you."

On the first song he wrote the lyrics and opening riff, I wrote everything else, recorded and produced it, he had no involvement in this. For the second song he wrote the verse and chorus, I wrote the riff for the interlude, the coda and came up with the melody for the verse and chorus, I also recorded and produced it and made some slight alterations to the original verse and chorus eg down tuning the song to drop C, added in one extra note for the riff. On the last song which he doesn't want us to play he wrote the verse and chorus, again I came up with the melody for both sections, wrote the solo, wrote the lead riff and put it all together. I did the recording and producing as I had the equipment and he was in a different country. He's leaving because he feels that his vision/contributions aren't being valued but I've back him up on his cover version choices, have said we will play his new songs and have gone with his ideas when they added something. It's not like he's being kicked out but he decided to leave since we got new musicians that are really good and things are starting to get a little bit more serious, ie involving actual practice and learning songs to play gigs so I think he's leaving as he feels his position is threatened (when it's not) and the band now involves some actual work rather than just messing around in rehearsal rooms.

whomitconcerns

methinks you need legal advice. I assume you want to use the songs,etc?

Páid

What law is he claiming applies?

When you co-write music you usually agree a share between the authors and you register the works with IMRO/MCPS. He would be entitled to his share of the mechanical and performance royalties based on what was agreed between you.

If he won't come to an agreement you can still register the work with IMRO/MCPS with what you think is a fair division of the royalties between you. If he want to dispute it, let him contact IMRO/MCPS.

You should also contact IMRO/MCPS and discuss the situation with them. I always found them to be very helpful.

FreudianSlippers

Absent any agreement, co-writers are joint authors of the work; meaning each author is a 100% owner of the work (it's not 50/50 as your co-author seems to be suggesting). Each author thus has the right to fully exploit the work as if they were a sole-author (subject to a requirement to account for profit-share to the co-author(s)). That's absent any argument that there may or may not be about wither there actually is co-authorship, but let's just presume there isn't.

In relation to the recording (and I'm not sure if you're asking this question) but it would be arguable that OP may be the sole owner of that IP.

The long and short of it is that your former bandmate is incorrect in law regarding prevention of use of the copyrighted material. As for the band name itself, that's a trademark issue more than anything else - you could be prevented from using it, but at this level that's doubtful.

You would be wise to get written agreements before entering into writing collaborations in the future.

deandean

I think you can play anything in a 'live setting' without copyright worries, e.g. One Direction can cover a Barry Manilow song live on stage.

It's another matter when it comes to recording stuff though. Or who gets any royalties.

nyarlothothep

Fyi, we're not signed up to any Royalty Collection Agencies and the songs are bedroom studio recordings. Thanks for the advice! We weren't playing live before that although we did have a newspaper article written about one of our songs.