Question about royalties/credit from my former band

[Scott Horner]

Hey guys, I have a situation that I'm wanting some input on. About a year and a half ago, my band wanted to kick our bass player out for some petty shit. (Super long, girly drama filled story) I didn't agree with them at all so I decided to leave under my own accord in the hopes that we all could remain friends. They acted all cool and respected my decision but apparently that was all a front. All the bands accounts passwords got changed, as they should, and the Facebook "unfriending" began. (I told you it was girly shit) Well, the issue is that, apparently, in all of the password change confusion accounts became inaccessible. I was the one that initially set up the accounts so my old email address (that I deleted a while back) was the alternate one and I picked the security questions. Now they are wanting me to help them regain access to the accounts, assuming I can even remember the answers to the security questions. I have no problem doing this but I mentioned that I thought it would be fair for me to receive my share of the album sales from the Tunecore account. I was the primary songwriter and probably wrote at least 80% of the music, even down to the drum patterns in some cases. They are continuing to sell the albums at their shows (while still playing my songs) yet I received no share of the band cash or any percentage of the merch. I don't really care about the merch but I do think it would be fair for me receive my share of the album sales considering I wrote a great deal of it and they are still playing my songs. I spoke with the guitar player and he didn't seem very receptive to that idea. And it's not like we've sold millions of records but still...What is you guys' input on this? If I don't get my share then I have no incentive to help them out.

TL;DR: I leftt my band and would like to receive my share of the profits. Fair, right?

 

[Sloan]

Mechanical royalties is the payment from actual sold music. Harry Fox Agency handles this (?).

The music should have been released under a publisher registered with ASCAP or BMI. A publisher owns and profits from the copyright to a song. Royalties are generally split 50% to publisher and 50% to songwriter(s). This is why you should register with a performing rights organization as a publisher and songwriter if you are releasing your own music. Being a publisher let's you administer the use of the copywritten song.

I'm not sure how all this works when an indie band puts all their shit online, you may be signing over rights/permission to itunes etc.. it's all in the fine print.


We live in the "land of lawyers", so you have to have everything written out, signed, etc... just making some verbal agreement will probably not get you anywhere. Since your out of the band now, and didn't think of this before you left (most bands don't), then you have kinda screwed yourself out of royalties.


One option is to just ask for a one time sum of money as trade, but don't expect to get ongoing payments.

 

[Skinny Viking]

^ yeah in this situation, unless you really wanna get next level with them in terms of legal shit, I was also gonna suggest a one time "buyout". I mean, how many songs and how many sales can we possibly be talking about? <- I don't mean this in a bad way

 

[Scott Horner]

Yeah, I know that everything should have been written out and it's too late at this point but all parties involved are very aware of what my contribution to the band was. The buyout option is actually what I suggested. I figure whatever is in the account could be split between the bass player and myself as at least somewhat of a recuperation for the few thousand we had all just spent on merch. I'm very aware that there probably aren't an exorbitant amount of sales but the fact that they are trying to be dicks about it now is pissing me off. I know I'm not being unreasonable by asking for my share but they seem to think otherwise.