Who owns the song, the singer or the composer?

Maura N.

The Last Black Unicorn
Good morning everyone! :D

I’ve been having a bit of a debate with a friend of mine, and I thought I’d bring it here to get some insights. We’re discussing who owns the rights to a song: the singer or the composer?

We’ve been discussing this for a while, and we can’t seem to agree. On one hand, I think that the singer should have some ownership over the song. After all, their interpretation and performance of the song can be just as important as the composition itself. On the other hand, my friend argues that the composer is the one who should have ownership, as they’re the ones who created the sounds and lyrics in the first place.

So, I wanted to ask for your thoughts. What do you think? Who do you believe should have ownership of a song – the singer or the composer? And is there any legal precedent for this?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions! :D
 
Greetings! This is indeed a great debate, my friends and I have this one all the time. We essentially split it into two camps. If the approach is from the legal side, it's a lot easier to determine. For purposes of protection against infringement, collection of royalties, etc., it's probably decided before the project is released who maintains the rights to the intellectual property. Artists can retain control under negotiated circumstances, but usually the studios or production company owns that property as it's basically a product that they commission and pay for. If I make a custom wooden dinner table for someone, I then sell it to them, but never expect to visit or maintain that table myself. So that's "that" side of things.

....the tighter debate is, who truly makes the song, the song....

You've got the melody, and you've got the lyrics. A composer MIGHT compose both the melodies and/or the lyrics. A singer MIGHT compose the melodies and/or the lyrics. I would surmise that if those realms overlap, meaning a composer writes the melody and the singer writes the lyrics, then the cue is a shared creation, only manifested through the means of cooperation. One party may "own" the rights to allow the song to be played elsewhere, however us humans don't organize thing's like that, and generally would just consider the piece a shared creation.

Personally, I would imagine the composer as being mostly the brains behind the song. The meticulous creation of those exact notes is the ground floor of that song. The singer is usually just a hired gun to come in and provide vocalization of those notes. It's equally fantastic, but if I had to opine, the composer is usually the one responsible for the intellectual flow. I still think Titanic is one of the best examples of this conundrum. Most people will remember that song because of Celine Dion's performance, but those underlying notes were created by James Horner. Truth is you can't have one without the other, remove either contribution and it's not the same.

So there you have it! I think the debate rages on...
 
Greetings! This is indeed a great debate, my friends and I have this one all the time. We essentially split it into two camps. If the approach is from the legal side, it's a lot easier to determine. For purposes of protection against infringement, collection of royalties, etc., it's probably decided before the project is released who maintains the rights to the intellectual property. Artists can retain control under negotiated circumstances, but usually the studios or production company owns that property as it's basically a product that they commission and pay for. If I make a custom wooden dinner table for someone, I then sell it to them, but never expect to visit or maintain that table myself. So that's "that" side of things.

....the tighter debate is, who truly makes the song, the song....

You've got the melody, and you've got the lyrics. A composer MIGHT compose both the melodies and/or the lyrics. A singer MIGHT compose the melodies and/or the lyrics. I would surmise that if those realms overlap, meaning a composer writes the melody and the singer writes the lyrics, then the cue is a shared creation, only manifested through the means of cooperation. One party may "own" the rights to allow the song to be played elsewhere, however us humans don't organize thing's like that, and generally would just consider the piece a shared creation.

Personally, I would imagine the composer as being mostly the brains behind the song. The meticulous creation of those exact notes is the ground floor of that song. The singer is usually just a hired gun to come in and provide vocalization of those notes. It's equally fantastic, but if I had to opine, the composer is usually the one responsible for the intellectual flow. I still think Titanic is one of the best examples of this conundrum. Most people will remember that song because of Celine Dion's performance, but those underlying notes were created by James Horner. Truth is you can't have one without the other, remove either contribution and it's not the same.

So there you have it! I think the debate rages on...
I like the part where you say that you "imagine the composer as being mostly the brains behind the song" :D
 

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