Mobsters got the Jerry Leiber publishing rights to rock and roll. Hung him out a window and coerced him into signing over the rights for past hits, they paid him a dollar for his troubles.
He made money afterwards by buying other peoples’ publishing catalogs (like the rights to Somewhere Over The Rainbow).
Those reaping the rewards were not the authors and often it was by ill gotten means. Look up what Allen Klein did to the Beatles and the Stones.
Perpetuity of the rights does nothing to benefit the creators or the performers (who must continue to pay some third party to perform their own material live).
The way the music business works nowadays, there is more money in the older hits than there is in all but a handful of new artists. Even the older performers who make the top 20 concert draws are playing material that is 30-50 years old even though they continue writing and recording new albums.
This system is stifling ‘progress’ or at least contemporary artist development and as already noted, it isn’t benefiting the older ‘hit’ artists who’s work is heard in so many places.
Thanks. I read the article and understand it a little better. There have been a lot of artist not only loosing their rights unknowingly in a lot of cases to their work but final insult of having their work credited to someone who had no part in it. The writers and singer both deserve their pay and credit. Recording companies have also been dictating choices of what we are allowed too hear vs what the artist would like to record {and likely better material} for decades. That was true in Rock and Country music. Some have broken away making their own labels and producing their own recordings.