Splits of Royalties - is there a standard in the US for how much?

R

rob aylestone

Moderator
If I produce my own music here in the UK, then I get 100% of the Performance rights and 100% of the mechanical rights, but if I produce an arrangement of somebody else's songs, then I go down as arranger and usually it's 50% to the person who wrote the song and 50% to me.

I'm doing some paperwork and am a bit stuck with one song - The Beach Boys Sloop John B. The other Beach Boys songs tend to be Brian Wilson and Mike Love on many of the songs, but Sloop John B is a bit different. Brian Wilson is credited as the arranger? The original song was published in 1916, and credited to Richard Le Gallienne - who died in 1947, which in the UK, means his song is public domain. Brian Wilson's arrangement of it clear is not. The forms you complete here for the Performing Rights Society - linked to the US ASCAP, sort of suggest that I list Brian Wilson as arranger, and me as arranger, and what to do with the long dead composer is unclear? I've put it down as 50/50 like the arranger vs composer. However, if you listen to Johnny Cash's Let me go home - it's clearly the same tune and lyrics, but 6 years before the Beach Boys. So is my version an arrangement of the early song, or a re-arrangement of Brian Wilson's arrangement?

I really have no clue about how this should really work?
 
Technically the song itself is in the public domain.

Unless the arrangement can be copyrighted (I believe this varies by jurisdiction?), you should be ok if your arrangement is different enough from the Beach Boys' to not make it a cover.
 
Comparing the versions back to back, I'd presume that you only need to credit Wilson if you use elements that are distinct to his arrangement.

If you use the Beach Boys' harmonies and instrumentation, then you're covering their cover of the original song, so it makes sense that you'd be beholden to them.

But if you do your own arrangement of the original public domain song then you're not building off of anyone's existing IP. BMI allows you to mark a song as a cover of a public domain song when you register it, so presumably if you do that - essentially saying that there is no songwriter legally - they'll track it as such, give you the full license payment for when the recording is played, and give you no licensing payment for live performance.
 
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