22 April - Naughty business
Finally, a project to help relieve the boredom! A composer friend has only just found out she has never received royalties on her share of a song (originally a UK top 10 back in the mid 90's) that was covered by a very famous diva in 2001 on her mega selling album and DVD. My friend knew it had been covered but never knew just how much it sold and being small potato for her publisher until they parted company a year ago... they obviously never bothered to find out what payments they and in turn she was due. This is a job for sleuth Taylor!
A summary trawl of internet info on the subject of the diva, quickly reveals US official sales totalling 1m! And then there's Europe and Japan and South America and so on. A further quick exchange with one of the other writer's wife (she holds the purse strings very firmly) results in the news of £xxx earned from PRS payments for his share of the song. As that share is 25% and my friend's is 50%, calculations are easy. This is soooo exciting! She needs the money to emigrate to NZ. I forgot to blog about this but whilst detoxing in Thailand, she saw this man in the sea and swam over as he reminded her of a beloved ex. And lo and behold, this chap was not only from London, not only had the same name as the ex, not only did he have a similar trade (carpet fitter one, gasman the other), not only did he like a beer, not only was it great sex (yes, that happened pretty pronto) but ... there are no other not onlys. He was on his way to new life in NZ having left behind wife and 2 kids. Naughty. But apprently the family was meant to go together but marriage fell apart and she refused to go along. Anyway, my friend is available to start a new life... if in possession of several thousand pounds which now seem a certainty.
It's all made more exciting by her enchanting naivety. She can't add up too well for example so when I draw her a diagram showing that even if she earnt only 4p royalty per sale and the sales were 'just' 1m it would be 400,000 pence, ie £40,000... she doesn't believe me! Her eyes widen nonetheless. I tell her, why, it's so simple, why do you think Sting has houses everywhere or artists who are not writers fall out with the writer in the band (Tony Mortimer vs the rest of E17 for example), why heh? Because when it starts rolling in, it pours! she still doesn't believe me.
Ah! great. All the better for the little lottery windfall she'll receive and with back interest if I have anything to do with it. Am on a mission now. Such a shame the track was only an album track and not a single.
A summary trawl of internet info on the subject of the diva, quickly reveals US official sales totalling 1m! And then there's Europe and Japan and South America and so on. A further quick exchange with one of the other writer's wife (she holds the purse strings very firmly) results in the news of £xxx earned from PRS payments for his share of the song. As that share is 25% and my friend's is 50%, calculations are easy. This is soooo exciting! She needs the money to emigrate to NZ. I forgot to blog about this but whilst detoxing in Thailand, she saw this man in the sea and swam over as he reminded her of a beloved ex. And lo and behold, this chap was not only from London, not only had the same name as the ex, not only did he have a similar trade (carpet fitter one, gasman the other), not only did he like a beer, not only was it great sex (yes, that happened pretty pronto) but ... there are no other not onlys. He was on his way to new life in NZ having left behind wife and 2 kids. Naughty. But apprently the family was meant to go together but marriage fell apart and she refused to go along. Anyway, my friend is available to start a new life... if in possession of several thousand pounds which now seem a certainty.
It's all made more exciting by her enchanting naivety. She can't add up too well for example so when I draw her a diagram showing that even if she earnt only 4p royalty per sale and the sales were 'just' 1m it would be 400,000 pence, ie £40,000... she doesn't believe me! Her eyes widen nonetheless. I tell her, why, it's so simple, why do you think Sting has houses everywhere or artists who are not writers fall out with the writer in the band (Tony Mortimer vs the rest of E17 for example), why heh? Because when it starts rolling in, it pours! she still doesn't believe me.
Ah! great. All the better for the little lottery windfall she'll receive and with back interest if I have anything to do with it. Am on a mission now. Such a shame the track was only an album track and not a single.
Labels: Music
posted by Lisa Taylor @ 8:45 AM
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