“The lesson for any artist here has to be to sign a contract with any session musicians you use to ensure that you have set out any arrangement on copyright and royalties in the product. The vast majority of modern artists will be well aware of the risks, but we could see a great number of similar cases. An ounce of protection could be worth nearly 40 years of cure.”
from a British law blog, Ralli Solicitors. You know that tune “Whiter Shade of Pale”, that I always thought was a Steve Winwood tune? That’s by a band called Procul Harum. The keyboardist on that tune claimed “that he wrote and was responsible for the main melody of “Pale”, and as such is entitled to a share of its copyright.” He won the judgment, 40 years after the tune came out. Good for him, right? It’s a little more complicated than that.