| Always record under your name!
One of the top producers of the 80's got ripped off for millions. He'd signed a publishing deal with one publisher for 50,000. He got 3 huge hits out and got offered another deal for $600,000 by another publisher. His manager made a deal with the publisher that the producer would write all new songs for them-under the manager's name. The producer agreed to this because he hadn't received any publisher checks yet from the 1st publisher---his manager told him he was getting screwed.
Since the producer thought all he would see from publishing was the advance amounts,
$600k seemed like a good deal. Well, the producer started getting huge checks from the 1st publisher for the hits he wrote for them-way more than the 600k advance he got from the 2nd publisher. He had written 3 top ten hits for the 1st publisher, but 15+ ton ten hits for the 2nd publisher.
He not only got no checks from the 2nd publisher, he also got no statements. Why? publishing deal was in the manager's name. He fired the manager, but the manager still owns 100% of the songs to this day, and the producer can never sue because that would be admitting he commited fraud against the 1st publisher. |