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Mick Fleetwood sells

Given that others in the band were already doing so, makes sense:

Mick Fleetwood has sold his rights to hit songs including Go Your Own Way and Dreams to music publisher BMG, becoming the third member of Fleetwood Mac to strike a lucrative music deal in recent months.

Fleetwood, who co-founded the band in the 1960s, has sold the publishing and recording rights to the royalties from more than 300 tracks from hit albums including Fleetwood Mac, Rumours and Tango in The Night for an undisclosed sum.

Depending on which rights they are they last up to 70 years after his death. Why not take a lump sum now rather than an annuity for the great grandchildren?

One thing that Stevie Nicks said though. The reason Fleetwood kept going bankrupt was because he tried to keep up with the spending of the other members of the band. But as he didn’t – or rarely – write songs he earned significantly less. So, largely, these are mechanical rights, not song rights, being bought.

19 thoughts on “Mick Fleetwood sells”

  1. Is it a factor that music streaming services pay lower royalties than physical formats like vinyl or CDs? I suspect that a really popular track that almost the entire world downloads into their phone could prove lucrative, a collection of old album tracks less so.

  2. An idea of getting a nice cheque every month for the rest of my life fascinates me, nothing wrong with a lump sum though. I sometimes think about those 80’s Brit one hit wonders – top of the pops and charts, a few million quid in the bank, buy a nice house and get a nice cheque in the mail thereafter.

    I follow a few musicians on YT who talk about these technical things, it all seems very complicated and musicians who’ve only been active in the digital age, for them it’s a whole different ball game.

  3. Yeah, he doesn’t seem to have many writing credits at all. On Rumours he is only listed as a co-writer on The Chain (tune!).

  4. So Much For Subtlety

    I would think that any discussion of Mick Fleetwood’s bankruptcies that does not mention words like “cocaine”, “dealer” and “shooting up” is only telling half the story.

    Mick Fleetwood has variously calculated he spent 60 million somethings (pounds or dollars depending on who is doing the telling) on drugs and that the band had done enough cocaine to stretch for seven miles. And that was back in the 70s when a million dollars was worth something.

  5. the band had done enough cocaine to stretch for seven miles

    I keep of thinking of Robbie Fowler snorting the touchline at Anfield.

  6. Does anyone think that 70 year thing after death is justifiable? I don’t. I recall an office move in Italy, i was a little involved in. Business was moving out of a fugly 60s monstrosity, to somewhere decent. The whole thing was held up for years because, and i couldn’t believe it when told, the family of the architect (who was dead) had a say in nearly everything. Who purchased it, what business was conducted, the refurb plans. Utterly bonkers.

  7. So Much For Subtlety

    Hallowed Be January 15, 2021 at 11:49 am – “Does anyone think that 70 year thing after death is justifiable? I don’t.”

    You draw a cute rat and Congress will give you de facto indefinite extension so your heirs collect money forever.

    You cure cancer and you have what? Twenty years? Why is Tusk more important or valuable than penicillin? Which do we want to encourage?

  8. A Daily Mail interview with Fleetwood says the ‘7 mile’ calculation was based on an average of 1/8 oz of coke (about 3.5 grammes) day for 20 years. That’s more than 25 kilos over the 2 decades. Which is a lot, but nowhere near $60 million’s worth.

  9. SMFS- yeah, good point. Ideally you want medical patent duration/application finely tuned so that innovation happens,profit made, but then innovation moves on. And what of the the academic sphere? There’s a lot to be said where attribution and reputation is the currency, seems to work quite well (in the non theocratic side).I’m hoping that that there’s an economic theory that I’ve missed along the way that has demonstrated such laws are of use and that they’ve not been put in place to benefit someone other than artists’ and coke dealers’ progeny.

  10. Hallowed Be Pendantry

    I think that should read. “….that they’ve not been put in place solely to benefit artists’ and coke dealers’ progeny.”

  11. Hallowed Be
    I agree. 70 years is absurd.
    Contrast the patent protection for a new antibiotic, 25 years. You have to apply before initial trials, which can easily take over 10 years, leaving <15 years to make your money back and pay for all the ones that didn't make it through trials.
    One good thing that can come out of the accelerated vaccine development is the chance of speeding up the development of all new drugs. There are lots of new antibiotics to be found, but at present most drug firms can't be bothered.

  12. Philip- yes don’t know what the ideal balance is between speed and safety is. What this has hopefully woken people up to is that the potential economic benefits of vaccines or drugs- i.e. it goes beyond qualis. But that’s a hard question. The easier one is should a future would-be Mick Fleetwood’s 2021s ouvre, be paid for potentially by peeps into the 3000s. Again i’m open to someone suggesting an economic rationale.

    But while we wait for that a suggestion. A bit of a compromise, and i’m prepared to admit its slender wedgey appearances is not a coincidence. So declare that copyrightly speaking all decent worth preserving music,art, legends die at the age of 27. And thus a statutory limitation that no money should be pissed/ Paid to them after they reach 97 years of age.

  13. @philip it only gets 25 years from filing if it qualifies for a Supplemental Protection Certificate, which gives a 5 year extension. Non-qualifying stuff has to recoup costs AND subsidise all the failures in about 7 years of sales under patent protection before the normal 20 years run out.

    70 years from death for copyright is indeed rather incredibly long, and wouldn’t hurt from being reduced somewhat. Perhaps long enough to enable a younger spouse with a not ridiculous age gap to live out her days, or perhaps kiddies sired at a sensible age.

  14. I don’t think anyone cares about the musicians it’s so the corporations like Disney can continue to protect their assets/rip off people (delete as appropriate)
    The fact that the copyright length has made it more attractive to sell long term rights to a corporation seems to be a useful side effect for musicians.
    The downside being that having consolidated massive blocks of copyright the corporations will be much more eager to lobby for even stupider extensions

  15. @Andrew X- thanks for that link. Personally, I always liked the Corrs version too.

    IIRC the 70-year copyright rule was also pushed for by Cliff and other 50’s stars when their royalties were due to expire.

  16. I’ve tried to do the numbers on this. Given the respective audiences – size of them – I think streaming pays about the same as radio…..

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