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Q. If I have written a song, words and music and I ask someone to play it for me for a demo and if they create an intro and a lead guitar break, do they own the music to the intro and the break? I have tried to explain to this person that that's what's called "ARRANGING" but he insists that he "owns" the music to the intro because it's like a separate song (although it wasn't written until he created it for my song). How do I get it across to this guy that it's part of the "arrangement" of the song? He's a great entertainer and he's not a stupid guy but we have argued about this and he cannot seem to understand that he doesn't own any part of the song. Can you clear up this confusion once and for all?
A. This is a common situation that I've dealt with many times as a consultant. If you have written both lyrics and music and go to a demo producer/arranger for their services, that arrangement IS their service and they deserve to be paid for it. I don't know any legitimate demo production service that asks for writer credit. If they did, they'd soon be out of business. If you hire a guitar player to play on your session, regardless of what they play, they have no ownership of the song. I guarantee that when Jay Graydon created that great guitar solo in Steely Dan's "Peg," he didn't ask Becker and Fagen for part of the writer credit. However, if you say ahead of time, "I want you to help me with this melody and I'll share writers credit with you," that's a different story, of course. It's all about agreement making/agreement keeping. If this is his philosophy he should have told you up front so you would have a choice to reject working with him. To change what is a customary practice in the industry (that demo producers, arrangers, musicians don't share song ownership) after the fact is a very bad business practice.
It has traditionally been the policy that if you write words and music, you've written the song. That's no longer necessarily true, however. There are those whose specialty is dance music, hip-hop, and R&B in particular, who are experts at creating grooves. When you write with these people, even though they didn't write any actual melody or lyric, they usually receive credit. Lest this get too confusing (since part of the arrangement IS creating grooves), it usually involves creating the groove first, then writing the melody and lyric over it. It's a common way for hip-hop writers to create a song/record. The bottom line, however, is that this agreement is made before you write the song.
I need to clarify one more thing. This time it may be on your guitar player's behalf. Musicians and singers on your demo do have ownership/copyright interest in their performance (though not the song itself). When they play or sing on a demo there is an understanding that it is only to be used for "demonstration" purposes. Consequently, it only becomes a problem when you decide to use it as a master to be sold to consumers or used in a TV show or film in which you are paid for both the use of the song (synchronization fee) and use of the master recording (master use fee). Legally, since it is something that directly creates income for you, you now owe those musicians and singers part of the income you receive (unless they waive that right) from their performances. That's why it's always a good idea to have the musicians/singers sign an agreement that determines how you'll pay them in the event that you receive income from your "demo."