On the subject of royalties. I don't know about the recording deals being made these days. Royalties, as I know them, bring to the artist a residual income. For the more famous artists, that may mean thousands of dollars a year. The studio (publisher), writer, and artist all share in royalties.

Typically, an artist, from the old days, would get 5%
of record sales. For someone like Elvis that meant an
awful lot of money.

For me, let's say in the case of Henrietta. From Oct 1957 to Oct 1958, we received about 315.00 in royalties. That meant that Henrietta sold about 125,000 copies at fifty cents each. And that ladies and gentlemen is all I ever made for Henrietta. I was still a minor at that time so all the checks came to my Dad who did understand the music business at all. We made a lot of money during those early days appearing at State and County Fairs. I decided early on that public performance was absolutely the way to go.

I do believe in royalty payments for the use of recorded materials in which one receives financial gain through the use or sale of those recorded materials. Recording artists get old just like everybody else and those payments help them to survive as they can no longer demand much money for appearances if anyone wanted them to appear. It is fair to be paid for something one has created and is unique to that individual.

Henrietta continued to sell into 1959, but I never received any checks after 1958. As most of you know DOT did not pick up my TNT releases of 1959. During 1959 local sales was about all my records saw. By the early sixties I had changed labels and would change about three more times during the 1960s.

The Henrietta being released on complilation CDs these days, well, I don't really know who's clearing, perhaps someone who inherited the DOT rights; the use rights which should include royalty payments. However, I don't really care as a few hundred dollars, at today's prices, would not be much financial help to me.

So, my answer is yes, if financial gain is made through the use of recorded material then royalties should absolutley be paid.

• RE: Royalties - for web radio (Attn: Bob) - John 09/25/2007 23:20:29 EDT (1)