On Sunday, June 23, 2002, at 11:27 AM, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:
> Because of the way copyright laws are set up, the person who worked out > those beautiful chords to all those Berlin tunes doesn't get a penny of > royalties, as only lyrics and melodies are copyrightable. Yet, IMHO, > those songs might not have been the successes that they were without > the contribution of the assistant, so wouldn't they be due a bit of > spare change? The way I heard it, Berlin would insist (almost maniacally, at times) that the work done by his "assistants" constituted work for hire. Whoever was "helping" him write would play the same few bars, over and over again, each time with different harmonies, until he hit on something Berlin liked, at which point Berlin would say, "That's it! That's the one! Now, remember -- that's MINE. That's not yours, that's MINE." So regardless of the fundamental unfairness of such an arrangement, all of Berlin's "assistants" knew what they were getting in to, and giving up any claim to copyright on the songs they helped him write was part of the deal. - Darcy ----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston MA _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
