Common Contracts
1 similar Music Publishing Agreement contracts
CAN’T BUY ME LOVE, BUT YOU CAN BUY MY COPYRIGHTS (AS LONG AS YOU GIVE THEM BACK): FINDINGMusic Publishing Agreement • August 4th, 2020
Every musician has to start somewhere, and usually that starting point is accompanied by a bad deal, even if you’re The Beatles. The first music publishing agreement that the band executed in 1963 has been regarded by the members themselves as a “slave contract.”1 The effects of that deal with Northern Songs were felt by all four members of the band, not just John Lennon and Paul McCartney who together wrote the majority of The Beatles’ works.2 Ringo Starr and George Harrison were given such a small piece of the publishing income and copyrights that Harrison famously wrote the song “Only Northern Songs,” which includes the line “it doesn’t really matter what chords I play. . . as it’s only a Northern Song,” referring to that infamous pub- lishing deal.3
