Help, I have a legal question...I've got 3 albums signed to a well known publishing company. They've done nothing with any of the songs for the last 5 years apart from a low budget US film sync in perpetuity WITHOUT my written consent. It says in my contract they need my consent. Is this a breach? Can I get my copyrights back? This is case of (a poor) David against (wealthy) Goliath, so any advice would be greatly appreciated!

If the contract says they need permission and there are no caveats in the small print saying that they can, then yes it is a breach.

If you earn more than it will cost you go for it.

(PS. I am some bloke on the Interweb giving legal advice )

This happened to me years ago.
The first thing I did was try to re-open lines of communication with the publishers.
The second thing I did was track down as much details as I could about where the tracks were being used.
(You also need to ascertain if any money given to you by your publisher was an advance against royalties or not)

The third thing I did, and this worked, was ring PRS who transferred my royalties directly to me, seperately from the publishers cut.

Hope that helps.

Thank you! Trouble is I would have some money if I had the songs, but at least someone else agrees its a breach:-)

Thank you - I should have messaged on the Tip Sheet months ago...this has really helped. I'm awaiting response from my publisher but I'll give the PRS a call for a start. Trouble is as I'm unrecouped I know they're pretty unwilling to let them go (...but if they'd actually worked them when they were getting radio play they might've made some money!!) Sigh. Anyway, thanks again.

You have answered a lot more of your own questions there I`m afraid.
If you are unrecouped, you may well owe them money and the radio plugging is not the direct job of the publisher, anymore than a seperate plugger can guarantee airplay sadly.

It is kind of good news that they are unwilling to let the tracks go, you could think of yourself as "being put on ice".
But the most important bit, irrelevent of the money, is allways remember what made you write and play in the first place, and I doubt it was the call of the money.

We play and write music because we love it, all else is a bonus.

Being wildly optimistic by nature, I'd think if the tracks have any value. if they insist on keeping them, try and convince them they should be re-demoed and sent to XX, YY or ZZ as covers.

Either way, never stop plugging yourself, nobody is actually doing it 24 hours a day for you, even if they say they are.

Yep, you're quite right...it's just tougher writing whilst doing that day job...even if the day jobs musical. I guess I'm an idealist and want to write day and night, and thought I'd be able to finally do that when I got my publishing deal.
But - dream on! You're right, the only one who's going to work the hardest for our songs is ourselves. OK, talking of which - will go start...many thanks again (everyone) :-D

neptunas daughter wrote:
Yep, you're quite right...it's just tougher writing whilst doing that day job...even if the day jobs musical. I guess I'm an idealist and want to write day and night, and thought I'd be able to finally do that when I got my publishing deal.
But - dream on! You're right, the only one who's going to work the hardest for our songs is ourselves. OK, talking of which - will go start...many thanks again (everyone) :-D
Don't dream on, work on (glib advice of the day).

M