Christine becomes the 4th member to sell her catalog
 

Variety didn’t say for how much, but Hypgnosis said that by buying her catalog, she’s finally reunited with Lindsey Buckingham LOL whose catalog they previously acquired.

Thanks for posting!

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.c...ristine-mcvie/

How can she sell what she sold years ago? Does this mean she owns all the material written since her previous sale?

Exactly..and really how much could the rights for In The Meantime and her songs on Buckvie could have fetched? Her new house must be a very expensive project.

Perhaps she didn't sell all of her material. Or, she bargained for rights on her return. It is a stream of income.

I hear Everywhere, YMLF, Don't Stop, SYLM, Little Lies, Over My Head, ALAYF, and Hold Me quite a bit. Probably daily.

Then why TF don't we know that???

I thought we knew everything!!!:D

Thank YOU, dougl, for posting an actual link.

Hang on, I'll call and ask her. Why didn't you say so? :laugh:

The article says they purchased 115 songs....
so its not just her post-97 material. Its everything.

Hipgnosis? What a hideously ugly name for a company.

I thought she sold her catalog when she was done with the Mac in 1998? Everywhere was used in a commercial so it appears to be true. Did she buy them back? How can she sell all the songs again?
We demand answers!!!!

We need answers, because this scenario makes ZERO sense.

OMG now Michele is going to pounce on me to try to find that 1988 Billboard article I had stating Christine sold her publishing.:laugh::wavey:

Billboard article
 

I’m no completely sure what selling a catalog means. When I read about Dylan selling his catalog, it meant the new owner will not have to share any future earnings from this contribution with Dylan. In addition, he lost control over the copyright of all the songs he has created during his career.

Are these always the same terms? It’s the same with Christine songs? What happen if the band (well, I’m being polite, if Mick…) want to reissue Rumours (don't laugh, it's always possible)? Do they have to ask Hypgnosis permission? Or just share the revenue with them? Same with live songs, if Fleetwood Mac (whatever lineup with Christine) play her songs live, they need Hypgnosis permission? How does all this work from now on?

Villavic, I don’t believe if FM performs songs live that they have to pay the songwriter, or Hipgnosis. What I believe Hipgnosic can do with any catalogs they’ve purchased is get royalties if the songs are used in movies. For example, if the next Guardians of the Galaxy movie includes Little Lies, then Hipgnosis would receive payment, not the songwriter(s). Also, they would have to grant permission for the movie to use the song. So what can happen, and why some people get cranky about songwriters selling their catalog even though it’s none of their business, is that Hypgnosis can sell the song for commercials. Imagine You Make Loving Fun being used in a commercial for a dating app, or Over My Head for a bankruptcy commercial.

I’m sure there’s much more to it, but those are the things that are most commonly associated with selling catalogs. Basically, they sell the rights now instead of leaving the estate to deal with it. I don’t blame any of them one bit for selling catalogs of songs that are nearly 50 years old. Get the cash now and divvy it up in their wills.

Maybe we'll see Bad Loser in the next presidential campaign :lol:

She could have simply purchased the rights back at some point in time, right?

McCartney said he contemplated buying the rights back from Michael Jackson several times over the decades.

If so, isn't it weird that none of us has ever heard about it? I mean we share everything FM that we ever come across... how DARE Christine do something without our knowLEDGE!

It's more likely to become a headline when somebody else purchases the rights from Christine and they put out a press release. It's less likely any headlines were made if she quietly purchased the rights back.

I wonder how much they originally sold for? I also wonder how much they sold for now?

When she came back to the band, I am curious why or if she bought them back?

Money makes the world go around. Not THAT long ago, artists would never sell any rights just to keep their art. Now many of them do it toward the end of their career.
Prince is rolling over in his grave.

Well, and she isn't an attention wh*re like the rest of them.

I think it was 34 million.

Well...she was too busy buying a house!

:]:]:]:]:]

That was the only excuse she could come up with, when put on the spot! :mad:

It's Christine's version of Stevie's infamous "I don't understand their premise"

Ooh boy- Variety has a big article on their website that tries to explain this hot mess. Sorry, I can’t post the link, but basically, two companies own her rights. I read the article, and I don’t understand it lol!

My understanding is she hasn't given up ALL royalties, just PUBLISHING royalties. Thus she would still get songwriter/performer royalties. Publishing rights means owner of publishing rights gets to approve various uses for the song-- a film, a commercial, etc.

ETA: Ok, Pulling the Variety article, she has given up ALL her rights, including songwriter rights, not just publishing rights. So her songs are truly not hers in anyway anymore and she no longer gets royalty checks, she got it all in one lump.


Here's the text of the article:

UPDATED: Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie has sold assets from her 115-title song catalog to Hipgnosis, the fast-growing music company that has spent more than $2 billion in three years acquiring rights to a vast number of popular songs.

Hipgnosis has acquired 100% of McVie’s ownership in the catalog, including writer’s share and neighboring rights; in a statement to Variety, Universal Music Publishing emphasized that it owns and administers “the vast majority” of McVie’s catalog.

McVie, who first joined Fleetwood Mac in 1970, is the writer of many of the long-running group’s biggest hits, including “Don’t Stop,” “You Make Loving Fun,” “Over My Head,” “Songbird,” “Say You Love Me” and others. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, Fleetwood Mac are one of the most commercially successful music artists of the past 50 years, with the Grammy-winning 1977 album “Rumours” selling more than 45 million copies worldwide; second is 1987’s “Tango in the Night,” at 15 million.

McVie is the fourth of the band’s five members to make such a deal in the past nine months, and the second to go with Hipgnosis, after fellow Mac singer-songwriter Lindsey Buckingham completed the sale of 100% of his publishing rights to the company in January. Stevie Nicks, the group’s other major singer and songwriter, struck a far-reaching $100 million deal with Primary Wave late last year, and drummer-cofounder Mick Fleetwood made one with BMG comprising a variety of rights in January.

According to the announcement, Hipgnosis has acquired McVie’s worldwide copyright, ownership and financial interest, including writer’s share, of all compositions and neighboring rights. The deal also includes her pre-Fleetwood Mac work with the British group Chicken Shack and her solo material, including her 1969 debut, “Christine Perfect.” Hipgnosis has acquired catalogs including Neil Young, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shakira, Barry Manilow and many successful songwriter-producers.

McVie was represented by business manager Paul Glass at the Colony Group, manager Martin Wyatt and attorney Mario González.

“I am so excited to belong to the Hipgnosis family, and thrilled that you all regard my songs worthy of merit,” McVie said of the deal. “I’d like to thank you all for your faith in me, and I’ll do all I can to continue this new relationship and help in any way I can! Thank you so much!”

Hignosis cofounder Merck Mercuriadis said, “Christine McVie is one of the greatest songwriters of all time, having guided Fleetwood Mac to almost 150 million albums sold and making them one of the best-selling bands of all time globally. In the last 46 years the band have had three distinct writers and vocalists but Christine’s importance is amply demonstrated by the fact that eight of the 16 songs on the band’s Greatest Hits albums are from Christine. It’s wonderful for us to welcome Christine to the Hipgnosis Family and particularly wonderful to reunite her once again at Hipgnosis with Lindsey Buckingham. Between Christine and Lindsey we now have 48 of 68 songs on the band’s most successful albums.”

Yes, but as already noted by folks here, Christine sold her catalog several years earlier, and the Variety article (tried to) explain how Hipgnosis was also able to buy her catalog. Apparently, the company that purchased her catalog first has major issues with the press release Hipgnosis sent out explaining their deal. They say it’s very misleading as to which songs Hipgnosis actually now owns. I’m sure more will be revealed in the next few days explaining it.

I've never understood all the intricacies of copyrights. I asked Bob Welch about it once, and he explained it in fairly good detail, but I still didn't fully understand it. Wtf are mechanicals???

I have his response saved on a computer at my other house, but I won't be back in the south of France for a bit. :lol:

^^^^ There are third party share rights (sometimes in perpetuity or a limit). There are residuals. There are producer rights, publishing rights, writer rights.... It's crazy. And to do the accounting is crazy, as well.

It's probably a nightmare. I used to do contracts for film catalogues (a tad different than music) . I hated it and it still doesn't make sense to me.

What I do know is that the distributor normally takes in the income. Then splits it out per the contracts of the producer and publisher etc.

Okay - even though this doesn't cover everything(obviously), here's what Bob wrote to me about copyrights, several years ago.
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No, the publishers don't have to ask permission...although it's considered courteous if they at least run it by you. I'm not the "publisher" of Sentimental Lady. I own the "writers share" which is 50% of all income from the song. On other songs , like Ebony Eyes for example, I own 3/4 of the song ; the 50% "publishers share" is split 50/50 between me and EMI Music. If I owned Sentimental Lady 100% , I could turn down any given commercial if I wanted...because I would be the publisher, and the advertiser must get whats called a "sync" liscence . As far as the amount of money...it all depends on the specific deal. For example , supposedly Led Zepplin sold "Rock And Roll" outright (100%) to Cadillac for $1,000,000.00. The more well known any given song is , the more money it's worth. Sentimental Lady is pretty far up in the ranking since it was a top 5 "hit" , and is still played. The lowest price for a song like that is usually from $35,000.00-$50,000.00 and up. It also depends on the budget of the company that's doing the advertising. The writer and publisher also make money from the "performance societies" ,i.e. ASCAP and BMI every time the commercial is played. If it's played (shown) a lot nationwide , or worldwide , this can really add up . Basically , the publishers called us up and said that ask.com was "maybe" gonna' use the song. Then we heard nothing for a month...and then a friend called us up to say she'd seen it. So much for "being in the loop " ;-) Bob Welch
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Edit - it's weird to me to post Bob's response to me, now that he's gone. It makes me sad to read it. I don't want to delete it.....it's just weird to read his words. An integral member in FM's history, and easily the most accessible. Rest in peace, Bob.

Ok. This sounds a little jabby to me. But I support it.:laugh:

That's pretty funny. I always tell my mother to plan her lie in advance, so that she won't be scrambling when the time comes. She stopped driving and I knew her family members would be asking to drive her car, because they can't bear to think of it sitting in the garage minding its own business when they could be driving it.

I said, "Mom, think of an excuse why they can't drive it NOW. Don't wait until they ask you because then you'll be caught off guard and the next thing you know, they'll be grabbing your car keys."

Poor Christine didn't want to tell Lindsey, "I just really can't stand you," so she thought of the house thing instead.

Your hallucination.

I want to know how much they all got, Mick, Lindsey and Christine. I guess no one wants to say because it would pale in comparison to Stevie's haul, but I'm dying of curiousity.

this is why in the beginning (well, at least starting with Rumours) they all were their own publishers... Stevie had Welsh Witch Music, Lindsey had Now Sounds, Chris had... was it Gentoo?? So they would have publisher rights AND songwriter rights. Maybe because of the accounting nightmare they eventually partnered with ..was it Kobalt? or somebody and gave whoever it was some % in exchange for handling all the business tracking/royalty paying part of it. (This was one of the reasons so many artists were selling now before they kick, according to one of the many articles that came out on all this.People just wanted to leave the $ to heirs and not the headache of sorting out royalties etc especially when their heirs weren't going to be savvy about how it all worked and possibly get majorly ripped off). But FM had a publishing entity which was them as a group, I believe.... so everyone kinda got some sort of slice of the $$ pie from each other's material as well (which would benefit John and Mick the most as they would have no other songwriting or publishing royalties as non-writers. Someone else may know more.

I copied one article somewhere in one of these threads in which Mick basically said having all this money up front now would allow him to do things he wouldn't be able to do for more years (i.e., after more lucrative tours. Now they've all cashed out, the impetus or incentive for more big tours goes wayyy down). One imagines maybe he meant his restaurant, and whatever other splurges he wants before he kicks. I don't recall he said anything about what he could leave to his kids, just what he would need money to do and that having the cash now meant he could do those things sooner rather than later. we all KNOW he'll be broke again in a few years.

Stevie notoriously gave away rights to songs willy-nilly back in the day, including numerous boyfriends. The lay that keeps on giving! We know the rights Silver Springs went to her mother, it would be interesting to know who the mother left them to-- if she didn't specify it likely went to Stevie and her brother as her heirs. Beautiful Child went to UNICEF but not clear if that was in perpetuity or for x number of years. I think Sara went to a boyfriend .... can't recall what else. If she was smart she never gave anyone else a piece of Landslide as that one alone would have paid her til her kicked.

Do you really think Mick intends on leaving anything for anyone? I mean, on paper, yes. I leave you $10,000,000.00!!!!

In reality, they're left owing his bar tab down the street. Such is the life of Mick....

I do the same. When I'm facing a messy situation, I know what the outcome MUST be, and know the navigational points to get there. People are sheep, you just have to guide them to their destiny.

How could you say people are sheep in a FM message board? ???:wavey: