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Originally Posted by CADreaming
Oh! I think that's just a goofy thing they came up with - which was why I thought it was weird. The "touring company" is contracted out. Bus drivers, truck drivers, roadies all work for companies that LB pays, not "Lindsey Buckingham Touring Incorporated." Even the band members are basically independent contractors when you get down to it. They usually have to pay them a retainer to put them on hold for the next tour. For instance, Jana was not hired to go out on Stevie's IYD tour, but she is on retainer for the next Mac tour...
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Actually, it's not weird. It shifts personal financial liability for Lindsey to a "corporation" so that his individual assets can't be used to settle debts that the "corporation" incurs. You hire, fire, sign contracts as that entity so that if something happens, they're not going after a chunk of everything you make or have. There's a lot of contractual obligations in touring that would fall squarely on Lindsey if something were to happen. It shifts it off of him.
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Originally Posted by CADreaming
Pay Kit...
"Now Sounds" is actually the name of Lindsey's publishing. Stevie's is "Welsh Witch Music". These are not mortar and brick companies, to clarify. Anyone who writes songs needs a publishing company to put their songs under. It's ideal if you have your own, it means you own the copyright to the song and you get 100% of the royalties. Then you get a contract with BMI, ASCAP, SESAC for performance rights, royalty distribution, etc. etc. etc. It can get a little complicated - it's all about people wanting/getting a piece of your pie and you need to keep as much of that pie as you can. For instance, you can publish your songs with a music publishing company and only get a writer's share of royalties - you share 50/50 with said company or you can co-publish and get 75%. The pros for sharing publishing is that someone manages all the royalty stuff for you - if I understand this correctly, the example is that Lindsey's publishing, "Now Sounds" is registered with ASCAP (Stevie is with BMI) and those organizations manage their royalties and cut them checks. This is how Stevie's Mom was seeing checks for $25,000 - $30,000 every month or so from BMI for "Silver Springs". Stevie named the publishing company "Barbara Nicks Music" and split the earnings with "Welsh Witch".
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I think Stevie's in an admin deal and I think Lindsey might have been at one time, but I'm not sure what kind of deal he's in now. Main difference is who owns the copyright and percentages. In an admin deal, the songwriter/songwriter's publishing company keep the entirety of the copyright and can effectively (with a good lawyer or car salesman like reputation when it comes to haggling) work down the administrating publisher portion of the royalty to around 10% in exchange for the songwriter to not have to worry about all the day to day work of publishing. The co-publishing deal actually signs over part of the copyright to the co-publishing entity for a negotiated percentage which is not always half of the publisher's take.
They also get quarterly royalty payments, not every month.