As Tone Deaf reported yesterday, ‘Uptown Funk’, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ 2014 mega-hit recently discovered five new writers, after members of The Gap Band alleged that Ronson’s tune was overly similar to their 1979 funk anthem, ‘Oops Up Side Your Head’.
With the music industry rocked by the outcome of the recent ‘Blurred Lines’ trial, which saw Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams forced to pay $7.4 million to the estate of Marvin Gaye for copying 1977’s ‘Got to Give It Up’, labels and artists have become more cautious when it comes to plagiarism disputes.
Gap Band members Ronnie Wilson, Charles Wilson, and Robert Wilson, plus producers Rudolph Taylor and Lonnie Simmons will now be listed as writers on ‘Uptown Funk’, alongside Ronson, Bruno Mars, producers Phillip Martin Lawrence and Jeffrey Bhasker, and Nicholas Williams (aka Trinidad James) and Devon Gallaspy.
Naturally, this means that the new writers will receive royalties from the hit song, believed to be a 17 percent take, but just how will the financial logistics operating behind ‘Uptown Funk’ play out? Industry bible Billboard might just have the answer in a new breakdown.
According to Billboard, downloads of ‘Uptown Funk’ hit sales of 5.5 million units in the US alone, while Ronson’s album scanned 95,000 units, according to Nielsen Music. This amounts to about $510,000 in US mechanical publishing royalties (at $0.091 per song).
Meanwhile, YouTube uploads which feature the master of ‘Uptown Funk’ which have generated at least 10 million views (there’s about five, amounting to 672,617,094 views total) could stand to generate $2.201 million, depending on monetisation and not including user-generated videos.
Taking into account both US mechanicals and the five YouTube hits using the master recording, the single will have produced about $840,000 in publishing revenue, an amount which is then split between the publishers and the songwriters.
Initially, this would have seen the original four songwriters with a 21.25 percent share each, while Gallaspy and Williams, whose tune ‘All Gold Everything’ was sampled on ‘Uptown Funk’, split a 15 percent take. Billboard notes that Willaims and Gallaspy were given their share without prompting.
Now, things are a little more complicated. Instead of reaching out to Ronson or his publisher, Minder Music, on behalf of the Gap Band, put a claim in via YouTube, prompting its system to flag ‘Uptown Funk’ for having ownership claims above 100 percent.
This caused YouTube to cease payments to all publishers and placed the revenue in escrow until the ownership claims are resolved. This resulted in another settlement, with the ‘Oops Up Side Your Head’ writers each receiving 3.4 percent of the song, a total of 17 percent.
As a result, all four original songwriters now each get 17 percent of the song, a decrease of 4.25 percent each. Meanwhile, the money YouTube was holding in escrow is expected to be released soon in light of the settlement.
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Executives from the publishing firms affiliated with ‘Uptown Funk’ are divided on whether the ‘Blurred Lines’ trial played a part in the situation surrounding Ronson’s tune. One executive said that most songwriting disputes get settled out of court and rarely go to trial with a jury.
However, Danny Zook, who manages Trinidad James and oversees the artist publishing company Trinlanta as well as sample-clearing house Alien Music, told Billboard that the ‘Blurred Lines’ verdict has indeed sent a shockwave through the music industry.
“Everyone is being a little more cautious. Nobody wants to be involved in a lawsuit,” said Zook. “Once a copyright dispute goes to a trial, [if a jury is used], it is subject to be decided by public opinion — and no longer resolved based entirely on copyright law.”
According to Billboard sources, the ‘Uptown Funk’ songwriter/publisher payout is expected to be split thus:
Bhasker/SonyATV: 17 percent
Gallaspy/SonyATV: 7.5 percent
Ronson/Imagem: 17 percent
Gap Band/Minder: 17 percent
Lawrence: 17 percent
Trinidad James/Trinlanta: 5.625 percent
Trinidad James Record label/TIG7 Publishing: 1.875 percent
Mars/Mars Force Music/BMG Chrysalis: 14.875 percent
Mars/Northside Independent Music/Warner/Chappel Music: 2.125 percent
Warner/Chappell, through its January 2011 acquisition of Southside Independent Music, owns 25 percent of Mars publishing — but collects only its 12.5 percent share (in this instance 12.5
percent of 17 percent, or 2.125 percent) as BMG administers all of Mars’ writer share
