Copyright: Lessons from The Lion King
I’m just a small-town singer-songwriter. Why should I bother registering my copyrights?
The tale has become legend in the music industry, particularly in the folk music community. In 1939, Solomon Linda recorded an improvisational song called Mbube at Gallo Records in South Africa. The song followed patterns of traditional folk music in the region, but was an original work, with Linda's choir The Evening Birds providing a deep compelling chant of low harmonies under Linda's high melodic tones.
The copyright for the song was transferred to Gallo Records, and the piece went on to be recorded by the Weavers, Pete Seeger, The Tokens and many others, evolving as it went, with changes in lyrics to make it more pronounceable by western performers, more understandable to western audiences, and more comfortable to listen to in western musical genre patterns. Along the way, many of these performers recorded their own copyrights of their versions and arrangements of the song.
Fast forward, and of course the song is now known as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, the theme song of Disney's Lion King, playing on Broadway, in movie theaters and home streaming services all over the world, as well as in chips in kid's lunchboxes, toothbrushes, stuffed animals and greeting cards. This 1939 original folk music recording is now worth millions, if not billions, of dollars. It is the auditory trademark to Disney's Lion King empire.
Solomon Linda died in 1962, leaving not enough money for a gravestone. He had lived on virtually nothing, with two of his children dying in infancy due to lack of food and other deprivations of poverty, according to a New York Times interview with his daughter Elisabeth Nsele. Solomon's other daughter, Adelaide, also died of AIDS, unable to afford life-preserving medical treatment.
Solomon Linda had been paid 87 cents by Gallo Records when he originally recorded Mbube. Years later, he did receive occasional payments from The Richmond Organization, the publishing house which published the Weaver's version of Wimoweh, as the song was called while it was being recorded by various U.S. folk artists.
Disney publicly claimed that they had obtained a license from Abilene Music for the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight, but how the rights passed, if indeed they did, from Solomon Linda to Gallo to The Richmond Organization to Abilene is a bit obscure.
Eventually, Solomon Linda's remaining heirs sued Disney, claiming that under the law in effect at the time, the copyright Solomon Linda had signed over to Gallo Records reverted to him and his heirs after 25 years. The Linda heirs, Disney, and the various publishing houses claiming rights entered into settlement for an undisclosed, but presumably substantial, sum.
It is a somewhat happy ending, though it took a painful and difficult path to arrive there.
Lessons learned:
When you write a song, you have no idea where it is going. If your song is genuine, heartfelt, original, and in your own unique voice, expressing a culture and emotions and a vision that only you can create, it may well take on a life of its own and become larger than you could possibly imagine. Treat each song as an infant that might well grow up to be the most well-known and recognizable song in the world.
Your song may well succeed long after your death. Ensure that your copyrights, publishing contracts, and your estate plan take into account any successful revenue and song placement after your death. Don't forget to specifically devise your copyrights to your heirs (that is, include a provision in your will designating who inherits your copyrights), or they may get lost in or attributed to the residue of your estate rather than left to your children or other intended heirs.
Don't sell the copyright to your song for 87 cents, even if you are starving. This is a tough one. When you need the cash, and cash is offered, it seems well worth it. Just be aware before you take the offered paltry sum for a composition or recording that you may well have to just walk away in the future while your song rakes in millions for someone else. It's a risk, a gamble, and only you can make that decision--but make it with your eyes wide open.
Track and enforce your copyrights continuously. More on this in the future posts.... in the meantime, Rock, Record, and Register your copyrights promptly.
