Description:

Wallace Collins, an entertainment attorney based in New York, explains the two-copyright arrangement that runs the music business (i.e. the song itself, and a specific performance of that song) and how the Controlled Composition Clause of the copyright code allows record labels to reduce the royalty rate paid to artists in instances where the artist is also the songwriter and therefore is in theory entitled to royalties for both copyrights. He also discusses how the Controlled Composition Clause can really work against an artist’s bottom line when choosing songs to put on album.