Six cases,and the linethat decided each.

In February 1991 two members of TLC signed production, management and publishing deals with Pebbitone, the company of Perri “Pebbles” Reid, who became their general manager. That May the group was signed to LaFace Records through the production deal. LaFace had been co-founded by her then husband, L.A. Reid.1

Their second album, CrazySexyCool, sold more than 14 million copies worldwide and spent over two years on the Billboard 200.1

On July 3, 1995, all three filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, declaring debts of $3.5 million. Part of that was an insurance claim and medical bills. The rest of the story was in the contract.1,2

It paid 56 cents for each album sold, less for a single, split three ways. Charged against it were airline travel, hotels, promotion, music videos, food and clothing. Once managers, lawyers, producers and taxes were paid, each of them was left with less than $50,000 a year.1,2

In 1996 the deal was renegotiated with LaFace. Pebbitone let the group out of its production and management deal in exchange for a percentage of royalties on some future releases, and TLC bought back the rights to its own name.1

“Bitter Sweet Symphony” was The Verve’s hit of 1997. It was built on a sample of an orchestral version of “The Last Time”, a 1965 song by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, recorded by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra.1,2

There were two permissions to get. The band’s label had one from Decca, which owned the recording. The song was licensed separately: a five-note segment, in exchange for 50 per cent of the royalties.1,2

As the single was about to come out, Allen Klein of ABKCO, which controlled the song, refused clearance, saying The Verve had used a larger portion than agreed. After a lawsuit the band gave up its royalties, and the songwriting credit went to Jagger and Richards.1,2

By 2019 Billboard estimated the song had earned almost $5 million in publishing. That April, Jagger and Richards agreed to return the credit to Ashcroft and to pass him all future songwriter royalties. The publishing stayed with them.1,2

F.B.T. Productions signed Eminem in 1995. In 1998 it transferred his exclusive recording services to Aftermath Records, and in 2003 the two companies made a new agreement.1

It paid F.B.T. two ways. On full-price records sold through normal retail channels, 12 to 20 per cent of the adjusted retail price. On masters Aftermath licensed to others, 50 per cent of its net receipts.1

In 2002 Aftermath’s parent, UMG, agreed with Apple to sell its recordings on iTunes as permanent downloads, and from 2003 it sold them to mobile carriers as mastertones. Aftermath paid F.B.T. on both as records sold. A jury found for Aftermath, and the district court awarded Aftermath more than $2.4 million in attorneys’ fees.1

On September 3, 2010 the Ninth Circuit reversed the judgment and vacated the fees. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in March 2011.1,2

Between 1977 and 1979 Victor Willis wrote lyrics for the Village People’s songs and transferred his copyright in them to the publisher. Among them were “Y.M.C.A.”, “In the Navy” and “Go West”.2

United States copyright law lets an author end a grant made on or after January 1, 1978, during a five-year window that opens 35 years after the grant. Notice has to be served two to ten years ahead. Miss the window and the grant stands.1

In January 2011 Willis served notice terminating his grants in 33 songs. The publishers, Scorpio Music and Can’t Stop Productions, went to court. On May 7, 2012 the court held that a joint author who transfers his interest separately may end that grant on his own.2

What he got back was argued too. In 2015 a jury found that the producer Henri Belolo was not an author of 13 of the songs, “Y.M.C.A.” among them, and Willis’s share of those became 50 per cent.3,4

Ottilie Vane signed her first record deal at sixteen, with an independent label, Calder Row Records. The label owned her masters for the life of their copyright. Over twelve years she made six albums for it.

She asked more than once to buy them. The offer she had was to earn them back, one new album at a time. She left when the contract ended, and a year later the label was sold, catalogue and all, to an investment fund. She learned of it from the announcement.

One clause still bound her, and it also gave her a date. It barred her from recording any of those songs again until two years after the contract ended.

Five months after that date her new recording of the first album came out, and licensing requests began to go to her versions instead of the fund’s.

Kasi Vex owed her label, Lark Hill Music Group, one more album. The contract defined an album with care: at least twelve master recordings, at least forty minutes long, of her featured performances, not previously released.

She delivered eighteen tracks and forty-four minutes. Nine of them had first appeared as freestyles on her own social accounts. The label said those nine had been released, so the record was not an album, and she still owed one.

She said a clip on her own page was not a release. The contract did not say either way. Both sides went to court over one word while the record sat between them.

They settled the following year, and the terms were not published. Nobody ever answered the question underneath.