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CMU Beef Of The Week #325: The Wolfhounds v Warner/Chappell

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 30 September 2016

Everyone likes a good David v Goliath tale, right? Yes. Good. Well, here’s one. Eighties indie band The Wolfhounds have been ripped off by Warner/Chappell for nearly 30 years. That’s what the band say, anyway. And this week they launched a petition calling on the Warner music publisher to bloody well stop it.

Back in 1987, the band explain, they signed a publishing deal with Working Music, which promptly went out of business. Its catalogue – including their songs – was then absorbed into parent company Warner/Chappell.

Since then, the band claim, the publisher hasn’t handed over any money or any royalty statements to any member of the band (all of whom were credited as writers), and at some point the major allegedly removed lead songwriters David Callahan and Andrew Golding from the credits of seven of their songs – including their biggest hit, ‘The Anti-Midas Touch’.

Back in 1989, the band continue, they asked their solicitor to notify Warner/Chappell that they believed the publisher had breached their contract, and therefore they were demanding the song rights be returned to the band members. Though I assume you’ve all guessed by now that that did not happen.

“Through their own solicitors, Warner/Chappell claimed that none of our songs had ever earned any money”, say the band of the 1989 correspondence. “Despite the fact that we had received payments from the Performing Rights Society for the songs, been played on the radio numerous times and played hundreds of gigs, all of which meant that royalties were coming in. The band has irrefutable documentary proof of this”.

Still, the band split the following year and it all fell by the wayside. Then Callahan and Golding reformed the band with a new line-up in 2005 and started to question what the hell happened to their publishing all over again. In 2013, Callahan started trying to engage the publisher himself, to little avail. He then managed to get some legal advice last year, but that has come to nothing. Hence this here petition.

I’m not sure what good a petition is likely to do, but anything’s worth a try, I guess. It might convince Warner/Chappell to at least clarify exactly what’s gone on here.

A search of the publisher’s database does show that Callahan and Golding’s names appear on all but seven of their songs, as they say. Though, of course, we have no way of knowing if the duo were ever officially listed as co-writers on those seven works.

There could, for example, have been a data error from the start that only subsequently came to light, rather than Callahan and Golding actually having their names removed in hindsight. Look at me, being all reasonable and providing Warner/Chappell with an excuse.

And of course, just because the band received money from PRS doesn’t mean they were due actual payments from the publisher yet. 50% of PRS income always goes direct to the songwriter, while the other 50% plus all MCPS money goes to the publisher for signed writers.

The publisher then shares that money with the writers subject to contract, and there’s usually the matter of an advance to be paid off first. So when Warner/Chappell allegedly said the songs hadn’t earned any money, they possibly meant enough money, ie to pay off the original advance.

Look at me, being all reasonable again and providing Warner/Chappell with yet another excuse. I should invoice for my time. Though none of that explains the alleged lack of royalty statements, which should set out how much income had come in (the publisher should have received at least the same PRS income as the writers) and therefore how much of any advance was still to be recouped.

But hey, I’m speculating here. Warner/Chappell have as yet not responded about the petition, so I’m relying wholly on the band’s version of events and some very basic knowledge of how music publishing contracts usually work. Either way, the band are again demanding the return of their songs, as well the reinstatement of Callahan and Golding as writers on those seven tunes, and any unpaid royalties.

Though, alas, few of those things usually happen via a mere petition. It would be a simpler world if all disputes between artists and labels/publishers could be resolved by simply getting enough fans to sign a form, wouldn’t it?

You know what petitions can achieve though? They can force people like me to tell you that The Wolfhounds have a new album coming out next month that you can pre-order now. Perhaps Warner/Chappell could start a petition demanding they assign the rights in those songs to the publisher too.