Interesting you mentioned Ringo, that brought to mind a documentary I saw on netflix a while back about Ginger Baker, drummer from Cream and Blind Faith.

He was saying that he never got any royalties for any of the songs Cream did even though the parts he developed were important to the song, and one example he gave was the intro to "White Room".
If you recall that song, the drum part on the intro is very distinctive, a 5/4 pattern. Apparently that was his idea, originally it was going to be 4/4 all the way through. Can't imagine that song without that drum part.

But I guess right at the beginning it was decided the songwriting royalties would be split between Jack Bruce, who wrote most of the music, and Pete Brown, who wrote most of the lyrics.