Originally Posted By: Cyberic
Here’s evidence of a poor person not being in receipt of just rewards:

Seeking justice for Lion Sleeps Tonight composer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55333535


There are many thousands of such examples, especially from the folk era. As well meaning as such articles are, this time to fix it was when “Paul Campbell” (the name that Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman used for joint arrangements) registered the copyright for The Weavers—or renewed it 26 years later. Pete Seeger knew who Solomon Linda was. Some BMI registrations do properly credit him but most do not. Any music attorney could have fixed it with an inexpensive lawsuit back then which would have also applied to The Tokens’s recording—but no one ever did. It wasn’t till the late 1960s that anyone had a clue about the monies that could be recovered by such actions. Mr. Linda passed away in 1962. In many countries (incl. Australia), his copyrights expired in 2012; in the EU and USA, they expire 2032 making what would certainly be an expensive lawsuit fruitless.

Publishers are far more aware nowadays. It was Alan Klein who pretty much schooled the world while collecting back royalties for Bobby Vinton before setting his sights on the Stones, Beatles and both sides of “My Sweet Lord/He’s So Fine”.

The 1976 revision to the US Copyright law was designed to make it more difficult for such things to happen again. Not that it can’t happen but nearly every IP attorney since 1978 would recognize this as low hanging fruit were it to surface now.

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