Hunziker Like the WolfAs music fans around the world learned earlier this week, Courtney Love has sold off a portion of her controlling interest in Nirvana's musical catalog to a corporate buyer, confirming long-standing rumors of a sale but invalidating those suggesting that Martha Stewart was the interested party. The news has triggered a storm of dire predictions from the band's fans (if online forums are any indicator), however there seems to be a general lack of certainty as to what the sale will actually mean for the music of Kurt Cobain and company.
Confusion about the issue and whether Smells Like Teen Spirit\ will end up in a deodorant ad (from which the title originally came) is understandable, especially as the fine print of the deal isn't yet public knowledge. What is known at this point is that Love has sold 25 percent of her 98 percent share in Nirvana's publishing rights (inherited from Cobain) to Larry Mestel of Primary Wave Music Publishing for more than $50 million. However, deducing what that means requires a bit of background in United States copyright law, which like almost every other branch of law concerning industry in the Western world, is both convoluted and frequently contended.
To save on legalese, copyright law in the music industry comes in two varieties: publishing rights and production rights. Publishing rights cover the actual intellectual property of a song and ensure that the author has control of it. Because of publishing rights, artists are entitled to payment (royalties) whenever anyone earns money off their work. Since it's often impractical for an artist to handle the legal business behind getting a copyright, these royalties (and legal control of the work) are usually split with a publishing firm, though the specifics vary.
Production rights, on the other hand, apply to a specific recording of a song. Because of this, they are much less expansive than publishing rights, as they only come into play when the specific recording is used. The upshot of this is that when an artist signs a recording contract with a label, though the label almost invariably gains control of production rights (a label's only real source of income), the artists' publishing rights mean they hold veto power over how their songs are used.
Getting back to Nirvana, the actual impact of the sale should hopefully be fairly limited. Regardless of Mestel's ambiguously ominous remarks about ""creating more value"" for the band's copyrights, anything he proposes, even with the consent of Geffen Records—who owns the production rights— should still theoretically be subject to Love's controlling three-quarter stake in the publishing rights. Given Love's legal, mental and drug problems that thought may not be much of a comfort, but her stewardship of the band's legacy has been relatively benign so far.
A more serious cause for alarm is the possibility of Love putting more of the band's catalog up for sale in the future. The unfortunate result of a band completely losing control to outside interests was clearly demonstrated in 1985 when Michael Jackson outbid Paul McCartney for the rights to more than half of The Beatles' catalog. Over the last 20 years the band's songs have served not only as background music for scores of commercials but also as collateral on Jackson's legal fees.
If the worst case scenario does come for Nirvana, at least their commercial exploitation won't be without an upside: ""Territorial Pissings"" will make the best pet deodorizer commercial ever.
Matt's so ugly, but that's OK—so are you. Matt writes his columns in a daze, 'cause he's found God. To make sure Matt's not gonna crack, e-mail him at hunziker@wisc.edu.\
