Here we go again...Iron Maiden sued over the rights of 6 songs

One of the articles I cited (anyone actually read any of these?) clearly states that who is credited & who wrote something is legally not the same thing e.g. Coldplay. It's also the case that you can sell (or be "bought out") your moral claim to writing credits i.e. where you did write something but legally you've waved that right/ownership. Sounds odd, but legally that's a thing. A good example in literature is a employee & a company. The person writes it, but the company owns the copyright. This is understood as part of your terms of employment. Usually anything you personally write: you own the copyright. In respect to music & bands: Pink Floyd is sighted in respect to guys in the band being employed, but not "members" proper; and how this relates to song-writing credits. If Steve/Maiden/Rod got previous/present members (Bruce, Blaze, all these old dudes, etc) to sign legal moral waivers (& maybe all of them are unaware of legally what was put in front of them) then it doesn't matter who actually penned these songs. Steve can state/claim the credit, the royalties, etc. And if any of this stuff can be produced from old filing cabinets then McKay is on a hiding to nothing. If they didn't, on the other hand, then this is where Maiden have a problem i.e. non legally binding "pay-offs" back in the day to remove the untidiness of others past-members' names appearing on album sleeves, etc. I'm sceptical about the role money may have played in this, in respect to Steve/Maiden. I'm willing to accept/hear other explanations.

I also still don't understand the incessant focus on "why is Dennis doing this now?" & the blow-by-blow character assassination in respect to what's motivating various parties a this time. You guys answer: this is important. Is it? Is this really the most important point? Personally, I don't give a monkeys why any of this is happening now. I do care about Steve/Maiden potentially having illegally re-written history. If this all turns out to be true then I certainly question why Steve/Maiden thought this was important at the time &/or whether they really gave it much thought at all. Apart from the fact, from a history-nerd point of view, it's just annoying not having these guys credited if they did in fact write lyrics/music.

All this said, we'll probably not see any of this in court; they'll undoubtedly settle out-of-court & no one will ever ask Steve/Maiden anything about these "sensitive" issues. And all the rumours, claims, & counter-claims may well never be satisfactorily answered.
 
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srfc said:
Yeah, I know the authorship is well known, I was interested in why it's falsely claimed on wiki that the source of this info is the liner notes on Metal for Muthas.
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It's not falsely claimed, the liner notes are there, depends which edition you have. You seem to be describing the 2000 EMI / Air Raid Records CD, AIRCD5; mentioned notes are in the 2001 Sanctuary edition (part of 2cd, vol 1 and vol. 2, CMRCD142).

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To be clear: if Chris Martin can assigned credit/royalties to each member of Coldplay legally, but (when asked, for example) state without censure that he "wrote all the music & lyrics" --then Steve/Maiden (& Dennis) can do the opposite i.e. Steve could have made legal arrangements that would allow him/Maiden to claim everything (credits/royalties), but still be able to say (when asked/interviewed) "yeh, Dennis wrote those lyrics". Coldplay probably have this all contractually & legally covered though. The argument here, principally, is that Steve/Maiden never had any formal/legal arrangement(s) with any of these guys &/or none of them agreed to this; with the subsequent implications in terms of money/royalties & names never being on album sleeves, etc. On the face of it, this it what it looks like.
 
To be fair, Coldplay came to be in a much different environment and time than Iron Maiden. Maiden's a pub band from the East End that was brought together by a young and not-terribly-experienced manager. If Rod today was managing Iron Maiden in 1978, I doubt that any of these mistakes would happen. Everything would have been notarized and handled - similarly, if Iron Maiden had come into being in the far more litigious environment of 1996, almost certainly this stuff would be handled by any manager.

Anyway, if Dennis did write some stuff and he's never been paid for it, he should be paid for it. I find it unlikely that he never thought of it before, but probably, he never realized that he could sue until McKay came along.
 
LooseCannon said:
To be fair, Coldplay came to be in a much different environment and time than Iron Maiden. Maiden's a pub band from the East End that was brought together by a young and not-terribly-experienced manager. If Rod today was managing Iron Maiden in 1978, I doubt that any of these mistakes would happen. Everything would have been notarized and handled - similarly, if Iron Maiden had come into being in the far more litigious environment of 1996, almost certainly this stuff would be handled by any manager.
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Understood. But I was citing these things to make people aware of the situation (as I understand it) in regard to song-writing credits. Comments suggest people don't understand this. Not that I'm any expert.
LooseCannon said:
Anyway, if Dennis did write some stuff and he's never been paid for it, he should be paid for it. I find it unlikely that he never thought of it before, but probably, he never realized that he could sue until McKay came along.
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Exactly.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
To be clear: if Chris Martin can assigned credit/royalties to each member of Coldplay legally, but (when asked, for example) state without censure that he "wrote all the music & lyrics" --then Steve/Maiden (& Dennis) can do the opposite i.e. Steve could have made legal arrangements that would allow him/Maiden to claim everything (credits/royalties), but still be able to say (when asked/interviewed) "yeh, Dennis wrote those lyrics". Coldplay probably have this all contractually & legally covered though. The argument here, principally, is that Steve/Maiden never had any formal/legal arrangement(s) with any of these guys &/or none of them agreed to this; with the subsequent implications in terms of money/royalties & names never being on album sleeves, etc. On the face of it, this it what it looks like.
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Well, I think Coldplay is not a good example, since their biggest hit was written by Joe Satriani...
 
Ok people, lets bring the ball down. From here we go to :

1) Out of court settlement
2) Lawsuit with the presence of Harris et al.

In case of settlement Maiden should be vary that McKay could even go as far as trying to prove they stole generic riffs like 2MTM in the future, and that this is the second of many instances where this leech will try to get easy money out of them. That's why they might chose court instead. In court, it is up to McKay to prove who wrote what by bringing in the hard evidence. In case of Beckett that was easy, in this case it isn't easy. We haven't seen 1 piece of evidence that verifies that person X wrote music or lyrics to some song. Only allegations of Steve's malice. In court, if Harris gets the question, he can say that he doesn't remember now nor he remembered at the time. It is up to McKay to prove that he's lying. Again no proof there or no crown witness from McKay. Only attacks on other people from other bands whose interpretations of events tend to verify Harris side of story. The court might even disown the song but that means public domain or similar, no money for McKay.

Proving that Harris didn't write it doesn't prove that someone else wrote it.
 
Zare said:
Proving that Harris didn't write it doesn't prove that someone else wrote it.
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What, so no one wrote it?! o_O

That's exactly what it does prove --that someone other than Harris wrote it; just not neccesarily those McKay represents. He may view this as a small victory i.e. his Harris is the bad guy agenda.
 
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Magnus I wrote earlier I believe that so much people had input in songs in early days that Harris might've forgotten who to attribute it to.
You all might call for some moral tragedies here but a court process is exact and someone is suing for damage. If the court can't come to conclusion who exactly wrote what no damages can be paid out.

Edit : Cried we already know about CTHs credits being dodgy and it hardly makes Harris a bad guy. Besides what about that band of Wilcock's and their post that he hadn't mentioned this ever?
 
Zare said:
Magnus I wrote earlier I believe that so much people had input in songs in early days that Harris might've forgotten who to attribute it to.
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o_O

Mightily absent-minded, our Percy.

Looking at the recent exchange between McKay and @tonylmiles on Blabbermouth, I'm impressed how well British seem to wear.
 
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