The Beckett Connection

Niall Kielt said:
Where did you hear that Blaze didn't have severance in his contract? Not disputing it, just curious
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I remember reading about it, in exact quote "nice package", I don't remember where, no-one else mentioned any severance whatsoever (Burr, Dickinson, Smith).
 
Poto said:
I don't think so. He wrote Hallowed and The Number of the Beast on his own (except for those six lines). I wouldn't call that struggling. The difference was that he had competition in the writing department. Adrian was writing more, Bruce was a major improvement from Paul. Steve didn't have to write everything on his own.
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He wrote 90% of their live material between 1975-1981 through the course of that 6 years and they had 2 albums out of it. Now he was asked to write an album in two months.
 
I suspect that there is more to the story than we've been told so far, and that's why Maiden are insisting on having their day in court. I also suspect that McKay is aware of this and that's why he is trying emotional blackmail on Steve, trying to get him to capitulate before it goes that far. Look at the words McKay is using: "... so greedy that he would rather deprive his fans of enjoying seeing Iron Maiden perform their best and most popular song ..." The message he wants Steve to read between the lines here is you are not being fair to your fans, who you say are so important. He may also be trying to shake Steve's confidence in Rod ("is it that he is being poorly advised by his management?") He also seems to be suggesting that Maiden had achieved nothing prior to Hallowed, and that everything they have achieved since has been founded on that one particular song (the bit about Steve's and Dave's lifestyles). I don't think this argument holds up to much scrutiny.
 
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Perhaps the guy (Barton?) who Steve and Rod claim allowed Maiden to use the lines in 'Hallowed be thy Name' did give more than just a gentleman's agreement. Rod may well have been smart enough to get some written agreement from Barton in the eighties that will stand up in court. However, I'd have thought that he would have at least insisted on some sort of mention in the album booklet. Something like "Lines respectfully borrowed from some song by Beckett, written by Joey(?) Barton." Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course.
 
Has this McKay fellow said anything further since the original news that he was suing? And besides media commentary on the court case do you think the Maiden camp is likely to comment further on this?
 
Black Wizard said:
Perhaps the guy (Barton?) who Steve and Rod claim allowed Maiden to use the lines in 'Hallowed be thy Name' did give more than just a gentleman's agreement. Rod may well have been smart enough to get some written agreement from Barton in the eighties that will stand up in court. However, I'd have thought that he would have at least insisted on some sort of mention in the album booklet. Something like "Lines respectfully borrowed from some song by Beckett, written by Joey(?) Barton." Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course.
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I would have though that something similar to what Mika did on "Relax (Take it Easy)" would have been in order - the credits for that song include the statement "Incorporating elements of "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" written by Nicholas Eede. Published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Used with permission." Note that Nicholas Eede doesn't get a "co-writing credit" as such, even though the "element" used is the entire chord progression (and yes, it's obvious).

Now, Rod is not an idiot and he has a steely business brain so I'm thinking that the only probable reason he wouldn't have done this at the time was that he had a reason to believe he didn't need to do this.
 
Mr Chippy said:
Has this McKay fellow said anything further since the original news that he was suing? And besides media commentary on the court case do you think the Maiden camp is likely to comment further on this?
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I think it's highly unlikely that Maiden will say anything further, and neither will McKay - if he's sensible ...
 
It will be interesting to see how long this takes to get to court if indeed it makes it that far. I hope they have this resolved before the next tour in order to allow Hallowed to return to the setlist.
 
Black Abyss Babe said:
I would have though that something similar to what Mika did on "Relax (Take it Easy)" would have been in order - the credits for that song include the statement "Incorporating elements of "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" written by Nicholas Eede. Published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Used with permission." Note that Nicholas Eede doesn't get a "co-writing credit" as such, even though the "element" used is the entire chord progression (and yes, it's obvious).

Now, Rod is not an idiot and he has a steely business brain so I'm thinking that the only probable reason he wouldn't have done this at the time was that he had a reason to believe he didn't need to do this.
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Yes, and perhaps the law in the UK has changed since 1982 so surely any lawsuit would have to be based on the law in 1982. Re-releases on compilations and the remastered version would probably be treated differently though.
 
Zare said:
I remember reading about it, in exact quote "nice package", I don't remember where, no-one else mentioned any severance whatsoever (Burr, Dickinson, Smith).
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I think Maiden just bought the rights to the material from Blaze in some way. This is what I can find about it:
At the time, however, he was devastated. He says he never saw it coming – that Steve Harris never spoke to him about the possibility of Dickinson’s return. “When they told me,” Bayley says, “I already had songs ready for the next album.” It was not all bad. When he was let go, Bayley received a golden handshake. “Maiden took very good care of me,” he says. “I can’t complain about that.
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http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-04-14/what-s-it-like-to-be-blaze-bayley
 
Mr Chippy said:
It will be interesting to see how long this takes to get to court if indeed it makes it that far. I hope they have this resolved before the next tour in order to allow Hallowed to return to the setlist.
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While I concur with your hope that it will be settled quickly I think it unlikely that it won't go to court, because if Maiden knew they were in the wrong they would have settled it already - as we saw already with the "secret deal" (read: out-of-court settlement) with Bob Barton. I forsee that McKay will cause as much trouble as he can, because he's clearly out for publicity as well as money, and as much as I like Hallowed I would actually rather not hear it live ever again than have Steve give any ground here. In court the whole truth will come out, and Maiden would not be pushing this if they knew they were going to lose.

Patience is what we need here ... :)
 
As I said before, McKay is very very stupid to sue both Barton and Maiden. He should sue Barton only. It is entirely possible that he loses and has to pay the legal bills. I think that if that goes to court he has no chance against Andy Taylor and his legal team.
 
matic22 said:
I think that if that goes to court he has no chance against Andy Taylor and his legal team.
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How you put it reminds me of this:
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TheTalisman said:
I think Maiden just bought the rights to the material from Blaze in some way. This is what I can find about it:
http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-04-14/what-s-it-like-to-be-blaze-bayley
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That's it, it's not severance as a work law instrument (which is usually tied to # of years spent in the organization), it's no-further-claims agreement. Maiden sold their back catalogue rights for 25M $ in 1998/9 as a 15 year concession. Even if they had constant royalty income since 1999, Maiden sells bulk of the units in the first months after album release, and Blaze era wasn't generally popular. He probably got cash from that lot.
 
matic22 said:
As I said before, McKay is very very stupid to sue both Barton and Maiden. He should sue Barton only. It is entirely possible that he loses and has to pay the legal bills. I think that if that goes to court he has no chance against Andy Taylor and his legal team.
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How much is Bob Barton worth these days though? While it may seem obvious to us that it is the money Barton already got from Steve that Quinn is potentially entitled to a slice of, the fact remains that it's no good to either McKay or Quinn to prove this if Barton has already spent it. My guess is that McKay is gunning for Maiden straight away because he knows he could screw a lot more out of them: if he can just get the charge to stick ...

Oh and he'll get a lot more publicity that way, of course!
 
Anyway I think Quinn was robbed and should get half of what Barton got. But McKay seems like a dickhead. I hope Maiden sues that c**t to bankrupcy.
 
This is just bad publicity for the 'Beckett camp'. The court process may come out in favour of Maiden. Perhaps Smallwood/Taylor waited for Quinn to sue because they didn't want to be blackmailed? If Quinn is out there for money, his first step would be to call them and try to settle.
And when did the original Maiden-Beckett settlement happen, in 1984 or later?
 
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