How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
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How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
WHAT MICHAEL JACKSON DID TO EDDIE MURPHY
1989. Eddie Murphy does a standup bit mocking Michael Jackson — the voice, the mannerisms, the whole performance. Michael sees it. Loves it. Seeks Eddie out personally and they become friends.
1992. Michael casts Eddie as the Pharaoh in the Remember The Time short film — the king who banishes Michael's magician then chases him through an Egyptian palace. Eddie's first major music video appearance and he owns every scene.
Then 1993. Eddie is recording Love's Alright and wants Michael on a track. Michael says yes because he liked the positive message. The result is Whatzupwitu — Michael and Eddie dancing in clouds on a green screen in what MTV viewers later voted the third worst music video of all time. Critics called it hilariously bad. A parody of itself.
But here is what everyone missed.
Eddie wrote it. Trenten Gumbs co-produced it. Michael is the featured artist. The publishing splits exist and the royalties flow to the songwriters — meaning Eddie Murphy, the comedian, owns the publishing on a song featuring the King of Pop. Every stream, every sync placement, every reissue sends a percentage to the man who made Beverly Hills Cop.
Michael was coming off Dangerous, the biggest album of the decade. He did not need this song. He did it as a friend. As someone who saw the joke and chose to be in on it. Eddie got the moment and kept the publishing.
The song people laughed at still pays him. The joke became an asset.
Know that even the tracks people mock generate royalties when your name is on the composition.
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2 days ago | [YT] | 7
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How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
WHAT MICHAEL JACKSON DID TO LIONEL RICHIE
1984. Harry Belafonte sees Do They Know It's Christmas and wants an American version. The chain of calls eventually lands on Lionel Richie, who calls Quincy Jones, who suggests Michael Jackson. Michael listens to the idea and understands the assignment immediately. This is not a song. This is a movement.
Lionel and Michael write We Are The World in six days. Michael composes most of the melody entirely in his head — he cannot read music — so he sings every note to engineers who transcribe it in real time. Lionel builds the lyrics around the melody. They split the songwriting credit 50/50, documented in a seven page contract.
January 28 1985. A&M Studios, Hollywood. Forty six artists gather after the American Music Awards. Quincy Jones posts a sign on the door — Check Your Ego at the Door. Michael arrives in a blue surgical mask, still recovering from the Pepsi fire. He stands in the back, quiet, watching. When he sings his solo line the room stops completely.
By 8am it is done. The fastest selling American single in history. 800,000 copies in three days. Twenty million total. Over $80 million raised for African famine relief.
Michael and Lionel wrote it. They owned the publishing. Then they directed every cent — every royalty, every sync placement, every reissue — to USA for Africa. The songwriters gave away their publishing to feed the hungry.
They could have collected for decades. Instead they signed it away. The contract exists. Seven pages. 50/50. The choice was deliberate.
Know what you own. Know what you are signing. Know when the right thing costs you millions and is still worth it.
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3 days ago | [YT] | 9
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How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
WHAT MICHAEL JACKSON DID TO CHRIS TUCKER
1998. Rush Hour is a box office smash and Chris Tucker is the fastest mouth in Hollywood. Then his phone rings. Soft voice on the other end. "Is this Chris Tucker? I seen your movie. You're kicking with the wrong leg. Stop making me look bad." Tucker thinks it is a prank. It is not. Michael Jackson invites him to Neverland and they become inseparable.
By 2001 the friendship is at its peak. Michael casts Tucker as his wingman in the thirteen minute short film for You Rock My World — a cinematic chase where Tucker voices the iconic intro and matches Michael beat for beat on screen. Behind the scenes Michael teaches him the correct leg kick, the right one not the left, and when Tucker gets it wrong again at the 30th Anniversary Special at Madison Square Garden, Michael collapses on the floor laughing in front of 20,000 people. Usher joins in. Three legends sharing one inside joke the whole world watches but only they fully understand.
Then 2005. The trial. Tucker takes the stand and testifies for Michael under oath when most people in the industry stay silent and keep their distance.
But Tucker did not write You Rock My World. He voiced the intro, appeared in the video and performed at the concerts. Work for hire. Flat fee. No publishing. No royalties. No points on a record that hit the top ten in sixteen countries.
The man who made Michael laugh harder than anyone and testified when it counted earned from that friendship in memories, not percentages.
Friendship and business are separate rooms. Know what you are owed. Know what you are giving away for free.
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3 days ago | [YT] | 20
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How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
WHAT MICHAEL JACKSON DID TO TOMMY MOTTOLA
1995. Michael Jackson merges his ATV catalogue with Sony and walks away with $110 million and 50% ownership of the most valuable music publishing company on earth — 251 Beatles songs sitting inside it.
He is untouchable. Or so he thinks.
By 2001 the debt has accumulated. Michael takes a $200 million loan from Bank of America, secured against his 50% Sony/ATV stake. Sony guarantees the loan. The implication is quiet but devastating — default, and Sony owns everything he spent two decades building.
He needs Invincible to succeed. He consults the lawyer who negotiated his 1991 contract to find a way out. That lawyer is also working for Sony. Michael does not know this. The conflict of interest means the advice he receives protects the wrong party. The contract clause he believes will let him reclaim his masters pushes reversion years into the future. He is trapped inside a deal he thought he controlled.
Invincible costs $30 million to produce. Sony spends $25 million marketing it then pulls the plug — cancels single releases, refuses to fund videos, kills the US tour. Sales collapse.
Michael snaps. July 2002. He calls Tommy Mottola a devil and a racist on a public stage and accuses Sony of deliberate sabotage.
He was not entirely wrong. But he was not entirely right either.
Tommy Mottola did not steal Michael's publishing. The loan, the conflicted lawyer and the underperforming album handed it over without a fight.
Know who your lawyer works for. Know what your debt secures.
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4 days ago | [YT] | 1
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How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
WHAT MICHAEL JACKSON DID TO R. KELLY
1994. Michael Jackson needed the sound of the new school and he called the man running it. R. Kelly was twenty six, king of R&B, master of the slow jam — and dyslexic. He had dropped out of Kenwood Academy after one year, unable to read or write with ease. What he could do was feel music at a frequency most songwriters never reach.
So Kelly did not write "You Are Not Alone." He recorded it. Sitting alone in his Chicago studio, he sang the entire song into a tape recorder, mimicking Michael's vocal style from memory and instinct. No sheet music. No lyrics on paper. Just voice, feeling and a cassette. He sent it to Michael with nothing else attached.
Michael listened twice, laughed at the imitation, then flew to Chicago. They spent the last week of November 1994 in the studio together. Kelly's demo had no harmony and no modulations. Michael added a choir, built a climax and structured the architecture around Kelly's raw feeling. The result was Michael's thirteenth and final number one — the first song in Billboard Hot 100 history to debut at the top position. A Guinness World Record.
R. Kelly owned the publishing. He wrote it, co-produced it, and earned from every radio play, sync placement and stream that followed. The man who could not write it down owned the song the whole world learned by heart.
Know what you create. Know what you own. Your process — however unconventional — deserves protection.
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4 days ago | [YT] | 3
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How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
WHAT MICHAEL JACKSON DID TO TEDDY RILEY
1987. Bad is finished and Michael Jackson is restless because Quincy Jones gave him the sound of the eighties but he needs the sound of the nineties, so he calls Teddy Riley, a twenty-year-old producer pioneering New Jack Swing and fusing R&B with hip-hop into something harder and faster and street, and Teddy was supposed to be on Bad except his manager demanded too many conditions so Quincy passed, but Michael remembered and said "I want you on the next one," and Teddy said yes.
Dangerous arrives in 1991 and Teddy brings R&B back to Michael in its barest form, using vintage gear because he always loved analog better than digital, and together they create "Jam" and "Remember the Time" and "In the Closet" and "Dangerous," with Teddy co-writing and co-producing and playing keyboards and arranging rhythms and engineering mixes, even bringing Heavy D to "Jam" and building the groove that makes "Remember the Time" a global hit, and the album sells thirty-two million copies and proves Michael does not need Quincy to stay on top.
Teddy returns for Invincible in 2001, co-writing and co-producing "Heaven Can Wait" and "Whatever Happens," and then in 2010 he is called back posthumously to produce "Hollywood Tonight" and "Monster" and "Breaking News," but then the Cascio controversy erupts with allegedly fake vocals, and Teddy initially defends them saying only "MJ and God knows" before later apologizing and saying he was set up, and the estate uses his name to validate contested vocals, so the man who co-created Dangerous becomes collateral in an estate's damage control.
Teddy had contracts and co-writing credits and production points on some of the biggest hits of the nineties, but when the estate needed credibility they used his reputation, and when the controversy exploded he was left holding the bag, because your name on a contract protects your royalties but your name on a press release protects someone else's narrative, so know what you are signing and know what you are endorsing and know when your legacy is being borrowed without your consent.
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5 days ago | [YT] | 6
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How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
WHAT MICHAEL JACKSON DID TO THE JACKSON 5
1968. Gary, Indiana. Five brothers sign with Motown and ten year old Michael Jackson becomes the voice of a generation before he is old enough to understand what he is signing away.
The Jackson 5 receives 2.7% royalties while Motown owns the masters, the publishing and even the name. Michael is the product, not the producer. The machine is running and the family is inside it, earning a fraction of what they are generating.
By 1975 Michael is sixteen, restless and hungry for creative control. Berry Gordy refuses. So Michael studies learns what ownership means, what publishing generates, what a real royalty rate looks like. Then at seventeen he brokers the exit himself, approaching Epic Records and negotiating a deal that would cost Motown an estimated $750 million in future revenue.
At Epic he writes. He produces. For the first time the lead singer owns the publishing on his own music. Off The Wall. Thriller. Bad. Five consecutive number ones. Best selling album in human history. All co-written. All published through his own company.
The Jackson 5 was a job. Motown was the employer. The moment Michael understood that the person who owns the publishing is not always the person who wrote the song, he stopped being an employee and became an owner.
Know what you are signing before you sign it.
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How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
WHAT MICHAEL JACKSON DID TO QUINCY JONES
1977. New York City. The Wiz set.
Michael Jackson was nineteen, already restless. He had outgrown the Jackson 5, outgrown Motown. Quincy Jones walked on set and Michael knew immediately.
Quincy was not just a producer. He was a composer, arranger, conductor who had worked with Sinatra, Ray Charles, Count Basie. After the film wrapped, Michael approached him directly.
"I need someone to produce my solo album. Would you be interested?"
Quincy said yes.
Off The Wall. 1979. Four top ten singles. Thriller. 1982. The best-selling album in history. 70 million copies. Beat It. Billie Jean. Thriller. He built the sound of the decade. Bad. 1987. Five consecutive number one singles. Every mix, every arrangement.
Quincy negotiated points, a percentage of royalties per unit sold. On Thriller, even a modest percentage against 70 million copies generates extraordinary numbers over decades.
Michael died in 2009. The estate took control. Quincy filed suit in 2013 arguing the estate remixed his productions without consent and owed unpaid royalties.
In 2017 a jury awarded him 9.4 million.
The man who produced the most successful album in history had to go to court to get what his contract entitled him to.
The lesson is not betrayal. It is documentation.
Quincy had contracts. He had points. Legally binding, court-enforceable entitlements. Without those contracts he would have had nothing. With them he walked away with 9.4 million decades after the sessions ended.
Your agreements are only as powerful as the paper they are written on. Know what you are owed. Document everything. Protect it while you can.
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6 days ago | [YT] | 3
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How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
WHAT MICHAEL JACKSON DID TO CARLTON FROM FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR
Before Carlton Banks. Before the Fresh Prince. He was Alfonso Ribeiro, a twelve year old kid who could move like Michael Jackson.
1984. The Jacksons signed the most lucrative celebrity endorsement deal in history at that point $5 million with Pepsi Cola.
Pepsi wanted Michael. Michael wanted control.
The commercial would feature a modified version of Billie Jean. The iconic bassline. The unmistakable rhythm. Reworded into a Pepsi jingle. For Pepsi to use even an adapted version of that composition, the sync licensing negotiation had to be airtight. Michael's team ensured the terms protected the original while allowing Pepsi to ride its cultural power. This was not just an endorsement. It was a licensing deal dressed as a commercial.
They needed a young Michael Jackson. Alfonso Ribeiro, twelve years old and electric on his feet was cast as the young fan at the centre of the commercial. The crew kept stopping production because they were watching instead of working.
Michael Jackson gave a twelve year old his first national platform before Fresh Prince was even a concept.
Then came January 27 1984. Pyrotechnics fired too early. Michael's hair caught fire on camera in front of a live audience. Second degree burns. Footage captured. The world watched.
Pepsi settled for $1.5 million. Michael donated every cent to the Brotman Medical Center burn unit. The commercial aired anyway and became one of the most watched advertisements in television history.
The IP lesson is this.
Michael did not simply show up and perform. He licensed his likeness, negotiated the use of his composition and controlled the creative direction. Even the settlement was handled with the precision of someone who knew exactly what their body and their brand were worth.
Alfonso got his career. Pepsi got the commercial. Michael got the money, the terms and the control.
Know your worth before you walk into the room.
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How to Collect All Your Music Royalties
"WHAT MICHAEL JACKSON DID TO EMINEM"
2002. Eminem releases The Slim Shady LP and somewhere in the verses, he takes a shot at Michael Jackson. Michael said nothing publicly.
He didn't have to.
Michael Jackson owned Sony/ATV Music Publishing. One of the largest music catalogues on the planet. And sitting inside that catalogue — quietly, legally, completely — was a significant portion of Eminem's publishing rights.
The man Eminem mocked owned his songs.
When Eminem found out, he was furious. He filed a lawsuit against his own publisher, Eight Mile Style, claiming they had no right to license his music to Sony/ATV without his knowledge or consent. The case dragged through courts for years. The core argument was simple and devastating — how does the person you publicly disrespected end up owning the rights to your most personal work?
Michael never responded to the diss tracks. He didn't need to. Every time Eminem's music played on radio, appeared in a film or got licensed for a commercial, a portion of that royalty cheque passed through a catalogue Michael Jackson controlled.
The most lyrical man in hip hop history spent years in a legal battle over publishing rights he didn't fully understand until it was too late.
Eminem eventually fought back through copyright termination law and restructured his publishing position. But for a significant period, the King of Pop held the pen over the Rap God's catalogue.
You can win every battle on the microphone and still lose the war in the contract room.
Know your publishing. Own your catalogue. Understand what you are signing before you sign it.
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