I'm a UK music publisher who represents certain composer/authors/artists. Their songs have been exploited by a Chicago record company for 20years, in some cases without contracts, in another by submitting a document with a forged signature. The Chicago company went into liquidation in 1991, but was somehow bailed out and carried on trading, as their affiliates collected substantial income from other territories in the meantime. In 2001 they entered into an agreement with a Canadian publisher who claims to have acquired all rights from the Chicago company in full, by taking the Chicago company to Court in Illinois and have been exploiting our music ever since. Furthermore they put up all the songs for auction this year in Chicago and bought everything themselves. They have a network of publishers around the world who collect royalties in their respective territories on their behalf. I hired a lawyer to stop the auction, who sent a letter to the lawyers handling the auction, but they went ahead anyway. They submitted an incomplete statement of royalties, took 50% of the top, claiming that they were entitled to this via the agreement my composer claims to be an outright forgery and are willing to pay providing we accept the agreement as valid. The agreement is for Life of Copyright.
We don't know what percentage has been deducted by their affiliates in other territories and my lawyer claimed that it would cost 10's of thousands of dollars to start legal action in Canada. The Canadian company claims to have acquired all the rights in 'good faith', although we believe they have had dealings with the Chicago company far longer than 2001.
My composers and myself cannot afford 10's of thou:mad: sands of dollars, as after all we have not received any income over 20 years. There are 100's of records/CD's/cassettes being sold in the World with my artists songs. They have been getting licensing income from the sound-recordings as well as the publishing. Some of these songs were international hits which charted. What can we do to stop this from carrying on. ANY HELP WOULD BE MOST APPRECIATED...

There are companies such as BMI, ASCAP and SESAC (SESAC is an international company) and they are recording rights company they collect the fee for royalites. Places like clubs, radio stations and the such have to pay them for the usage of the music.

Here are websites to address the issues of copy right protection and how to purchase some music that are copy right protected... as a photographer... I been through so many up and downs in this profession... before I learned... you should protect yourself... there will be no feelings hurt... for that forth going on...

http://www.menc.org/information/copyright/copyr.html

http://www.copyright.com/ccc/do/viewPage?pageCode=i13&WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=google_ew