How do you feel about intellectual property laws? IMO it's a real bad oximoron, especially when applied to art. How can anyone own music? an idea?
Same idea as "how can anyone own blue prints?". An architect is hired to design a structure which gets built. That doesn't mean that every time the structure is bought and sold that he gets a cut of the action, but he owns the design which may or may not be available for purchase by others. Within the residential housing market, architectural blue prints are easily available for purchase so that the same structure can be reproduced in many locations. Larger structures tend to be more unique and are not reproduced in terms of construction, but stand as one time works of "art".
One of the most commonly performed musical pieces the world over is "Die Lustige Witwe" (The Merry Widow) by Franz Lehar. The blue print (actually music as in piano/singer music scores, orchestra scores, conductor scores) are available for purchase from one source. A music publishing house in Vienna, Austria. Anyone who wants to perform that piece the world over (and it is done everywhere in every language every year, year in and year out) has to rent or purchase the musical scores from this particular publishing house in Vienna. Not only that, but a 'cut' of each public performance via royalty rights must be paid to that company. All that is simply the blue print and the right to "display" that blue print in a public performance. I have no idea what the arrangements between the music publishing house and the Lehar family descendants are, but the rights are owned and the income stream is steady. The actually performance where the blue print is "heard" and "seen" is "owned" by the company that presents it and is shared by the patrons who attend it and pay to attend.
The Beatles have one of the better structured rights to their music in the industry. They actually make more money now than they did in their heyday. For the songs that they wrote (blue prints) and performed in an archived medium (tracks, film and television) - they own. Reproduction of those 'blue prints' invokes a cost via royalty fees. Unlike an opera, symphony, operetta such as Carmen, Beethoven's 7th or Lehar's "The Merry Widow" which relies on the majority of reproduction via live performance by music groups, pop music relies on the majority of its reproduction via 'recreated performance mediums' of film, video, television and recording devices. Sure, every now and then a performing musical group will pay the rights to recreate a Beatles song or some other original group. In such cases, the rights must be obtained and most often a percentage cut must be given for the sale of that recreated piece. Every contract varies, but rest assured that the majority of 'blue prints' are protected and there is a cost to use them.
It certainly all makes sense and the performing community was right to stand up and object to an attempt to remove their royalty stream from the "blue prints" that they own. It is their business. Remove the business element of music - and everything would change in the world of music creation and performance. Then again, we could say the same about other industries. Why not remove the cost of professional sports so that nobody is paid for their performance and it is all simply "free time" for the athletes. Although the sports world has its own unique 'blue print' system when compared to the music industry, it does have one and removing it gives the public the choice of watching a 3 on 3 pick up game down at the corner park - or watching the best talent in a 'blue print' situation compete against each other. Kind of like the equivalent of listening to your neighbor sing in the shower for your musical entertainment or listening to a more talented professional produced 'blue print' product.
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