celeb news Songwriter Tiffany Red calls out Beyonce for stealing writing credits

[Stankonia]

9 minutes ago, trainsskyscrapers said:

Ed Sheeran gave her credit because he knew his song veered into "Ave Maria" melodic territory and he didn't want another after-the-fact Marvin Gaye ("Thinking Out Loud") or Kandi Burruss ("Shape Of You") royalty situation.

 

 

Girl... Ave Maria's melody was written more than a century before Beyoncé was born and used it for her song. It's an extremely common chord progression in pop music.

[Trainwreck]

I mean we all know this, I love Bey with my heart but she's known for stealing writing credits. At this point this is just basic knowledge

Edited February 20 by Trainwreck

[IBeMe]

At a certain point, artists / songwriters / producers etc that cannot make a living wage off of their art need to start treating their art as a side hustle / passion project instead of a full time job. 

 

What this lady exposed has been exposed hundreds of times before her and will be exposed hundreds of times after her. The industry isn't changing in that regard. People have to sadly adapt to this reality and that means having a full time job outside of the arts and treating songwriting etc as a side job / part time job. 

[GraceRandolph]

 

[GraceRandolph]

2 minutes ago, IBeMe said:

At a certain point, artists / songwriters / producers etc that cannot make a living wage off of their art need to start treating their art as a side hustle / passion project instead of a full time job. 

 

What this lady exposed has been exposed hundreds of times before her and will be exposed hundreds of times after her. The industry isn't changing in that regard. People have to sadly adapt to this reality and that means having a full time job outside of the arts and treating songwriting etc as a side job / part time job. 

The labels have more than enough money. They should stop exploiting peoples "side hustles" and pay them for their work fairly.

[IBeMe]

Just now, GraceRandolph said:

The labels have more than enough money. They should stop exploiting peoples "side hustles" and pay them for their work fairly.

obviously but it's just not happening. People need to adapt to realities on the ground and the reality is, art won't pay the bills for a lot of them sadly. It may be a defeatist take but it's also a realist take tbh

[cat1867]

Tiffany Red is lobbying for songwriters to be treated like producers and be given a set fee for working on a song in addition to royalties.

 

It's a dream but realistic enough for it make sense for her to lobby for it.

 

[Bubble Tea]

10 minutes ago, IBeMe said:

At a certain point, artists / songwriters / producers etc that cannot make a living wage off of their art need to start treating their art as a side hustle / passion project instead of a full time job. 

 

What this lady exposed has been exposed hundreds of times before her and will be exposed hundreds of times after her. The industry isn't changing in that regard. People have to sadly adapt to this reality and that means having a full time job outside of the arts and treating songwriting etc as a side job / part time job. 

Is "accepting everything is bad and will only get worse" really the take here? 99% of artists already do it as a side hustle, trying to stop the rich continuing to exploit those less fortunate is so bleak. 

[Kill Me]

2 hours ago, trainsskyscrapers said:

Ed Sheeran gave her credit because he knew his song veered into "Ave Maria" melodic territory and he didn't want another after-the-fact Marvin Gaye ("Thinking Out Loud") or Kandi Burruss ("Shape Of You") royalty situation.

 

 

I knew the Hive were dumb and make up wild stuff but this is just...

The Ave Maria melody is public domain and can be used by everyone without copyright. That is why Beyoncé's song doesn't credit Frank Schubert.

If your narrative was actually real, he would have credited the actual 4 songwriters, not beyonce with her less than 5% credit.

[Archetype]

She didn’t lie.  We can love Bey, but this isn’t really news to anyone.  It’s true that she could easily solve most of these issues by working with way less people.  Even if she is wrongly taking credit, the compensation per each writer would be much higher and thus less likely to result in scenarios like this.  It seems like working in writing camps is more of a time suck for writers than it is financially beneficial.

[Gaia]

16 hours ago, beyonceparkwood said:

Not this narrative again…

 

Somehow she ‘steals’ but at the same time ‘has so many credits’. Like pick or choose, those two are juxtaposing. It’s been this narrative since forever 🤠

Er both can be true. This narrative being used by the Hive makes no sense. 
 

Beyonce can have 20 writers on a song and still “steal” credits if she adds herself in the mix as an additional songwriter when she didn’t write anything. There’s no juxtaposition about it. 

[beyonceparkwood]

55 minutes ago, Gaia said:

Er both can be true. This narrative being used by the Hive makes no sense. 
 

Beyonce can have 20 writers on a song and still “steal” credits if she adds herself in the mix as an additional songwriter when she didn’t write anything. There’s no juxtaposition about it. 

Mind you, everyone who has actually worked with Beyoncé talks about her dedicated involvement in creating her music, but it's people like that woman who have never worked with Bey that spread the stealing narrative.

[KeirGrey]

I see both sides, i can get why people don't want people to take credit for work they didn't do but at the same time try releasing this song without them. You dont have to sell your publishing writes if you dont want too, you just wont get an Alister.

[ElectricBlue]

4 hours ago, IBeMe said:

obviously but it's just not happening. People need to adapt to realities on the ground and the reality is, art won't pay the bills for a lot of them sadly. It may be a defeatist take but it's also a realist take tbh

if everybody thought this way there wouldn't be change and progress, just because the industry currently operates this way doesn't mean it can't change but it takes people to fight and stand their ground on these issues because a lot of people are making millions off of songs that they haven't even touched so songwriters and producers should be able to at least afford to pay rent 

[professor2000]

6 hours ago, Ari29 said:

My point wasn’t about Beyonce at all. She listed people like Sevyn Streeter, Zendaya and Tamar doing this as well. Point being without them recording the song there is nothing for you as a writer to gain. They deserve something for recording and promoting the song to make you any money at all.

 

My comment was not in defense of Beyonce, making this solely about her makes a lot of the arguments disingenuous. There was an entire list of artists she mentioned who do this.
 

No one just freely gives away money. Thats not logical at all especially from a business standpoint. Would it be nice, yes. But it’s not realistic

I agree.  Which is why singers get royalties from the recording of the song per their recording contract (separate from publishing/songwriting).  They are compensated for recording it.

 

Artists also have multiple income sources (paid appearances/touring, merch, etc), so they have many chances to get paid outside of publishing (unlike songwriters).

 

Arguably, there would be no songs, touring, etc. without original material for singers to sing (unless you’re willing to pay to see them do cover songs like that American Idol tour ).  So same logic applies the other way too.  Songwriters are pretty essential to the process as well.  

[Mornings]

For everyone telling the writers to just not accept the contract and not work with Beyonce, I actually agree. I would LOVE to hear the music beyonce would write by herself

[IsidoraMarí]

4 minutes ago, Mornings said:

For everyone telling the writers to just not accept the contract and not work with Beyonce, I actually agree. I would LOVE to hear the music beyonce would write by herself

I don't know much about algae-ba 

[SwiftLover]

zero shame 

 

fraudulence 

[swissman]

3 hours ago, Miss Americana said:

I knew the Hive were dumb and make up wild stuff but this is just...

The Ave Maria melody is public domain and can be used by everyone without copyright. That is why Beyoncé's song doesn't credit Frank Schubert.

If your narrative was actually real, he would have credited the actual 4 songwriters, not beyonce with her less than 5% credit.

Whether or not you personally agree that melodic changes, new composition of instrumental, or even small lyric changes should constitute a writing credit, legally they do.

Beyoncé's version factually adds new melodies and elements that made it different than the original. Because her version with Ed then becomes one of the definitive versions and one that is separately different than Ed's she is technically entitled to her writing credit, which unless constitutes an unfair share of the royalties, shouldn't really be a problem. Beyoncé provides this same thing to anyone else who adds minor changes to her songs too, which is why she often has so many writers, which is why her former assistant has writing credits after giving Beyoncé the word "upgrade".

 

The irony here is that we are apparently so shocked and appalled that Beyoncé takes writing credit for having indeed altered the sound of a song but aren't lamenting when she gives credits to others, nor lamenting when others take all credit despite having input from others too. If some people wish to not work this way, cool, but that does not mean everyone must.

In the words of Ed:

"She rung me up and was like I don't know how you feel about this but I've taken all the instruments off it and it's just going to be acoustic guitar...and then when we got in together it wasn't so much notes it was just we, it was very much like a back and forth thing like 'what you think of this?' 'yes'. or 'what you think of this?'"

 

 

Edited February 20 by swissman

[swissman]

23 minutes ago, Mornings said:

For everyone telling the writers to just not accept the contract and not work with Beyonce, I actually agree. I would LOVE to hear the music beyonce would write by herself

You can start at Jumpin' Jumpin' which she wrote herself based on an instrumental intended for a rap song. The producer was shocked when Matthew sent back what Beyoncé wrote, but realized he had to give them the track despite it being meant for a rapper because it worked so well.

 

You can then follow it up with the eleven-week #1 hit Independent Women which she again wrote herself before it was slightly reworked with new producers who have said they led Beyoncé lead the subsequent changes.

 

Both songs each have minimal input from other writers that happened after the fact, but if you at all subscribe to the logic that changing some parts of a song ISN'T songwriting, then you must apply that same logic to these songs as well.

[False God]

That's,what you get when you cant create your own music

[False God]

18 hours ago, CandleGuy said:

So the artist should get 0% of the royalties just because they didn't write the song?

 

Isn't having a cut of publishing the only way the artist gets paid from streams and sales?

if they did not write then they should not have publishing royalties. 

 

Artist get royalties thru performing royalties

[False God]

18 hours ago, IsidoraMarí said:

Artist always bring Rihanna up when discussing publishing because she is the golden standard of humility and grace. 

 

 

This is why I respect Riri more than Bey. Riri does not gives a sht if she did not write her hit. 

[QueenBLadyG]

Let's see if we can get this thread to more pages than the Kelis thread!

[Mornings]

34 minutes ago, swissman said:

You can start at Jumpin' Jumpin' which she wrote herself based on an instrumental intended for a rap song. The producer was shocked when Matthew sent back what Beyoncé wrote, but realized he had to give them the track despite it being meant for a rapper because it worked so well.

 

You can then follow it up with the eleven-week #1 hit Independent Women which she again wrote herself before it was slightly reworked with new producers who have said they led Beyoncé lead the subsequent changes.

 

Both songs each have minimal input from other writers that happened after the fact, but if you at all subscribe to the logic that changing some parts of a song ISN'T songwriting, then you must apply that same logic to these songs as well.

Amazing! So she should theoretically have no problem doing it again. Those songs she actually earned the credits and the percentages, so let’s keep it consistent.