We all know that when a celebrity dies, there stock goes up. You buy their music and their music is played through out television shows and commercials. This could be great for the estate of the deceased, but what happens when the artist didn’t write or own their music?
Country singer Dolly Parton may be seeing a lot of new checks coming in due to the tragic events of Whitney Houston’s death. Dolly, who wrote “I Will Always Love You”, will receive writer & publishing rates and with the spike in radio play and television spots, this means big money. The average publishing rate is 8cents per radio spin. Now imagine how often you’ve heard “I Will Always Love You” since last week. Now multiply that by the hundreds & maybe thousands of radio stations in the country (including AM/FM, Satellite and Internet Radio). Whitney, who didn’t pen any of her huge hits, only received an advance from her label based upon projected sales.
Speaking of sales, If you went to purchase Whitney’s music in the last week and noticed it was more expensive than usual, that’s because it was. Merely 30 minutes after her death, Sony significantly raised the prices on Whitney’s digital albums by 25-60%. They later claimed that it was a “mistake” after receiving much backlash. Sony, that isn’t right and it’s DEFINITELY not okay!
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