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Dolly Parton and thousands of lesser-known artists will get nearly $50 million in unclaimed royalties from the country's largest recording companies, who agreed to work harder to track down musicians to whom money is owed, the state attorney general said Tuesday.
The settlement was the result of a two-year investigation by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer into why some artists were not being paid royalties by the record companies, who already have doled out $25 million in payments since the probe began. Another $25 million is expected to be paid out, and the companies have agreed to post on their Web sites names of artists who are owed money. They will also place ads in major industry publications and work with industry groups, unions and each other to locate artists whose contact information is not up to date.
That was good news to Don Fleming, the director of licensing for the Manhattan-based Alan Lomax Archive and the Association for Cultural Equity, named for the record producer who discovered Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Fleming, who has tracked down heirs of artists Lomax produced, said his impression was that the major labels rarely attempted to find the people to whom they owed royalties.
However, the Internet has made it easier than ever to track down artists and their heirs, Fleming said. Spitzer's office said many of the artists owed money may have had just one recording; Fleming said that he has contacted heirs of artists in the Deep South who were never even aware a family member had recorded anything, much less had accrued royalties.
"There never has been a precedent for it being the job of the label to keep these records current," Fleming said. "It's up to the artist to let them know if they've moved, and I think most of the time that just doesn't happen."
But the Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying arm of the five major music labels, said companies do try to find missing owners of unclaimed royalties and have begun working with states to hand over payments for governments to hold until a legitimate claimant can be found, a procedure called escheating.
The companies included BMG Music, EMI Music Publishing, SONY Music Entertainment, Universal Music and Warner Music Group.
The industry group said that between 1991 and 2001, the major labels paid $9 billion in royalties to U.S. artists, but that unclaimed royalties are "a very tiny fraction of that."
"The RIAA member music companies are committed to ensuring royalties are paid to those who have earned them," said Steven Marks, general counsel for the RIAA. "The agreements announced today with the New York State Attorney General are the results of two years of cooperative efforts and reflect our members' determination that the focus stay on making sure royalties get to their deserving owners: the artists."
According to Spitzer, the record companies responded rapidly to the investigation and $25 million had already been disbursed to those who were owed money.
Most of the remaining $25 million would be returned in the "near term," he said.
