Dissuading work arrange relationships

MusicBrainz
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This song was written by Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine on, for instance, a guitar. Tony Carbonare listened to this song and said “I can make this better for you” and he arranged this song for the complete band with extra music etc.

In that case Tony Carbonare is an important part of this work, shouldn’t be deleted and belongs to the work as co-writer.

This is exactly that. Tony C is the arranger in chief (“direction des arrangements et réalisation”). HFT and TC are long time collaborators. HFT came with a melody, lyrics, and TC did the orchestration. BTW, some years later, HFT was not happy with TC’s arrangements; what happened? He hired another arranger (Claude Mairet).

There are two kinds of arrangements:

  • The minor ones, the ones you expect from any musician that is playing their instrument while reading the music score. Those arrangements don’t deserve the “arranger” role in the ISWC databases, i.e. they don’t deserve any royalties.

  • The major ones, the one that is left to professional arrangers. This is an official occupation. Some years ago, you even had to pass an exam in order to be registered as “arranger” in the SACEM database. Those are the arrangements that turn a music score (credited to the composer) to what you actually listen to and keep in memory. This is what make you choose to buy one version over another and this is why arrangers are credited and earn royalties for their work.

For example, in Lemon Incest, one of his top songs, Gainsbourg is wrongly credited as a composer. Officially, he is just an arranger on that song (as mentioned in the credits and in the SACEM db). This is because the song is based on one of Chopin’s studies. Seriously, are we going to remove SG from Lemon Incest’s credits?

Another example of the work of arrangers and the importance of their role: this song (ISWC T-902.272.616.5, arranger T. Chapman) and this one (ISWC T-900.760.225.7, arranger A. Price) are both based on the same traditional folk song. Remove the lyrics, would you have guessed? Remove Alan Price from his work, what are you left with? Only the publisher. It doesn’t make any sense.

A professional arrangement is an orchestration. If the arranger is credited in the ISWC dbs, then we must consider their role as major for that song and they should be mentioned at the work level (as arranger, or orchestrator, or co-composer like it is done for Lemon Incest). If the arrangement is mentioned on the release only, then only apply the AR to the recordings, not to the work.

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I don’t underestimate arrangements at all, I know very well their importance.
And for me it’s very associated with the specific recording of the work.
I value recordings way more than works, actually, as it is those versions that I actually listen to and keep in memory. :wink:

But I am not against this work arrange edit, specifically, I don’t know enough, obviously.

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Once again I probably don’t know this enough but I would have used the same original work, adding this iswc to it, and link the Alan Price cover recordings with their proper arrange relationships, for a work that I would recognise more enough to edit.

We should have a new work when lyrics or chords or melody changes.
Not when arrangements, even drastic, change, IMO.
Arrangements and producing (and performance of course) are what make recordings interesting.

If Bob Marley would make a reggae version of a Beatles song, it would still be a cover recording.

We don’t need one work per recording.

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I would have used the same original work, adding this iswc to it, and link the Alan Price cover recordings with their proper arrange relationships, for a work that I would recognise more enough to edit.

OK, so you are suggesting that we completely ignore the way works are registered worldwide at the right management societies and that e.g. all English derivative works of The House of the Rising Sun be merged into the traditional folk song. What would only remain here in MB are the adaptations to foreign languages.

So you would move the ISWC of all those derivative works to the original work. But what about the work attributes (SACEM ID, GEMA ID, etc)? What about the AR that pertain to a specific derivative (publisher, premiered by, commissioned by, etc)? What about external links (scores, etc)? I assume you would merge all those information as well, like the ISWC? To me it would be detrimental.

We should have a new work when lyrics or chords or melody changes.
Not when arrangements, even drastic, change, IMO.

So, when the music industry decides that some drastic changes to a work is creative enough to deserve a new work in the ISWC db (e.g. The Animals arrangements of The House of the Rising Sun, which prevails over the traditional song for many covers and adaptations) we should ignore that. Do we really know better?

If Bob Marley would make a reggae version of a Beatles song, it would still be a cover recording.

It depends. You seem to deliberately ignore the difference between minor/trivial arrangements from major arrangements despite what I wrote about them above. The latter is significant enough to allow the creation of new works in the ISWC dbs along with the addition of an arranger role. If you are disregarding the difference between a cover and a derivative work, you are overlooking a fundamental issue in music copyright.

We don’t need one work per recording.

Please, let’s not resort to straw man arguments. I didn’t say anything like that. I say that works (including derived works) and relationships (including arrangers) in the ISWC dbs should be reflected here by creating the corresponding entries and AR. The ISWC dbs don’t have one work per recording.

My point: if someone is credited in the ISWC dbs, even as an arranger, they should stay credited here (except blatant errors). A composer that credits an arranger in the ISWC db is sharing their royalties with them. By accepting such a loss of income, they acknowledge that the arranger has brought a decisive value to a work. We should not remove them here.

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Just to note that there is no 1 to 1 relation between MB works and royalty DB works.

I don’t think they really decide anything.
I think it’s rather that they follow artist declarations. Artists decide who will receive royalties. Like when Bob Marley wants to support VINCENT FORD’s life with NO WOMAN NO CRY royalties.

Which is interesting information but something else than real credits.

On the same topic, it would be interesting to be able to store artist official declarations (what we already do) together with actual presumed credits, like band credits given for all songs (thinking of LUNA SEA) but we know this song is rather from SUGIZO, that one from INORAN, etc.

Back on the topic, we don’t need or we should not be 1 to 1 basis between MB works and royalty database’s works.

I don’t have example in mind but I do have already assigned several distinct SACEM IDs to same MB work.
It’s a little bit like what we do with ISRC on recordings.

In the opposite direction, most original works share same JASRAC ID with all translations, but should still be distinct MB works.

But I really leave it up to editors and voters to manage arrange credits on HUBERT FÉLIX THIÉFAINE works, no problem.

This arrange issue is to be dealt with on case by case basis.