A decision was made in court recently in London which could open the flood gates for people muscling in on royalties received from music. The song in question was ‘Whiter Shade Of Pale’ performed by Procol Harum and written by Gary Brooker. Well that’s what he thought, He has been collecting the royalties from one of the most played songs in history for the last 40 years. Now he has to hand over 40% of all future earnings to Matthew Fisher who co wrote the song.

Now Ive started this as though Mr Fisher is a bad guy and Mr Brooker shouldnt have to hand anything over, In reality, i think it should have been sorted out originally so it never got to this point. However; Mt Fisher has now won a landmark case in the courts were he has won the right to collect 40% of the future royalties of the song.

ll This might not sound like much but the re is one key factor in the case. By law anyone with a case to bring to court has to do so within 6 years of the original incident happening, the only change to this is for a personal injury claim. However this song was wrote 40 years ago which i don’t need to tell you; is a lot longer than 6 years!! This case now opens the door for people to make claims on music they have help write but have never had a say on the royalties, This case has shown that the law surrounding royalties does not apply the 6 year rule that all other cases hold. We now watch and wait and see who comes out of the woodwork! That gets me thinking; am old enough to have feasibly wrote the Beatles catalogue?!