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The Monster Hit “Uptown Funk” Forced To Add More Writers To Songwriting Credits

Uptown Funk

Songwriting credits for “Uptown Funk!” went to four people initially: Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars, Phillip Martin Lawrence and Jeffrey Bhasker. However, before the song was even released it had gained two more: Nicholas Williams (AKA Trinidad James) and producer Devon Gallaspy, the authors of “All Gold Everything,” both receiving a share for a sampling interpolation. This credit was shared at the behest of the original songwriters/publishers; Billboard’s sources say the team behind the hit reached out to Gallaspy and Williams without prompting. Gallaspy and Williams spit a 15 percent take, leaving the original four songwriters with a 21.25 percent share each. Downloads of “Uptown Funk!” hit sales of 5.5 million units in the U.S., while Ronson’s album scanned 95,000 units, according to Nielsen Music — about $510,000 in U.S. mechanical publishing royalties (at $0.091 per song). 

Taking into account both U.S. mechanicals and the five YouTube videos using the master recording that Billboard analyzed, the song will have produced about $840,000 in publishing revenue — before being split between the publishers and the songwriters. As sources told Billboard, two months ago Minder Music, on behalf of the Gap Band, put in a claim in the YouTube system, driving its system to flag the song for having ownership claims above 100 percent, causing YouTube to cease payments to all publishers and placing the revenue in escrow until the ownership claims are resolved. That situation resulted in another settlement, which sees the “Oops” songwriters/band members — Charlie, Robert and Ronnie Wilson along with keyboardist Rudolph Taylor and producer Lonnie Simmons — each receiving 3.4 percent of the song, a total of 17 percent. Consequently, all four original songwriters now each get 17 percent of the song — down 4.25 percent each had prior to the Gap Band’s claim. Executives from the publishing firms affiliated with “Uptown Funk!” have divided opinions on whether the recent “Blurred Lines” lawsuit played a role in the further splitting of songwriting credit for the song.

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