This occured to me while reading the question about touring the Fire albums. What is the legal situation with the Fire albums? Do Pulp/Jarvis have any control over the music at all? Do they receive royalties from reissues etc? If anyone can answer this I'd be most interested.
They'll get royalties as per their original contract with Fire. They don't seem to have any control over what Fire does with the actual material (hence the fact that it's been licensed out to other labels for lots of compilations over the years), but stuff like the previously unreleased bonus tracks on the new It reissue would have to happen with their permission.
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"Yes I saw her in the chip shop / so I said get yer top off"
I'm curious as to why they've still not been able to get the rights to Everybody's Problem / There Was / What Do You Say / Sickly Grin - is there's another rights-holder out there who is requesting a ridiculously high fee?
Everybody's Problem and There Was belong to Cherry Red; What Do You Say and Sickly Grin presumably belong to the band themselves. I don't know if it's a matter of the fee being ridiculously high. Probably more that it's just not worth their while licensing stuff from elsewhere when there's stuff they already own that they can release without it costing anything!
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"Yes I saw her in the chip shop / so I said get yer top off"
Sure, but I suppose the question is then 'what's so different about Sink Or Swim and Please Don't Worry?' If they're negotiating with the band again it seems strange not to get the best known rarities on there. But I suppose there are plenty of strange decisions they've taken in the past, and the legal situation is probably so tangled only the band's lawyers can get to grips with it. It's surely not anything to do with Your Secret's Safe With Us and Caff.
I don't think Statik or Caff will own anything - for one-off things like that the usual thing would be to licence the recording from the band. The band would still retain ownership.
As for why those tracks aren't on the It reissue - no idea. It looks like they're just sticking to the outtakes from the main album sessions for whatever reason.
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"Yes I saw her in the chip shop / so I said get yer top off"
I doubt that Pulp is dealing with Fire at all for the rereleases. I don't know the details of the whole debacle--I presume the filings were never made public (who needs filings when we have Sturdy anyway! ). Their original contract with Fire might have been more ambiguous about which recordings the label would own, but I'm sure the settlement agreement was painfully specific.
From all indications, the band would never license any additional recordings to Fire, since they have been very clear about their distaste for the whole situation. I assume the band signed a bad contract, maybe a crappy royalty rate and less control over their material than they realized. In previous threads people have mentioned all the money that Fire spent on artwork and promotion; remember that all of that (including any advance the band may have received) gets recouped before anything is disbursed to the band.
Their original contract with Fire might have been more ambiguous about which recordings the label would own
What makes you think that?
From all indications, the band would never license any additional recordings to Fire
The bonus tracks on the new version of It suggest otherwise.
In previous threads people have mentioned all the money that Fire spent on artwork and promotion; remember that all of that (including any advance the band may have received) gets recouped before anything is disbursed to the band.
Really? Jarvis did the artwork for most of the Fire releases himself, and I rather hope those £600 recording budgets (Freaks) and £200 video budgets (Legendary Girlfriend), not forgetting all those black and white photocopied press releases, will have been paid for by now!
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"Yes I saw her in the chip shop / so I said get yer top off"
I wasn't being sarcastic, Mark! I trust that you would know more about this than anyone. Unreleased recordings are sometimes a grey area with recording contracts, and since there was a settlement agreement when the band left the label, I would think they would specify which recordings could be controlled by whom (since they can only be specific once the recordings exist). Like I said, I don't know why Pulp were so unhappy with their contract. Maybe they're not bitter towards the label anymore, my impression was that they wanted nothing to do with Fire. Of course it would be surprising if the costs from the original release were not recouped by now, but there are also mastering, production and marketing costs associated with every release, and all of that (usually) comes off the top before any royalties are disbursed. I hope that the band makes money off these releases. I think it's sad when artists lose the right to control their own music, but I suppose it's fair for Fire to exploit the recordings since they did take the risk of signing them all those years ago.
I don't know why Pulp were so unhappy with their contract.
I think it was a culmination of a lot of things, but the final dispute was over the fact that Pulp had signed a five (or was it seven?) album deal with them before Separations, meaning that when Island came knocking they weren't free to walk away and sign with them. The process of extricating them from that situation was messy and protracted and caused a lot of rancour on both sides.
It was a very long time ago though. I don't know for a fact that Jarvis is involved with this current set of reissues, but then I can't see how else they'd have got hold of these extra tracks, or the original tapes to remaster from (last seen circa 1997 under Jarvis' bed).
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"Yes I saw her in the chip shop / so I said get yer top off"
Fire's possibly got a whole new set of people working there now? Was the guy incharge called Clive Solomon? Is he gone? It's hard to hold a grudge with a company if the people you're now dealing with are different. Although Joss Whedon might disagree...
I notice that in Mother,Brother, Lover the earlier songs, My Lighthouse, 97 Lovers, Little Girl, Legendary Girlfriend, Countdown, are left to the end of the publishing details and it says 'with thanks to Fire Songs'
Clive Solomon yes... he's still involved, but in much more of an arm's length sort of way these days. The people running the label from day to day (and co-ordinating the reissues) are a completely different crew from the old days.
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"Yes I saw her in the chip shop / so I said get yer top off"
). Their original contract with Fire might have been more ambiguous about which recordings the label would own, but I'm sure the settlement agreement was painfully specific. 
