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December 20, 2006 at 01:01:00 PM | more stories by this author
Judge rules that founding member's organ riff in "Lighter Shade of Pale" was worth a 40 percent share in the copyright royalties from the song.
Matthew Fisher, a former organist for '60s rock band Procol Harum, won a 40 percent share of the copyright of the band's most famous song, "Lighter Shade of Pale."
Procol Harum, with Fisher second from right.
There has been no word whether Fisher followed the cryptic lyrics of the song and "skipped the light fandango and turned cartwheels 'cross the floor" of the London courtroom in which he won the case today.
A judge determined that Fisher's signature organ riff in the song was worth a 40 percent share in the copyright royalties, striking a blow to the band's frontman Gary Brooker and lyricist Keith Reid, who had shared credit for the hit song, which became part of the soundtrack for the hippy "summer of love" of 1967.
The duo are set to appeal the ruling, but Fisher is to receive 40 percent of the song's royalties dating back to May 2005, when he filed his lawsuit against his former bandmates. Fisher left the band in 1969 and is now a computer programmer living in south London. Brooker, who still tours with Procol Harum, claimed that he and Reid wrote the song before Fisher joined the band in March 1967.
"I have come to the view that Mr. Fisher's interest in the work should be reflected by according him a 40 percent share of the musical copyright," the written judgment said. "His contribution to the overall work was on any view substantial but not, in my judgment, as substantial as that of Mr. Brooker."
The judge said the song's organ solo "is a distinctive and significant contribution to the overall composition and quite obviously the product of skill and labor on the part of the person who created it."
In a statement, Brooker and Reid said Fisher's court victory created a dangerous precedent because it meant any musician who had played on any recording in the past 40 years could claim joint authorship.
"It is effectively open season on the songwriter," they said. "It will mean that unless all musicians' parts are written for them, no publisher or songwriter will be able to risk making a recording for fear of a possible claim of songwriting credit."
