Copyrights generate royalties.
Royalty is a concept that has different uses. The most common refers to the money that the owner of a right obtains when someone uses it . This means that, when a person exploits another person's right, he or she must pay royalties.
Some products and techniques are protected from the imposition of royalty payments for those who wish to follow the standards that characterize them. Such is the case of USB connections and ports: when a manufacturer wants to include this technology in its products, it does not have to pay its creators.
Copyright and royalties
Copyrights constitute the most frequent case of royalty generation. The composer who has registered a certain song of his authorship collects royalties every time someone performs his song in public or records it. For example: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards earn royalties from all versions of “(I can't get no) Satisfaction” that other artists record.
Although it is never advisable to talk about the lives of famous people, since for most people there is not even the remotest possibility of meeting them face to face and verifying everything that is said about them (neither the well-intentioned things nor the destructive rumors). One of the most talked about stories in relation to royalties is that of Michael Jackson and the rights to almost all of The Beatles' songs .
Broadly speaking, it is said that Paul McCartney desperately sought to obtain these rights after the horrible death of John Lennon , but that he did not achieve his goal since the amount needed considerably exceeded his available capital . A couple of years later, he met Michael Jackson and explained to him the benefits of buying the rights to other people's songs and shared with him his concern about not being able to raise the money necessary to acquire his own band's songs, after which Jackson lit up. and put into practice what he learned, until he acquired The Beatles ' songs.
The evidence currently available of such an event that divided the fans of both artists at the time and continues to spark more than one discussion against Jackson and in favor of McCartney is the endless number of stories by the latter versus the cameras, in which he repeats over and over again that Michael warned him twice before doing so that he was willing to buy his songs, to which Paul reacted as if it were a practical joke; There was no third time, but rather a phone call that confirmed the transaction .
Royalties are royalties charged by the State to allow the exploitation of certain natural resources.
The royalties
The State also charges royalties when it allows the exploitation of certain natural resources . In this case, we also often talk about royalties : “The Government has obtained ten million dollars in the last year in royalties for mining activity” , “The economy of this country is supported by the royalties paid by foreign firms” .
Royalties can be percentages tied to sales and production or fixed amounts . The determination depends on the laws in force in each country.
Royalties in the Old Regime
The notion of royalties also appears in the so-called Ancien Régime (the feudalist system that existed before the French Revolution ). In this case, the term mentions those rights that derived from the sovereignty exercised by the monarchs.
Royalties were the exclusive prerogatives of the monarch and an inherent part of his reign. The power to issue currency, declare war , and administer justice were among the royalties of the kings of the Old Regime .
In this context, royalties are also known as jura regalia (with its singular jus regale ) and iura regalia ( ius regale , singular), and include certain symbolic elements with a particularly sacred character (such as the crown , scepter and sword , among others), in addition to the already mentioned political, economic and social attributions.