Originally Posted by
jobeterob
I was responding generally, not to you.
When Florence signed her royalties away, any money saved went to Motown Record Corporation. It's shareholders were Berry and his family I gather, maybe a few others.
But all of their shares are gone - Motown is owned by the Universal Company. I imagine it's a public company any of us can buy shares in. It has a CEO. It has a Board of Directors. They are responsible to the shareholders of Universal and I bet there are pension funds that own some shares and a bunch of rich people. The Board is there to make money for the shareholders.
They are not going to give away royalties to anyone. The CEO would be making that decision and he'd never do it. And they are too busy trying to find new areas to market into because as we see, they put nothing into Expanded Motown Editions. The royalties on Motown music aren't so much anymore.
Way way back, R. Dean Taylor was on here and he said the money he got from Love Child was next to nothing; it was divided between 27 different people and just didn't amount to much. And that was before CDs died.
I recall Diana Ross set up some money for Florence's children; maybe others tried or did.
But the children have no claim to anything from Berry Gordy, Motown, or Universal. And Universal owns everything. And they would never set a precedent by giving it away.
P.S. Regarding Flo leaving of her own volition, I guess Motown would have been thrilled if she had and then she would have got absolutely nothing; but sure, it would depend on her contract. If Diana had bailed on Motown and gone to Columbia, they sure would have sued her and asked for injunctions to bar recording etc. But Flo wasn't Diana.
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