Opinion: Mick Jagger Possibly Donating Rolling Stones Catalogue to Charity

As a classic rock fan who dabbles in writing about politics from time to time, I saw this story of Mick Jagger saying that when he passes away he is considering donating the Rolling Stones catalogue to charity on social media and a friend of mine was very curious to know what I thought about it. As we all know, the news can work a bit like the game telephone where the truth gets distorted because of people misinterpreting quotes or taking things out of context, so let’s take a closer look at this story.

The Story

The news stories are focusing on a quote about his fortune from an interview he did with the Wall Street Journal to promote The Rolling Stones’ upcoming album. On October 20, The Rolling Stones are releasing a new album called Hackney Diamonds, the band’s first studio album of original material in 18 years. It is also their first album released after the death of Charlie Watts, who died in 2021 (he contributed to some tracks on Hackney Diamonds, but most of the drumming was done by Steve Jordan). There are some guest contributions from Elton John, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, and bassist Bill Wyman. Their last studio album with original songs was A Bigger Bang, released in 2005. Their 2016 studio album, Blue and Lonesome, was an album of covers of blues songs by musicians who influenced them like Buddy Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Magic Sam, Eddie Taylor, and Willie Dixon.

Mick Jagger was talking about the business and money side of music and with him being 80 years old and more and more boomer rock stars dying every year, what’s going to happen with the money and the catalogue was a question asked in the interview. Unfortunately The Wall Street Journal hides their articles behind a paywall so it’s impossible for me to find out without forking out money. How elitist of them, practices like this just lead to more fake news and misinformation because people can’t see the articles for themselves and come to their own conclusions, unless they have the disposable income to pay for a subscription, which is hard to come by these days. Shows that these news organisations only really care about profit, not truth.

Anyway, Mick Jagger merely suggests that he may donate part of his fortune to charity because his kids don’t need $500 million to live on and that donating to charity does some good in the world. An important thing to note is that Mick Jagger only has the rights to The Rolling Stones’ catalogue from 1971 onwards. Anything from the 60s, he doesn’t have because The Rolling Stones ended their partnership with Allen Klein. Also in the interview he talks about the possibilities of AI technology keeping the band’s music alive even long after the band members pass away. ABBA haven’t played a concert in decades, but last year a two year virtual concert residency called ABBA Voyage began in London and is set to run until November 2024. Holograms of Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, and Anni-Frid in 1979 “appear” on stage while a live band backs them. Not my thing – I’m not gonna spend money to hear what are essentially the vocals from a live album with a backing band with some fancy visuals. Not worth it to me. I’d rather see new bands and when you see smaller acts in smaller venues you’re closer to the band, you might have a chance of meeting them (it’s happened to me before!), the show feels more personal, it’s great to support local artists and businesses, and it’s way cheaper too. Some live gigs are cheaper than a movie ticket, so I don’t understand how someone has no problem dropping money to see Barbenheimer (IMAX ain’t cheap!), but baulks at spending less money seeing a local band.

Anyway, there’s a lot to unpack with this Mick Jagger situation. I have a lot of thoughts so where do I begin? I guess I’ll break it down into three different sections: one talking about copyright, another talking about rich people and taxes, and another talking about my issues with charity.

Copyright

A lot of musicians these days are selling the rights to their catalogues for hundreds of millions of dollars. The catalogues are usually bought by corporations or incredibly rich people. Art is only one side of music, there’s also business and I don’t know much about the business side of things because it bores me.

As a writer, I totally understand the need for copyright. I wouldn’t want someone to steal my hard work and then take credit for it and make money off it while I get nothing. People need an incentive to create and innovate, that’s reality. Like it or not, money is the motivator under the current system and it probably would be the same case under socialism. People deserve to make a living from their work and copyright is important. But at some point, if someone’s made millions off their work, isn’t that enough? Does someone need hundreds of millions or billions of dollars? I don’t think so. If a creator has children, it makes sense for them to be taken care of, sure. But when artists are making hundreds of millions or billions off their work that means that not only they and their children are set for life, but so would their grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on. Generational wealth! Should they get to profit off their ancestor’s work when they had nothing to do with it? They weren’t even alive when those songs were written. They weren’t the ones who created it! The offspring of The Beatles and Rolling Stones had just as much a part in writing and composing that music as you or I do, none! This debate isn’t just a question for socialists, but also a question for capitalists. Socialism is supposed to be collectivistic. Why should a few make boatloads of money, while the many barely have enough to survive off of? Capitalism is supposed to be individualistic. Why do you get to profit off someone else’s work just because you descend from them?

Thanks to corporations like Disney, and I mean thanks in the most sarcastic way, copyright law has been reformed to favour the wealthy and things go into the public domain way later, if at all. Disney always seems to have the rules bent in their favour (because they give money to politicians) and Mickey Mouse the character is still copyrighted, even though Steamboat Willie should go public domain any day now. In the United States, copyrighted works go into the public domain either 95 years after publication or 70 years after the author’s death, which in my opinion is a bit too long. I think it should be 25 years after the author’s death at most! Ideally, works should go into the public domain 50 years after publication, regardless if the creator is dead or alive. Fifty years is more than enough time to make your money off a song, poem, book, movie, play, painting, whatever creative work you can think of. You wanna keep making money, create something new. Don’t rest on your laurels. Hey capitalists, there’s nothing capitalist about resting on your laurels.

As a person who writes about classic rock and is soon to release a book, the issue of copyright and song lyrics is especially noteworthy to me, because one of the rules in book publishing is you can’t quote anything that isn’t in the public domain without permission, even if it would otherwise be fair use like if you were to do a YouTube video and you quote some song lyrics. I have some academia background and one big difference is because academic work isn’t for profit for you the academic anyway, you have more leeway in quoting copyrighted materials. Meanwhile with books, there’s profit, well if you’re lucky anyway. For a small independent writer like me, this really is still at the passion project level for me and it looks bad for a big time rock star to sue the little guy who loves their work for merely quoting one bloody line from a song, it’s not like the book’s gonna cannibalise sales of it! More like the opposite, if anything. Very shortsighted way of thinking to sue people for quoting your work. Reminds me of how video game companies would sue people in the early days of YouTube for doing let’s plays of their video games, which are free advertising! Theoretically, permission should be easy enough to get, but most of the time it isn’t and this chilling effect on creativity hurts smaller creators who don’t have the clout of a famous name or the might of a big company. Unfortunately, the law doesn’t care about your feelings.

If you’re a music fan, you know that covers can be done in an inspired and creative way and sometimes can be even better than the original or bring something new and fresh to the table. There’s art in remixes, fanfics, fan art, and fancams too (just watch Neil Cicierega’s “Bustin”, it’s hilarious and so well done) and it’s a shame that copyright law creates a chilling effect on creativity. It needs to be reformed, but as long as corporations run the government, it’s not gonna happen.

Public domain isn’t just a socialist thing, it’s also a capitalist thing. Reforming copyright laws is something we can all agree on whether we’re economically to the left or the right. Like it or not, everyone borrows from something that came before them. Nothing is truly original in this world. By borrowing from the past we can innovate by building upon what came before us, improving it and making something old fresh again. Disney does it all the time and they abuse it! Makes me wonder how innovative capitalism really is. How many public domain stories does Disney make film adaptations of and then they claim that the source material is theirs, just because they made the most popular adaptation of it?

There’s a balance. People deserve to make money off their work, but how much money? An author’s children/family should be taken care of and that’s why I don’t think that copyright should expire upon death. Sometimes an author dies young and leaves behind children and a spouse/partner, and they should be taken care of. But why should the grandchildren and great-grandchildren get to profit? Isn’t that taking the piss? If you have a family member who works at a factory, you don’t continue to receive their paycheque after they die. Why should creative work be any different?

Capitalism

Rich or poor, everyone hates taxes. Some say it’s straight up theft, while others say it’s a necessary evil. My opinion is somewhere in the middle. I think that taxation is theft if it doesn’t go back to the people. Under the current system in my birth country of the United States, I think taxation is absolutely theft because the military budget is way too high and the United States still doesn’t have universal healthcare and still doesn’t have tuition free university for all citizens and permanent residents. Education and healthcare are necessities and I think it’s the government’s job to guarantee a basic minimum for all citizens and I think education, healthcare, housing, transport, and utilities are things that every person needs. If it’s something that people need in order to live, the government should subsidise it and it should either be free at point of use or extremely cheap.

If you’re rich, it’s in your interest to pay as little tax as possible, which is why rich people will start charitable foundations, move to another country to pay less tax, and avail of any tax loopholes. That’s why you’ll see a lot of British rock stars claim residency in other countries so they don’t have to pay as much tax. The Rolling Stones famously became tax exiles in France and named one of their albums after the fact they did this – Exile on Main St. In the classic rock fandom there’s a meme about Mick Jagger being a Tory. And with takes like “Margaret Thatcher isn’t so bad, I don’t see why everyone hates her” (I’m paraphrasing) and a biography called Backstage Pass VIP portraying him as a “closet tory”, there’s definitely truth to that theory. At the very least, Mick Jagger is out of touch. I don’t look up to classic rockers politically for the most part. They’re pretty much either one flavour of establishment or another. At the end of the day the Democrats are just the Republicans with a rainbow coat of paint on them. I like how Malcolm X put it:

“The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox.”

If you want it in song format, Phil Ochs said it well in “Love Me, I’m a Liberal”.

Why Charity Sucks

There were a couple things that completely opened my eyes to the evils of charity and the first, that’s relatively easy to get into as it’s a video, is a clip of Slavoj Zizek’s talk on cultural capitalism, and the other is an essay that Zizek quotes in that clip: The Soul of Man Under Socialism by Oscar Wilde. I don’t usually read about socialism but the latter was just so well written, I was left shook, like my brain chemistry was altered. “The worst slave owners were those who were kind to their slaves and so prevented the horror of the system being realised” quote reminded me so much of MLK’s “white moderate” quote from Letter From a Birmingham Jail:

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

These quotes were crucial in shaping the way I think about politics and the world. Sometimes you see something so well said that it really makes you think and that’s what these quotes did for me. Going back to The Soul of Man Under Socialism, I saw this great line about charity:

“It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.”

I loved this line so much that I made a Simpsons meme of it that I post whenever I see people cheering on rich people and acting like they’re such amazing people for donating peanuts to charity.

There’s another great quote from Friedrich Engels that has the same sentiment and I think applies even more to Mick Jagger saying that he’s thinking of donating most of his net worth to charity:

“The English bourgeoisie is charitable out of self-interest; it gives nothing outright, but regards its gifts as a business matter, makes a bargain with the poor, saying: “If I spend this much upon benevolent institutions, I thereby purchase the right not to be troubled any further, and you are bound thereby to stay in your dusky holes and not to irritate my tender nerves by exposing your misery. You shall despair as before, but you shall despair unseen, this I require, this I purchase with my subscription of twenty pounds for the infirmary!”

Rather than the rich donating their wealth to charity, I’d rather see them pay their fair share of taxes to begin with which means government programmes are properly funded and charity wouldn’t be necessary. If the rich paid their fair share of taxes in the first place, we’d actually have enough money for a universal healthcare system and tuition free university for all, and that helps way more people than charity. I can’t remember where I heard this, but every charity is a policy failure. People shouldn’t have to depend on charity to get the necessities like healthcare and housing. The problem with charity is that they can pick and choose who is worthy and often there’s discrimination like the Salvation Army and their history of discrimination against the LGBT community. At least when the government helps people, it’s a bit more egalitarian – could still be better, but I’d rather improve the government than put hope into a charity. And don’t get me started on nonprofit CEOs taking money for themselves and barely any of the money going to actually helping people.

The rich making a show of being charitable like “look at me, look how good of a person I am” gives me the ick. If you’re going to be altruistic it should come from the kindness of your heart, not so you can get karma brownie points, applause, and give yourself self-congratulatory pats on the back.

On YouTube there’s been this big trend of rich guys making a show out of giving money to the less fortunate, in other words, poverty porn, and the leader in that genre is MrBeast. If you dare criticise MrBeast, get ready for his army of zoomer fans who will call you jealous and accuse you of not wanting to help the poor. There was a video where he paid for 1,000 people to get a surgery that would restore their vision and it’s great that 1,000 people were helped, don’t get me wrong, but this isn’t something that should be necessary to begin with and it makes me sick that he makes content that makes him look like some sort of hero. This surgery should have been paid for by the government through universal healthcare. The US needs universal healthcare, stat. Healthcare shouldn’t be a lottery. People shouldn’t have to go on a game show or a reality show to get necessary medical care. This is not a radical idea. This isn’t pie in the sky. People should just be able to get the care they need without begging for a wealthy benefactor to help them out. If rich people paid their fair share of taxes from the start and politics wasn’t beholden to corporate interests, then maybe we’d have a system that works for the many, and not the few. People could actually live in dignity. That’s what I want. There’s a great video that critiques MrBeast and his brand of cultural capitalism and I highly recommend you watch it, fan or not.

I have more respect, I suppose, for rich people who are unabashed about their wealth than those who pretend they’re such good people and so generous for donating a few bob to charity. 

I am not applauding Mick Jagger for saying he’s gonna donate money to charity when he goes. His kids are set for life anyway (and I highly doubt he’s gonna leave them nothing), if you’re the child of an A-list rock star, to say you get a leg up in life is a massive understatement, it’s more like an elevator. A wealthy rock star has connections. I’m sure you’ve heard of the whole discourse on nepo babies (there’s a whole meme in indie music about never asking an indie musician why their parents’ names are blue on Wikipedia). Mick Jagger has a few of those! His eldest daughter Karis is a producer in the film industry. His daughters Jade, Elizabeth, and Georgia are models. His sons work as journalists, actors, and influencers. They certainly got a leg up in the industry because of their lineage. I doubt that they would have gotten the same opportunities if they were just born to average, ordinary parents.

As we all know, Hollywood is not a meritocracy and it’s crystal clear because look at the star system and the heaps of nepotism babies. Hollywood is incestuous – where’s the new blood? There’s no surprise that there’s so much nepotism in Hollywood because there’s no originality anymore. It’s not about what you know, but who you know and who your family are. It breaks my heart thinking about all the incredibly talented actors and singers who will never make it because they weren’t born into the “right” family, ergo they didn’t have the right connections. Sure not all nepo babies become successful, but connections at least get their foot in the door and that puts them ahead of the bulk of actors and models who are just fighting to get an audition, just to get the chance of playing a small part in a TV show or to walk the catwalk or do catalogue work.

Former child star Alyson Stoner is doing a whole series on their experiences as an actor called Dear Hollywood, describing the child star experience as the “toddler to trainwreck pipeline”. If you’re a late millennial or early gen z who watched Disney Channel in the early 2000s, you’ll definitely recognise them and can think of a movie or show you’ve watched with them in it. I love how frank, open, honest, and eloquently they talk about their experience. It gets heavy at times, but the podcast is one of the most raw, real looks at Hollywood. One of the more recent episodes talks about auditions and the psychological impact of them and Alyson talks about the realities of casting in Hollywood (go to 6:50 in the video if you want to see them talking about how casting works). Often screenwriters and directors have actors in mind for the lead roles (the “offer only” list) and they tend to work with the same people every time and these are actors you definitely know and are well-established. Seriously though, just pick a director and go to their IMDB page and look at the cast list and see how many of the same actors show up over and over again. Like Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, and Tilda Swinton. Why cast a rando you have no idea what they’re like? You go with the tried and true people you have a rapport and friendship with. Same idea as you have the hair stylist you like going to because they do your haircut or hair colour exactly as you like it. Not just any hairdresser will do! Anyway, if those actors can’t make it to that movie, they move onto their backup plan of “the shortlist” who are famous actors, and if that fails then you have the auditions. Most actors don’t even get to the audition stage. It’s not all that different from applying for jobs, except I guess there’s more nepotism and acting is a looks based industry. There is still nepotism in ordinary jobs though. Ugh, we’re never escaping that, but that’s human nature for you, you’re gonna favour your friends and family, whether it’s your blood family or chosen family.

Donating to charity is a tax write off anyway. If you inherit a lot of money, you have to pay hella taxes on it so it makes sense why rich people donate part of their estate to charity. It’s not out of the kindness of their heart. Their kids still get more than enough to live off of anyway. Don’t worry about them.

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