ha ha we've moved!! new year new shed excellent
don't know how to quote from another thread but in response to your post Mita, all songs are copyright, in no record company is involved the copyright belongs to the composers but I suspect that if Matt were to record one of his old songs the record company would want the copyright (like they will everything under his new contract). I'm guessing (and its only a guess) that the Darwyn guys would be OK with that but I suspect the 7S guys would not be and given Syco controls what he can and cannot record they have a veto.
Eitherway the writer gets the royalty but its about ownership. Huge battles have been fought in the past over this (Springsteen didn't record anything for 3 years in a fight with his record label at the beginning of his career)
If the record company owns the copyright it can sell it to anyone so any covers it wants, adverts etc etc and I just have a feeling that 7S won't want the rights to Dirt being available for a Persil ad - if you know what I mean!
its the price you pay when you sign a deal but as they aren't getting one out of it - why should they?