Reference no: EM131908541

Question: A 21-year-old songwriter signed a contract in 1966 with a music publisher. The standard-form contract assigned the copyrights of all the plaintiff's output to the defendant company in return for the defendant's agreement to pay 50 percent of the net royalties to the plaintiff. The contract was to run for five years, with automatic renewal for another five years if the plaintiff's royalties during the first term exceeded 5,000 pounds sterling. The defendant company could terminate the contract on one month's notice and could assign the contract and any copyrights held under it without the plaintiff's consent. For signing the contract, the plaintiff received 50 pounds as an advance against future royalties. The plaintiff became a successful songwriter and sought to be released from the contract on the ground that it was unconscionably one-sided in the music publisher's favor. Macaulay v. Schroeder Publishing Co. Ltd. (1974) 1 W.L.R. 1308 (H.L.). Use economics to analyze this case.