Appropriation is the Best Form of Flattery.

One of the downsides to producing a Jewish music hit, especially if you are a non-shiny shoe guy, is that the tune is (un)fair game for every Tom, Lipa and Yisroel in Shiny Shoe Land to record your song. Often, they butcher it by overproducing and adding all kinds of unnecessary noise or producing it to a techno-disco beat.

What's more, they rarely pay royalties. This is currently happening to Shlomo Katz in connection with his tune Niggun Nevo which appears on his V'Hakohanim CD. To my knowledge, it has been recorded by at least two other performers, one of whom has really (IMHO) detroyed it. So far, Shlomo has not seen a dime in royalties.

There is nothing an artist can do to prevent others from killing his songs but the even sadder part is that the royalties don't even amount to much; just 9 cents per song per CD if I'm not mistaken. It seems to me that if you're going to ruin someone's song, the least you can do is pay dor it.