Yoko Ono Receives Songwriting Credit for 'Imagine'

This is poetry news, right? Yoko Ono receives a songwriting credit for John Lennon's "Imagine"! An updated report from Jen Aswad at Variety:

At the annual meeting of the National Music Publishers Association in New York on Wednesday, Yoko and Sean Ono Lennon received the organization’s new Centennial Song award for John Lennon’s legendary 1971 song “Imagine” — and Yoko received more than that. NMPA CEO David Israelite showed a video from 1980 wherein John said that Yoko deserved a songwriting credit for “Imagine” because of her influence and inspiration on it — and Israelite announced that in accordance with Lennon’s wish, Yoko will be added to the song as a co-writer.

Cornered by Variety after the event, Israelite confirmed that the process to add Yoko’s credit, while not yet confirmed, is already under way, but he said that the NMPA and Downtown Music Publishing, which administers both Ono’s and Lennon’s solo compositions, are optimistic that it will be confirmed. While Israelite initially said that adding Ono to the credits would extend the period of time before the song enters the public domain, he later corrected himself and noted that because the song was published in 1971, the life of its copyright lasts 95 years after publication — not the current law, instituted in 1978, which extends the copyright 70 years after the death of the last author. Adding Ono as a writer will not extend the life of its copyright. Downtown Music CEO Justin Kalifowitz said: “We are delighted to have worked with the National Music Publishers’ Association in recognizing Yoko Ono’s contribution to this extraordinary song. It was truly a historic evening for sharing credit where credit was due.”

Read more at Variety.