Anybody Know Recording Contracts? Legalese and Shit....

**splat** · 10-28-2019, 11:53 AM

I've been working with a DJ friend on some deep house original tunes and we've goten an offer from a record company out of Miami. They sent us a seven page contract in an offer to represent us that we need to respond to. Music industry is so different than the old days and we have know idea if we're gonna get screwed in the language of the contract. Wondering if anyone knows how this shit works and/or can do a review for us.

**Danno** · 10-28-2019, 11:55 AM

this is up pegleg's alley.

**pfluffenmeister** · 10-28-2019, 11:56 AM

Pay special attention to the "Hookers and Blow" portion of the contract.

**splat** · 10-28-2019, 11:58 AM

That was the only part I understood clearly.

**XXX-er** · 10-28-2019, 12:30 PM

every time they interview a rock stars he eventualy talks about getting fucked over by his recording company

talk to a real lawyer with expurtese in the area

**splat** · 10-28-2019, 01:01 PM

^^^^Eggsackly.

**yeahman** · 10-28-2019, 01:07 PM

Kind of different but I've negotiated hundreds of book contracts. IMO there are a few standard things artists want to watch out for.

1. Any deductions to your standard royalty rate. They'll put in bold print what % of sales they are going to pay you (let's say for the sake of argument it's 15% of net sales). Then underneath that they'll list all the exceptions for which they'll pay you less. For example, in our book contracts we will pay a smaller royalty for books sold through Amazon because Amazon pays us less than a bookstore would. Or we pay less for a certain version of the work, i.e. the e-book royalty would only be 10%, but that's kind of buried down there in the language. So watch out for those exceptions to the standard royalty, or you may find that you are almost NEVER actually making the standard royalty rate that you thought you were going to get. Lots of these exceptions are negotiable.

2. Hidden charges. Little things they might try to pass on to you. For example, we have a clause that charges authors for the costs of creating an index for their book. You'd think that would be something the publisher would pay for, and we will if the author catches it and negotiates it out of there, but if they don't take issue (more likely don't even see it) then we'll charge the cost against their royalties. Hidden charges can really take you by surprise.

3. You want to make sure there is very clear language regarding the rights to the music reverting to you should the music company ever stop publishing/releasing/selling the music. You don't want to have the music stuck in limbo because they still own the rights but for some reason aren't releasing the music. Usually you can get them to agree to something like after 90 days of the music not being available, you write them a letter requesting the rights be reverted to you, and they have like 60 days to decide if they want to start making the music available again or give the rights back to you. This is extremely important. As long as they are keeping the music available, all good, but if they stop selling it you want to have it clearly spelled out what the process is for you getting the rights back.

As mentioned above, definitely have a contract attorney specializing in music read it over before you sign. Somebody who knows the biz can go through a contract pretty quickly and redline the bullshit out of there. All publishers basically try to pull the same shit--i.e. send out a version that is completely in their favor, and wait to see if you know enough to negotiate the finer points.

**XXX-er** · 10-28-2019, 01:08 PM

When Prince became " the artist formerly known as prince " I thot it was some kind of wierd thing but it was just his purpleness rebelling against his record label ... strictly money

**m2711c** · 10-28-2019, 01:10 PM

It’s the price of stardom. Gotta chase that rainbow....

**MontuckyFried** · 10-28-2019, 01:13 PM

From interviews I've seen with artists lately, many say that although musicians have historically gotten screwed over by labels, the contracts can be even MORE nefarious these days with the brave new world of streaming. An artist can have a wildly popular album and get paid a mere pittance for their efforts. Like get millions of plays on Spotify? You'll be lucky if you get a few grand off of it.

**splat** · 10-28-2019, 01:18 PM

Thanks, yeahman. In this age of internet, they're offering 50% of monies received from Spotify, Amazon, and other web venues that don' pay shit, really, and compilations their subsidiary label produces.

**Flyoverland Captive** · 10-28-2019, 01:27 PM

Spend some time at the website For SoundExchange; lots of great info.

https://www.soundexchange.com/

**SumJongGuy** · 10-28-2019, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by pfluffenmeister

Pay special attention to the "Hookers and Blow" portion of the contract.

See green room riders...

**TNKen** · 10-28-2019, 01:59 PM

Recording artists and performers start their own recording companies to keep from getting screwed. They just play with themselves.

**yeahman** · 10-28-2019, 02:16 PM

Originally Posted by splat

Thanks, yeahman. In this age of internet, they're offering 50% of monies received from Spotify, Amazon, and other web venues that don' pay shit, really, and compilations their subsidiary label produces.

I'm sure you can find out of 50% is standard rate, probably is. One other thing to avoid in the contract: Don't give them "right of refusal" to any subsequent music you produce. Not sure how it works in the recording business, but it used to be standard in book contracts for publishers to require authors to offer the publisher their next book before gauging interest from other publishers. Obviously this is just in case you somehow write a best seller or have a number one song that nobody anticipated. Suddenly you are in a position of strength to negotiate better terms for your next release--unless you have given them right of refusal to the next work. Get that shit outta there if it's in there. IMO you're better off doing a new contract for each album/CD/book or whatever. I guess if you're just doing single songs, I'm not sure how that works, you probably have to sign an initial contract for a certain number of songs. Just saying protect yourself in the event your music somehow goes viral, if you can. Good luck, I hope it works out great.

**Micol** · 10-29-2019, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by splat

we've goten an offer from a record company out of Miami. s.

sweet!!!!!
save me some back stage stickies for anywhere

+2 on riders...an no brown m&m's
here's that language....(no charge)

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**Timberridge** · 10-29-2019, 11:28 AM

The music biz easily has the most con artists per capita. Perhaps more than the modelling biz. I know excellent con artists who got conned in the music biz. The best of the best operate there.

Even if you include 333, the ski building industry is far down the list.

Be careful and good luck.

**BmillsSkier** · 10-29-2019, 11:34 AM

I’ll ask the guy who drops new stacks of mix-tape CDs on the counter of the gas station every week who he uses.

Seems like he’s doing well.

**splat** · 10-29-2019, 11:41 AM

I can't stand brown M&Ms.

**cravenmorhead** · 10-29-2019, 01:08 PM

The brown M&Ms thing was pretty clever. Van Halen was one of the first touring shows to bring a really complicated lights-and-sound razzle dazzle to second-rate venues. It required the venue to pay attention to lots of things so that nobody got electrocuted. So the brown M&M rider was basically a visible test to see if the venue was actually reading through their complicated contract and following it. If they rolled into the green room and there were brown M&Ms, they knew they needed to do a more detailed line check.

OP, if your contract could be worth any amount of money with a comma in the number, it's worth spending a couple hundred dollars to get an actual entertainment lawyer to look it over.

**dookeyXXX** · 10-29-2019, 02:33 PM

A Tribe Called Quest said it best: "Rule 4080/Record companies are shady..."

I would say to definitely keep the rights to publishing. A lot of OG artists lost their shirts and ended up destitute and broke by signing deals that didn't give them ownership of their own music.

Also look into DIY.

I remember this great article written years ago with Bay Area based rapper Paris. He had been signed to Tommy Boy Records, but got dropped because of a controversial album cover. He formed his own label and sold his own albums after that. In the article he mentioned how it cost him $1 to make a CD and he sold them for $10, so he had a profit of $9. If he sold 100,000 copies of his album that was a profit of $900,000. If he had done that with a major label he would have made perhaps 1/4 of that after all of their recupes.

Another group, Souls of Mischief, who were signed to a major label (Jive Records) got dropped and ended up starting their own online site where they sell albums and merch. Coupled with touring, they make a killing, plus own all of their own music, so they can license it out and make even more on the side.
(Moby did this with his album Play. I believe he made more money licensing out the songs on the album than he did on album sales...).

E-40 is another artist who started out pressing and distributing his own music, got signed by a major label (Jive) and then went back to being an independent. And he seems to be doing rather well (it doesn't hurt that he also sells booze (wine, malt liquor, and pre-mixed Hurricanes) to his devout audience...

If you have a good product (i.e. good music) you really don't need a label these days, what with all the social media and ease of distributing your music digitally...

But, yeah, get yo'self a lawyer, man!

**EWG** · 10-29-2019, 04:54 PM

From friends in this industry, who have been established as pretty big artists by my standards for a long time, the money is in the touring. Streaming pays very little. For what it's worth.

**BmillsSkier** · 10-29-2019, 08:29 PM

Originally Posted by dookey67

A Tribe Called Quest said it best: "Rule 4080/Record companies are shady..."

I would say to definitely keep the rights to publishing. A lot of OG artists lost their shirts and ended up destitute and broke by signing deals that didn't give them ownership of their own music.

Also look into DIY.

I remember this great article written years ago with Bay Area based rapper Paris. He had been signed to Tommy Boy Records, but got dropped because of a controversial album cover. He formed his own label and sold his own albums after that. In the article he mentioned how it cost him $1 to make a CD and he sold them for $10, so he had a profit of $9. If he sold 100,000 copies of his album that was a profit of $900,000. If he had done that with a major label he would have made perhaps 1/4 of that after all of their recupes.

Another group, Souls of Mischief, who were signed to a major label (Jive Records) got dropped and ended up starting their own online site where they sell albums and merch. Coupled with touring, they make a killing, plus own all of their own music, so they can license it out and make even more on the side.
(Moby did this with his album Play. I believe he made more money licensing out the songs on the album than he did on album sales...).

E-40 is another artist who started out pressing and distributing his own music, got signed by a major label (Jive) and then went back to being an independent. And he seems to be doing rather well (it doesn't hurt that he also sells booze (wine, malt liquor, and pre-mixed Hurricanes) to his devout audience...

If you have a good product (i.e. good music) you really don't need a label these days, what with all the social media and ease of distributing your music digitally...

But, yeah, get yo'self a lawyer, man!

Tribe and Souls of Mischief... I believe we may have talked classic hip hop here before. Nice.

**neufox47** · 10-29-2019, 10:48 PM

Originally Posted by Cravenmorhead

The brown M&Ms thing was pretty clever. Van Halen was one of the first touring shows to bring a really complicated lights-and-sound razzle dazzle to second-rate venues. It required the venue to pay attention to lots of things so that nobody got electrocuted. So the brown M&M rider was basically a visible test to see if the venue was actually reading through their complicated contract and following it. If they rolled into the green room and there were brown M&Ms, they knew they needed to do a more detailed line check.

OP, if your contract could be worth any amount of money with a comma in the number, it's worth spending a couple hundred dollars to get an actual entertainment lawyer to look it over.

Cool story, but I’m pretty sure they should do the same detailed line / safety check every time, regardless of whether they remembered to remove the brown M&Ms. imagine if some poor bastard gets electrocuted and the roadies say, “well we gave the 220v cables a glance over but they took the brown M&Ms our so we figured they knew what they were doing. “

**TransplantedFromRMNP** · 10-29-2019, 10:58 PM

Good luck Splat!

But what’s deep house?

I was just rocking out to the Murder City Devils. I know everyone has their cup of tea. Nothing constructive to contribute...but again, good luck.

If you can slay the music biz like you build a ski you’ll be set

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