One part of it is for their personal use (an amount that can be up to seven figures for mainstream artists), and the other part should be used for producing the album (hiring musicians, a recording studio, sampling licenses, etc.). When an artist signs a contract for their next album, the record label gives him money in advance. So the songwriters can’t play their songs whenever and wherever they want?ĭoesn’t it sound absurd? Another contract clause: the advance They’re streaming a different version (their live performance) and getting paid for it. Well, if you’ve been following any artist that’s been doing live stream shows during the pandemic, they have showcased a version of the official song without the label’s consent.
Kanye west has it leaked how to#
Only the official version is the one allowed to be used for this purpose and only the label can decide how to use it.īut even artists have now been breaching their contracts. Whenever someone else makes a cover of the song and tries to use it for a commercial purpose, fire will rain over their heads. Otherwise, all their investment would’ve gone to waste. So to avoid this liability, the record label adds to the contract that their master’s version is the only acceptable one. If what they have can be easily copied, their product becomes worthless. So this leaves the owner of the master vulnerable. You can compose a song just once, but you can record it a million times. Many others are starting to fight to reclaim the ownership of their songs (the master’s portion of it). Taylor Swift is now trying to regain control of her masters. The Beatles never owned their music catalog. Many famous artists didn’t know (or didn’t care to learn) about this aspect of their contract, so when time passes by, they realize they’ve given too much power to the other party. Remember, they have the physical/digital product while the songwriter has the sheet music so to speak.
The songwriter only owns part of his song, for which he gets his share of royalties, but the owner of the master is the one who will decide how and where the song will be used.
Now that there’s a product, what can the master’s owner do with the recording? They want to get as much profit out of it as they can. The owner of the master will then use this recording to make CDs (if that’s still a thing), send it to radios, stream it, use it in a movie/videogame, and wherever they want. They’ve invested a lot of money in it and now they want to milk it as much as possible. And this entity is usually the record label. The one paying for all this (hiring musicians, studio recording, mix, and mastering, etc.) tends to be the owner of the master. It’s the sacred WAV file that’ll be used from now to eternity. Usually, the masters are created like this:Īn artist goes to a recording studio, records his songs with a team of performers, sound technicians, producers, and then mixes it until a final version for each song is achieved. The Master RecordingĪ master recording is the original and official recording of a song, sound, or performance. The main point here is about the ownership of what’s called “the master”. What started as calm criticism towards the current state of contracts in general (“Contracts in all industries need to be simplified now”) quickly turned into a fierce battle towards everyone and everything (“I said I don’t speak with non-billionaire employees… I need Arnaud De Puyfontaine to fly to meet me immediately”). But again, it was an already famous Kanye West.Īnd as with any other legal document, you’ll see how wordy they are and far from a quick readthrough.Īlways read a music contract thoroughly or you’ll soon regret it, just like Kanye did! Kanye did multiple renegotiations of his original deals. If you go through them you’ll see how high the stakes are for an artist starting a partnership with a label. On the 16th of September of 2020, he tweeted dozens of pages of his 10 contracts with Universal Music Group. That’s how Kanye refers to the music industry.