Music Career Talk Twenty 4

This will be a brief discussion on contracts. We will talk about recording contracts in particular. This blog is based on my personal experience in recording deals and negations. My first suggestion is you get out of this what you can, but certainly ALWAYS seek an attorney specializing in entertainment law with an emphasis on music before you enter into any kind of agreement with any one. Keep in mind that a signed contract (agreement) is sometimes only worth the paper it's written on. Which means what is promised by either party doesn't mean it's going to happen. Of course with a signed agreement you always have the ability to go to court and fight for what ever has not been performed by either party, but going to court is a time and money draining process. There is a term used for areas of an agreement that don't quite explain or fully spell out part of the deal, this is called a "gray area". When working on a deal with the opposing side or your own attorney don't let a word, sentence or paragraph enter without you fully understanding everything. Don't be intimidated or embarrassed by anything you don't understand, clarify everything!! Back in the day a major label recording contract could be more then 40 pages, the ones I use with my record company are between 4 & 5 pages. All recording contracts have language that is the same (depending on what state or country the agreement is written in) this is called boiler plate. The main topics covered are; terms and conditions, duration & options, compensation, third party interest, creative decisions, publishing (really should be a separate agreement), guarantees of performance by both parties, ownership of masters, advance against royalties, budget for recording, video, promotion, producers points which in most cases comes out of artists points and a show of accounting by the record company. Most artists look at the record company as the evil greedy monster and in some cases that might be true. Please keep in mind that the record company takes the chances, invests the time, money and effort into breaking an artist which is a major task to say the least. The percentage of success for record companies compared to the rate of failure is small so when something clicks the label has to take their pound of flesh. At the end of the day fair is fair. Know what your signing before you sign it and there won't be any surprises. Now go get a lawyer and sell a lot of records.