Here’s a link to an excellent primer on recording contracts.
From the Future of Music Coalition, a “Major Label Contract Critique,” which includes a lovely download in PDF which you can save to your hard drive, print out, read it and weep and contemplate at your leisure.
FMC | Major Label Contract Critique
Ah, cross-collateralization, controlled composition clauses, reserves and returns — yes, Virginia, vendors CAN return CDs — it doesn’t get much better than this…
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Excellent Nevada, I will read and digest.
Oh great. So you’re a publisher now?
Yes it does. But I will read every word anyway.
I’ve read every word and now my head is spinning. Much appreciated.
holy cow is that a depressing contract!
A very naive question.
If it’s so depressing and exploitative, then why so many people would kill to get signed by a major label? Are they just fools? Why not take the Elliot route? Start a label with a well-connected cousin and market it by yourself and pocket most of the profit.
Printed to read later. I haven’t had my coffee yet! Thanks Nevada.
You’ll have to sit a test next week RSF, so study well.
Exposure mainly, the major record companies will spend money on you and give you the money to make videos to get yourself out there. Not everyone has a cousin and a label that Sony doesn’t use anymore and is willing to give to you and give you a special deal.
I suspect there are more than a few fools who sign with major labels, but in a nutshell, this is the way things are done in the music industry and only rarely does an artist have enough clout to demand changes. Rarer still…those well-connected cousins.
It’s quite possible to make decent money on an Indie CD with modest production costs that sells 100k copies. It’s also quite common to go broke — or bankrupt — despite major label backing for a high profile CD with wildly inflated production and promotional costs that sells multi-platinum.
None of this is new.
To quote Mr. Mister: “Welcome to the real world…”
Nevada, have you posted this on the blog before? It seems familiar to me. Written by one of those lawyer-types:
So You Want To Be A Recording Artist…
No RSF, I haven’t seen this particular article before. The royalty percentages seem rather generous, but otherwise, I think it’s “second verse, same as the first…”
Thanks for the link!
I’m thinking the author “borrowed” from another, much earlier source, at least in part. The content is just too familiar to me and for something dated 2007 : 1)as you said, the royalty rates given are high, 2) the retail price given for CD’s is low, 3)cassette tapes are mentioned but not downloads or the internet, 4) video costs are way understated.
Suspected plagiarism aside, it is a decent primer on the basics.