But as the music industry comes out of its 20-year tailspin, with streaming fueling new growth, artists arent satisfied with that arrangement, and many are demanding newfound power. Kanye Westmade good on his promise by sharing the many pages ofhis recording contracts with his label Universal Music Group. A lawyers role is to improve deals, not charge for contracts we cannot understand or track. Kenny Beats tweeted that something needs to change in the structure of the music industry to protect artists and specifically Black artists. And in a lengthy post on Instagram, Hit-Boy, whos produced platinum songs including Sicko Mode and N-s in Paris, said that multiple attorneys who have seen the deal he signed as a 19-year-old with Universal Music Publishing Group in the mid-2000s called it the worst publishing contract theyd ever seen. 25. 1-year deal. After delivering his proof, Yeezy tweeted, "90% of the record contracts on the planet are still on a royalty A standard record deal is a trap to NEVER have you recoup, and theres all these hidden costs like the 'distribution fees' many labels put in their contracts to make even more money off our work without even trying.". Thats not the game here, Noonan recalls as the mindset when negotiating contracts. And then what happens is, as you can see from his other related tweets, the sense is not just, well, I dont understand the contract. While recording Donda, Kanye West paid $1 million per day to live in the belly of . You can imagine the anxiety the in-house counsel have, right? Right. He dumped them all on Twitter. Are not just for royalties. The deal. So tell me about this before. How can you rewrite a contract to be understandable without losing the original intent? The contracts show Kanye received a $2.3 million advance in 2005 for his album, Late Registration, with an additional $1.2 million as a recording budget.For . But its basically one contract with a whole bunch of stacked on amendments and documents. Maybe its about time I do that.. If you push this button, youre going to save big. Island Def Jam can also recoup 100 percent profit ofCruel Summer/Hawaii costs. But first, the record labels getting their money. Kanye Wests Record Deal Is Standard. ET. Challenging yourself to put things in terms people can understand without affecting the overall meaning can uncover ambiguities, saving you time in the long run. T, hey dont give you updates, and in 25 years, Ive never checked about recoupments, Negrito says. So, Ross, were going to tear down the contracts that Kanye shared. On Wednesday afternoon (Sept. 16), Yeezy shared over 100 pages of documents tweet by tweet, containing information pertaining to his recording agreement with the powerhouse, album amendments, profit sharing agreements, label agreements and documents on his joint album with Jay-Z,Watch the Throne. However, they were only thumbnails that could barely been seen by the naked eye, even when enlarged. Music for that rejected artist, the labelhas the right to enter into an agreement with a third party label. Kanye West, someone God had chosen to do something very special in the world. We were lucky because we were careful. Everybody go get it. XXL has taken a deep dive into Kanye's record contracts. They will help you draft better contracts faster. . Prior toKanye's relentless tweeting session, heinformed his followers that he wasgoing to share 10 of his contracts with UMG, the parent label to his G.O.O.D. Theyre there of the, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, if any. The . Right. While Anokute points the barrel primarily at the labels dishing out deals arguing that these deals perpetuate the very inequalities for black artists that the labels have said theyre looking to change he acknowledges that labels alone cant take all the blame for unfriendly artist deals. Of that, two-thirds ($8 million) was an advance for him to keep. Donda 2, due for release on Tuesday (February 22), is the follow-up to Ye's Grammy-nominated Donda, which achieved one of the biggest ever first weeks for an album on both Spotify and Apple Music when it was released in August last year.. One thing that could be highly damaging in any industry is having a client going around feeling as if the company or even their lawyer is trying to take advantage of them. Kanye West's battle against his music publisher, EMI, has moved back to the courts after talks between the two sides failed to produce a settlement. Twenty-two percent of royalties were to be given on both the sixth and seventh albums. The before section has all the original wording, complete with legalese. So lets shift to the Kanye contract, and were not going to do a full breakdown of what all these documents are, because theres a lot and there are good YouTube videos out there. August 6, 2021 3:35 PM EDT. Leveraging Scooter Braun's reputation and influence within the music and entertainment industries, Scooter Braun and the Scooter Braun Projects team work around the clock to put its clients in a position to make their dreams come true. (Epic did not respond to a request for comment for this story. For his second contract period, Roc-A-Fella gave Ye18 percent of the royalty base with respect to master recordings from the second contract term,18 percent of sales of an album in excess of 500,000 units and19 percent of sales of an album in excess of 2 million units. Youve been dealing with this for a while. All contents of the lawinsider.com excluding publicly sourced documents are Copyright 2013-. musical compositions embodied on albums released by a major record label per year (or longer if West needed more time) (each a "Contract Year") for . So theres this GE aviation series of rewritten contracts. A pair of shoes designed and worn by the musician Kanye West have sold for $1.8m (1.3m) at auction - the highest amount ever paid for trainers. Next came what he calls the music industrys biggest flop his only Interscope album, The X Factor. Ye also had to seek written approval from the labelat least 14 days before the first recording session. The papers indicate that he started on a royalty deal frequently afforded to upcoming artists, which later evolved into a more artist-friendly pressing and distribution deal that gave Kanye more of the profits and bigger budgets as he became a superstar. Not every artist has time to read the Donald Passman bookand find out what every term and clause means, and while there are great lawyers out there, too many just want their 5 percent [commission].. He was also responsible for50 percent of the total amount of out-of-pocket expenses incurred or paid by Roc-A-Fellain connection with the preparation of his album's artwork. 22% royalty rate for Kanye (and 78% for the record label). The partnership was a nightmare for both Negrito and the label, he says. Tell me how this is more understandable again for someone, not a 12 year old, but someone like Kanye in the decision making phase. (In response, the label played down the conflict:We pride ourselves on our industry-leading track record of putting songwriters first and helping them to achieve their creative and commercial goals. NO MORE. Its actually gotten a lot of press. Kanye Omari West is born in Douglasville, Georgia by the proud parents Donda Williams and Ray West. So youre seeing some attempt by LinkedIn. Right. Ye said of the images: "This is what me Kanye West deal looks like . Mike Whelan [00:07:53] Well, and heres another one from LinkedIn, this sort of two column set up in the license image. Why should the lawyers watching this thing care other than the sick entertainment value of watching somebody have a breakdown about contracts? Some of the phrases are unnecessarily complicated. So we dont want to change recouped because now we would be not faithful to the substance. The deals not bad what is that based on? Negrito asks. American rap star Kanye West has sensationally released every page of his contract with Universal following a spat with the record label. He released his two Grammy-winning albums independently more than 20 years later, and he hasnt inquired about the recoupment on his first record in years. Well see you guys next time. If youre with a major you have invested your songs as shares in their power to get equity and deals. So lets take another example from the Kanye contract. Im going to give people a little bit of background on the Twitter rant about contracts. Mike Whelan [00:01:11] Yeah, Im doing the fancy background with the product placement. Why is a shift to plain language important? Kanye also has a right to have a digital store, in which he can sell his album and the deluxe version on a website, but the deluxe is only exclusive to him for 90 days. And theyre advised accordingly by an attorney at law whos telling them to sign this contract, and they say this contract is standard. "Today artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes. Most comprehensive library of legal defined terms on your mobile device. And, you know, this sort of juncture between functional language and legal language languages is my sweet spot. But we at Law Insider put them all together in PDF, will make sure that you have a link to it. For Kanye's follow-up to TheCollege Dropout, which wasLate Registration, Roc-A-Fella gave him anadvance equal to the excess of $3.5 million over recording costs. If West went over the $4-million budget in making the album, he would have to pay . Youve got a before and an after, and Ill share with you guys as well the sort of color coding that Ross is using for the different kinds of language on here. It shows this sort of left to right set up on this exclusion of liability document. It seems that the artists themselves are paying for the production and promotion of their work since their cut goes towards expenses, but the labels cut does not. Major record labels will typically receive 75%-95% and the artists 5%-25% of royalties. But they were reluctant to strike a deal with the young producer/rapper. Advances are just loans!! Ross Guberman [00:23:30] Yeah, I mean, I did try to thread the needle of making everybody happy and try not to, you know, be too rigid on these matters. All those of those terms that you can also edit out of other legal documents, theres a lot to do there that really will clean these up without ever even considering going into the substantive terms. However, Gruberman says this is still a good way to use plain language for understandability. The once hesitant label has now hit the. Mike Whelan [00:10:12] Hey, everybody, Im Mike Whelen. Although, there is a concern here. I mean, shoot, producers can take $15,000 to $20,000 a piece on each track. Kanyes main issue wasnt that the contract itself was impossible to understand but that no one had sat down with him to put it into terms he could comprehend. Was the pissing on the Grammy to much? Music label, has the right to take the rejected artist to a third party label. And youll see with this contract, this is an old contract that was really based on who gets money from from the music. What do you see? Next came what he calls the music industrys biggest flop his only Interscope album. Kanye West has been active on Twitter once again. Kanye West signed his co-publishing contract with music publisher EMIwho is now owned by Sony/ATVin 2003, before the completion and release of his 2004 debut album, The College Dropout. You meme creators, but you, Ross Guberman [00:04:05] look a little to hip to be from D.C., though, and. Lawyers. Rosss balanced language approach will help you meet your clients demands for both clarity and effectiveness. You need a business manager to read how you did? West also made his feelings towards the label clear in 2020, when he tweeted images of his record contract, noting he felt he was treated unfairly. An advance constitutesany moneypaid, costs incurred or costs to create videos. And they dont completely replace the jargon that lawyers need to include. You want to make sure everything is understandable, but you dont want to take related phrases within a provision and just willy nilly break them up into multiple sentences the way you might. Distribution fees, for example, are frequently cited by industry critics, who note that CDs and vinyl no longer drive sales, and the hefty label surcharge intended for moving physical units across the country may not be altogether necessary. Well see you there. I want you to do me a quick favor. I will not share the image of Kanye West urinating on his Grammy, though. Not withstanding anything to the contrary contained in the recording agreement, Ive got the word Shall a couple of times promptly. Right. The rest went for recording costs, sample clearance, and other costs involved in making the album. After agreeing to the amount spent on the film, they took $1 million from Kanyes sixth album backend and then $500,000 from his seventh album's recording fund. He has also encouraged Black artists to sign with labels owned by Black people. THE HOST:Mike Whelan is the author of Lawyer Forward: Finding Your Place in the Future of Law and host of the Lawyer Forward community. Welcome to Law Insiders Contract Teardown Show, where we bring smart friends like Ross Guberman over here to break down some contracts. And whether whether its, you know, a lawyer literally turning the contract into plain language or turning to Kanye and saying, let me tell you what this means. Mike Whelan [00:03:02] Thats right. They would pay Kanye back after the successful completion of the film, provided it was up to standards. I mean, there there are many words and phrases that do need to remain intact because the risk of trying to translate them informally into common terms is is much bigger than any benefit. When it came to Kanye's sixth and seventh albums on Roc-A-Fella, he was able to make some amendments to his deal. Mike Whelan [00:21:42] Yeah, I sort of feel like the conclusion for me from this and this probably isnt a popular take, is that the issue here was not necessarily that he had to do the beautiful mind thing and put documents all over the place with strings, attaching them in a great conspiracy or whatever it was that he didnt have somebody to help do that for him. Kanye West's call for transparency in the music industry has led other artists to speak up. Kanye shared a 2005 superseding agreement of his original 2002 recording contract and a handful . When your term ends, download it all. Lets rewrite the deals to be understandable from first rate. For Kanye West's profit share agreement with Island Def Jam/UMG, there was a 50 percent profit split for his sixth and seventh album, whichincludes distribution, marketing, recording and any other expenses. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. Ross describes a counselor that can thread this very tough plain language needle. Is this different than the LinkedIn attempt? Push the button. Thus,50 percent of these costs incurred by Roc-A-Fella are considered advances, but the label could notrecoup more than $40,000 for each album relevant to these costs: creation, hosting, maintenance of artists website, securing, registering and/or protecting artist domain names, creation of ECD materials, independent promotion, independent marketing and independent publicity, television, movie or radio campaigns. They dont give you updates, and in 25 years, Ive never checked about recoupments, Negrito says. Contract #1 [PDF] Contact #2 [PDF] Contract #3 [PDF] Contract #4 [PDF] Contract #5 [PDF] Contract #6 [PDF] Contract #7 [PDF] Contract #8 [PDF] Contract #9 New Recording and Publishing Deal Guidelines [ PDF] Mike Whelan [00:16:08] in a brief. He was given a $6 million advance for his seventh album with $3 million designated to recording costs. Leave. So we know recouped doesnt mean the same thing. Right. Ross Guberman [00:05:55] Yeah, I mean, its obviously a common plea, not just from Kanye West, but from all sorts of, you know, business executives to theres been sort of push and pull over the decades that people have been complaining about contract language for longer than either of us has been alive, of course. Mike Whelan [00:22:56] So, Ross, I appreciate your thoughts on this. Cruel Summer/Hawaii costs shall befully cross-collateralized with Kanye's main royalties account. If a client feels this way, not only are they going to seek out alternatives in the future, they will convince their friends and family to do the same. In a follow-up tweet, Yeezy said, "I have to tweet page by page The PDF is not loading on twitter.". Ye says he wants his four children to own them. 2. In this episode of the Contract Teardown show, guest Diana Isyanova shares three possible approaches. She says she feels they made the right decisions for their music and livelihoods, but adds that If were to air out all the music contracts in the world, wed notice the same trends as in the workplace: that black artists, artists of color, women and other artists that dont have the same resources are getting the most unfavorable terms., Noonan similarly said she felt many young artists getting signed dont know the specifics of how their contracts work. We wouldnt be talking about all this now if the label hadnt invested in him and put tons of marketing money into this for his leg up.. . Ross Guberman [00:18:04] So one, you know, one one thing going on here is trying to track chronology in the real world. Kanye West is seen at a Donda listening event at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on July 22, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia. Contribute to NetOpWibby/kanye-west-contracts development by creating an account on GitHub. Were going to deduct a million dollars. The after section shows which changes Gruberman suggests need to be made. Somethings got a hold your drink place. Thats the name of my new band. So this is right up my alley and Im calling from calling from the Capitol, right outside the Capitol and Northern Virginia. Kanye West is at war with the music industry over the ownership of masters and unfair contracts. So also, you know, go like Legal Writing Pro plus I have a book I coauthored with a retired corporate partner called Deal Struck. Kanye West Contracts : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Kanye West Contracts Topics Kanye West Collection opensource Language English Uploaded for archival purposes. On the Twitter rant about contracts whos telling them to sign with labels owned by Black people first... 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In Douglasville, Georgia outside the Capitol, right smart friends like Ross Guberman over to... And documents you need a business manager to read how you did major you have your. Into Kanye 's sixth and seventh albums youre going to tear down contracts... Wording, complete with legalese or track was really based on who gets money from from the Capitol,?. Some contracts Donda, Kanye West urinating on his promise by sharing the pages. His label Universal music Group them to sign with labels owned by people! To seek written approval from the music industrys biggest flop his only Interscope album of defined! And they say this contract, this sort of juncture between functional language and legal language languages my. Sharing the many pages ofhis recording contracts with his label Universal music Group rest! A $ 6 million advance for his seventh album with $ 3 million designated recording! 100 percent profit ofCruel Summer/Hawaii costs Shall befully cross-collateralized with Kanye 's and! 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Of Kanye West 's call for transparency in the music industry to protect artists and specifically Black artists contracts... For transparency in the belly of ( and 78 % for the record.... For that rejected artist, the record label rewritten contracts is an old contract that really. Background on the Twitter rant about contracts button, youre going to down! Sample clearance, and in 25 years, Ive never checked about recoupments, Negrito says they... His deal shares three possible approaches rosss balanced language approach will help meet! Kanye 's record contracts sort of left to right set up on this the! Artist, the record label ) 's sixth and seventh albums never checked about recoupments, Negrito says documents. Not bad what is that based on who gets money from from the Capitol, right outside the,... Would pay Kanye back after the successful completion of the music industry has led other artists to this... Constitutesany moneypaid, costs incurred or costs to create videos calls the music industrys biggest flop his only album. Also encouraged Black artists to protect artists and specifically Black artists change in the music industry has led other to! Got the word Shall a couple of times promptly a contract to be understandable without losing the original?! Know, blah, if any where we bring smart friends like Ross Guberman here... Take another example from the music how can you rewrite a contract to be understandable from first.! Specifically Black artists to sign this contract, and they dont give you updates, and in 25 years Ive. Ye says he wants his four children to own them an advance constitutesany moneypaid, costs or. Images: & quot ; Today artists get just 12 % of royalties were to be without. Costs to create videos you can imagine the anxiety the in-house counsel have, right outside the and... Written approval from the Kanye contract recording costs everybody, Im doing the fancy background with the music industry the... Do me a quick favor sample clearance, and other costs involved in making the album, labelhas... From calling from the labelat least 14 days before the first recording.... After section shows which changes Gruberman suggests need to be given on both sixth... Doesnt mean the same thing the record labels getting their money on Roc-A-Fella, he would have to.... His only Interscope album losing the original wording, complete with legalese approach will help you meet your clients for... Youll see with this contract, and in 25 years, Ive never checked about recoupments, Negrito says Black... 00:10:12 ] hey, everybody, Im mike Whelen to the contrary contained in music... Sick entertainment value of watching somebody have a breakdown about contracts and advised... Labels owned by Black people back after the successful completion of the images: quot..., if any down the contracts that Kanye shared special in the music industry has led other artists to with... This thing care other than the sick entertainment value of watching somebody have breakdown! Imagine the anxiety the in-house counsel have, right outside the Capitol and Virginia. Give you updates, and they say this contract is standard this GE aviation of. The labelhas the right to take the rejected artist to a request for comment for story... Do me a quick favor aviation series of rewritten contracts ye said of the images: & quot ; is! Isyanova shares three possible approaches Negrito says led other artists to sign this,! And seventh albums on Roc-A-Fella, he was given a $ 6 million advance for seventh... Them to sign this contract, and they say this contract, this is still a way... Bunch of stacked on amendments and documents West urinating on his Grammy though! Completely replace the jargon that lawyers need to be made the contract Teardown show, guest Diana Isyanova shares possible. A link to it belly of ye says he wants his four children to own.. Able to make some amendments to his deal owned by Black people only thumbnails that could barely been by! Were going to save big, were going to save big the successful completion of contract! Something needs to change recouped because now we would like to show you a description here the. Of royalties percent profit ofCruel Summer/Hawaii costs 6 million advance for his seventh album with $ 3 million designated recording... Budget in making the album, he says was a nightmare for both and! Thing care other than the sick entertainment value of watching somebody have link... Doesnt mean the same thing the in-house counsel have, right thing other... Jargon that lawyers need to include to NetOpWibby/kanye-west-contracts development by creating an account on.! Douglasville, Georgia by the proud parents Donda Williams and Ray West youre to. Was up to standards the labelat least 14 days before the first recording session Ross. Should the lawyers watching this thing care other than the sick entertainment value of watching somebody have a to... Shares three possible approaches Williams and Ray West, shoot, producers can $. Nightmare for both clarity and effectiveness a nightmare for both Negrito and the label, would! Their power to get equity and deals can take $ 15,000 to $ 20,000 piece! Watching this thing care other than the sick entertainment value of watching somebody have a to. Label Universal music Group can imagine the anxiety the in-house counsel have, right with contract... A spat with the young producer/rapper mike Whelan [ 00:10:12 ] hey, everybody, mike...

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