Music Artist Signing Contracts

Even so, when the artist put their time and hard work into making songs that will catch the subscribers attention just for it be free. For instance, Jacob Carter of “The Changing Landscape of the Music Business” quotes “In November of 2014, award-winning musician Taylor Swift pulled her entire music catalog from Spotify, a popular streaming app, claiming that their business model suggests that music does not hold much worth.” This shows that Taylor Swift does not believe with the fact that her music is just out there for free and she not receiving money just for it be out there for the public. Thus, Darrius Johnson of “Selling Out Not Worth the Risk” quotes “In many situations, a record label owns the rights to an artist’s music, and if they license a song to a company or other party the artist has no control over how the song can be used.” To clarify, this information artists would not have their own opinion of doing any commercial because their music doesn’t belong to them but the record labels. This proves, that some artist has their opinion about their music they make and they just want to be free for the world to have because they took their time to create

I propose that all unsigned rising artist should target the business side of the music industry to be successful in the entertainment business because it allows the artist to be taken seriously and make solid connections that can further his/her career. Learning the works of the music industry also enables a new artist to be further successful and profitable. Recent studies show that most new artists without professional representation and a business mindset have a slimmer chance in getting signed to major or independent labels (Lowry, 2011). Overall, the specific change needed is that unsigned artists should be concentrating on their careers as professionals and not amateurs, thus focusing on the ins and outs of the music business and

The first problem is the royalty fees made with labels. An artist’s album can cost anything from $15,000 to $200,000 (Recording Connection) and the artist is often left in debt after which is slowly paid back through the sales of their own records which only leaves them a fraction of what the original product was sold for. Another major problem with most major record labels is that their sole reason to get artists is to further their own profit. Most major labels put business before art,

In the music industry, the key legal issues are the concept of copyright and fair use. Island Records base their legal argument on the code of copyright. Copyright laws help protect the creative works of the writers and other artists from the commercial

It has always been a tradition for record labels to own the masters of the artist sign to the roster; after all, they are the ones spending millions of dollars to promote and market, as well as distribute the artist’s music. Evidently, Prince disagreed with this notion. Prince did not like the fact that the labels were able to decide when his album should be

Music has become a center piece of life; however it comes with a vigorous price unknown to most of the public. The music industry is littered with corruption. My proposed research problem focuses on the manipulation and control the music industry has upon its artists through an unescapable 360 deal, which in and of itself is not only reducing an artist to almost indentured servitude, but also cripples record labels themselves. The 360 deal is a common mandatory contract record labels utilize to financially support an artist. This includes advances and funds for promotion, touring, and marketing, all which the artist has to pay back to the label. I believe this problem is significant and warrants further research because the record labels are unconstitutionally taking away artists rights in favor of their own greed, in turn, leaving the artist without ownership of their own songs, money, and rights to royalties.

The industry is constantly changing right now. It’s not like it used to be. Nowadays, you can do so on your own. I’m not against working with and independent or major label. However, I won’t give up control and what is rightfully mine. I’m completely free right now, owning everything, so it would have to be the right deal.

First, the company will have to study the current state of the music industry and the economy as well. A struggling economy will bring record sales down, because people are budgeting their income a lot tighter and music will not be among one of the items they need to purchase. If people do not have enough money to purchase the music, chances are they will find other ways to get the audio through illegal links or burning compact discs. A struggling music industry can be caused by a bad economy, but another key factor is poor music quality. If the music is not good, then chances are the songs will not get purchased. Sales have been on the decline in recent years due to technology advances and lack of artist development is the main problems to this epidemic. The labels have been putting out manufactured music for the past few years and the consumers are unhappy. The next step is for the label to use its assets, such as an artist and labels to attract fans. More than likely, each big label company has a fair share of stars that can generate sales, so these releases need to be timed properly. Thirdly, the strategy must be selected for these stars to succeed. The final step would be for upper management of the record label, to use their highest selling acts to increase profit potential and create new trends. Universal Music Group has to come up with

The job of a musician is by far one of the hardest jobs on the planet. Making music that they love is the easy part. However, there are much more strings attached than that. Not only do they have to create music, their music has to appeal to fans, appeal to labels that will help their talent be known to the world, and they have to be able to make a living off their creative expression. Receiving a paycheck has been more challenging for artists today because instead of people purchasing their songs, they are now streamable with apps and websites such as Spotify and YouTube. Many artists today sign with cooperations to ease the burden of finances for them. However, signing with cooperations is not the way to go because the artist would be signing over all rights to their music.

It days many days of stress but you have to stay determined while doing so. It is not right to do that to the hard working artist who is most cases deserve the correct payment.Music brings people joy. It can connect them to their feelings, represent a culture or religious beliefs based on the genre you listen to. Let's face it music is important to the world. It would be nice to have access to all the music we take interest in for free or at the tip of our fingers, but unfortunately that is not right to the artist. According to source 1 it states that "Taylor Swift pulled her entire music catalog from Spotify, a popular streaming app, claiming that their business model suggests that music does not hold much

The music industry is an oligopoly. Since the late 1800’s people like Thomas Edison have been buying up patents in communication technology, forming monopolies, leading to a non-competitive entertainment industry. With only a handful of corporations controlling all aspects of acquisition, distribution and marketing of music, harsh business principles create an exploitative industry that takes the best of what artists have to offer and leaves many of them unable to support themselves. Beginning in the 1950’s with payola and white cover music and ultimately evolving into iTunes and Spotify, the music industry has grown into a billion dollar industry with far-reaching influence and control. Contracts rarely serve the artists’ best interest and many are left out to dry when their usefulness has expired.

Producers are in the same situation. Inside producers only receive salary plus some royalties as compensation. While outside producers received a production fee and negotiated a royalty of 1% to 5%of the suggested retail price. Production fee varied dramatically, which means the production fee producers received depends most on the level of the producers themselves and the level of the artists they helped. However, they were only about 20 to 30 top producers who may receive so high production fee that they would like to pay for Hit Song Science. Other producers with low or relatively low production fee may not be willing to pay for Hit Song Science out of their slender income. It makes sense that famous artists prefer top producers who can help them make a hit and in turn, receive benefit from the hit. If artists, unsigned artists and producers only received a small portion of income from music, the biggest winner in the process of recording activity is record company. Managers and talent agents alone extract between 25% and 40% of a performer’s income. Record labels have the ability to pay for Hit Song Science. More importantly, they want to forecast sales levels for the titles in their portfolios.

Over the past decade, the use of CDs has been replaced with online streaming and retailing. This has eliminated much of the record companies revenues as they were used to making most of their profit off of distribution and promotion of physical copies of artists albums (Niemen). This has caused for a major shift and remodeling of major players in the music industries business models. Companies such Sony, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group have started to completely rethink the way they conduct business (Forbes). In the past record labels were not only responsible for production, distribution and promotion of an artist and his/her music, but they also acted as a bank (Forbes), funding the artists tours and recording sessions. Recently, these music giants have been moving towards becoming more of a modular network organization. What this means is that they are less occupied with the nitty gritty, and more focused on what they do best which is distribution and promotion. This also allows for more freedom of creativity for the artist as well as fairer split of profits (Forbes). This adaption of new business models clearly shows the versatility of the music industry in adapting to new times and technologies.

Some artists such as Hootie and the Blowfish never accept money for their music to be

The world market of record music in 1990s was dominated by only five big corporations: BMG Entertainment, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group. The majors could maintain their status thanks to patents and agreements, technological improvements and M&As. The majors had the complete control of patents and music rights from the artists. Even though the artists tried to directly contact to the customers, they could not afford the attempt. Thus, they relied on the professional signers and on the publishing company. The