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Prince vs Warner Brothers Essay examples

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Prince Vs. Warner Brothers: Artist feud with Label

Ryan Willis

Negotiation and Deal Making
Christi Davis
March 27, 2011

In today society different companies go through various contracts on a day to day basis; however, it is solely up to both companies or parties to ensure that the contract upon entering is in good standing and there after remains in good binding, As in the case of Prince Vs Warner Brothers. In the beginning it seems as though the contract was acceptable for both parties, however as the discrepancies unfold, it became clear that the contract was no longer valid. This created a huge problem for both parties. It has been observed that the dispute between Prince and Warner Brothers was about money and how often …show more content…

All his new material that he created after he changed his name, was under his NPG record label. While he carried out his remaining obligation to Warner Brothers, at every public appearance, Prince continued to retaliate by writing the word “slave” on his cheek (Orwall, 1995). For a period of time prince did not play his own music. Benny Medina, VP of A&R for Warner Brothers at the time, believed that this was apart of his protest against the record label. “Prince was a really unique person who was not going to be very productive if he was not in a healthy place with the people he had to deal with. We got it; if you want to go, go! Lets just figure it out”, said Benny Medina in a BET documentary video (BET). In 1997 Prince ended his contract with Warner Brothers. In that same year he released his last album with the Label entitled Emancipation. In the year 2000, after the publishing contract with Warner Brothers has ended he legally changed his name back to Prince (BET).
Parties Interest
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

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