The first thing that changes about Record Deals is actually lawyers. Ye. Thats a sort of grey area, and I think its an important conversation to be had., Editors picks You should need NO ONE else to understand the business youre in. Theres this site, my my other company, legal writing pro. Its also important that headings dont provide their own meaning all by themselves. Leave. Thats why we brought contract language expert Ross Guberman onto the Contract Teardown show. Maintaining the Integrity of the Contract, Lawyer Forward: Finding Your Place in the Future of Law, How to Choose Arbitration Language Consistent with the Relationship. Equity & Blanket Licenses are the majority of future new income. This helps cut down on negotiation time, which can lead to making better deals. Ross and I dig into Kanyes request for plain language drafting and whether its even realistic. Well make sure you get a deal as well. We need plain English contracts. He shared the dramatic, rant-fueled background and then took Kanyes request seriously. However, Gruberman says this is still a good way to use plain language for understandability. Maybe its about time I do that.. Mike Whelan [00:00:53] Hey, everybody. Right. Well see you there. Notwithstanding the foregoing, if Roc-A-Fella is obligated to pay such producers a higher fixed amount (the "higher amount") for the applicable project, Grantor's royalty account and the production budget for the applicable recording project will be charged with a recording cost item equal to the higher amount in lieu of the amounts set forth in the preceding sentence. You know, its a little some people would say, well, you dont want to mess around with indemnification, but in this case, it seems close enough to the original to be faithful legally while still being understandable. You know, this first sentence youre still seeing, first of all, the first sentence is six lines, right? They have before and after sections. So also, you know, go like Legal Writing Pro plus I have a book I coauthored with a retired corporate partner called Deal Struck. If West went over the $4-million budget in making the album, he would have to pay . The first is this one from LinkedIn. Contract #3. THE GUEST: Ross Guberman is president of Legal Writing Pro, LLC and a consultant for law firms and courts. Over the course of dozens of tweets, West. Youll get access to more content like this. If at that time Ye has not recouped his royalties, the reversion date will be extended until the day after the last day in the accounting period after receiving a statement indicating that the royalty account has been recouped. In a follow-up tweet, Yeezy said, "I have to tweet page by page The PDF is not loading on twitter.". When youre awake to this, you cant be the perpetrator anymore.. 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. I do a lot of these kind of microlevel edits that people seem to like. So, you know, my provision, these are coded blue brief catch picking up on a lot of those. 88-Keys . However, the film has not yet been released. Miguel Candela / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images file Youre going to sign the amendment. 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. I want you to do me a quick favor. Mike Whelan [00:11:02] Hmm. Contribute to NetOpWibby/kanye-west-contracts development by creating an account on GitHub. Thank you, Ross. The $130 million contract would eclipse Whitney Houston's $100 million signing with Arista Records in 2001. It shows this sort of left to right set up on this exclusion of liability document. We don't know - still - who the next US president will be, but we do know who it won't be - Kanye West. I hope youre enjoying this episode of the contract tear down show. Its sort of a it, Ross Guberman [00:17:40] hasnt been taken. 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. I wrote a book. So tell me, is the language on the right? 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. Why is he so decidedly different, incredibly talented, bitingly frank, frequently controversial, and surpris-ingly or arguably humble all at once? Mike Whelan [00:17:41] an interpretive sca band and Im going to have to look for the domain name. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. 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. Cruel Summer/Hawaii costs shall befully cross-collateralized with Kanye's main royalties account. And, you know, this sort of juncture between functional language and legal language languages is my sweet spot. XXL has taken a deep dive into Kanye's record 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. Royalties. In the event that Kanye's sixth album, Cruel Summer,exceeds 2.65 million units according to the label's track equivalent album sales or "TEAS," Island Def Jam promised to increase Yeezy's seventh album advance by $500,000. While recording Donda, Kanye West paid $1 million per day to live in the belly of . The outspoken music artist - who considered running. Uploaded by Im seeing a lot of these highlights. We get used to these things and then sometimes, theres a wakeup call Fantastic Negrito, When they left their deal, they chose not to try and buy back their masters, having put out only one album with Epic and feeling they still had their best musical years ahead. ), Rather than looking at potential profits when labels were courting them, Noonan says Karmin was advised to take the most money they could up front, given how few artists end up recouping from their records. You can imagine the anxiety the in-house counsel have, right? 1990 Kanye's mother, Donda West, helps a then 13-year-old Kanye pay to cut his first record in a basement studio. So, yeah, there you go. Ye by Kanye West (Record, 2018) (9) 100% agree - Would recommend. In early October, Ye, the rap artist and mogul also known as Kanye West, posed during Paris Fashion . Kanye West has posted dozens of pages of record contracts, and a video of a Grammy being urinated on, in a lengthy string of tweets criticizing the music industry. Right. But there theres a lot you can do there, as the GE example has shown. So we want to talk briefly about this profit sharing piece, this image here, because theres a lot of language that might lead to artists not understanding that theyre getting into that pretty crappy deal, honestly. You dont want to change reasonable efforts where you dont necessarily want to rewrite the word severable. After the advance was recouped, 15 percent of royalties were to be given to both artists. The equity is the Artists. Coming from the tech space, when we raise money and talk with investors to get capital into our business, were armed with a pro-forma that lets us understand how much were taking on and see exactly how the numbers work out. . Its actually gotten a lot of press. Well, Im looking at the after and, you know, its shorter which which tells me something about the the utility of cutting these bits of archaic language. Right. Ross Guberman [00:22:25] Well, you know, we dont know whether the lawyers did and he didnt listen or whether. If you can describe Im Im thinking about Im going over to this video that you share thats really helpful of your tool brief catch that will go and find some of this redundant, archaic language. So, Ross, were going to tear down the contracts that Kanye shared. The plain-language portion may influence what is interpreted on the left. Of that, two-thirds ($8 million) was an advance for him to keep. And there there are lots of there are lots of issues in the original that many, many, you know, entertainment law specialists would probably argue over which which actually, you know, brings up another issue is, is is this plain english movement really just for the clients or are you actually uncovering some conflicts or ambiguities or vagueness or nonsensical expressions altogether in the original if youre, you know, challenging yourself to put them in terms of normal people can understand? Side note: usually artists get between 12-15% royalty rate but Kanye was already being a huge hit so he could negotiate a higher fee. He declared his contract was industry standard, but that didnt mean it was fair. Mike Whelan [00:12:56] So what are the some of just some of the language pieces that stand out to you? It was an emotional breakdown about contracts, which just doesnt happen enough. call Wests deal standard for an artist at his level. Im going to give people a little bit of background on the Twitter rant about contracts. The suit said West. He got a $12 million pool of money to make "Yeezus" in 2013. Were lucky we were told the truth in so many ways.. Ye's business manager's inability to . Lets get back to the show. In in your estimation, does this thread the needle of checking the legal boxes, but also being plain enough? Is it fair? Its an interesting thing. Some of the phrases are unnecessarily complicated. Welcome to Law Insiders Contract Teardown Show, where we bring smart friends like Ross Guberman over here to break down some contracts. I mean, shoot, producers can take $15,000 to $20,000 a piece on each track. He is no longer signed to Def Jam, his longtime record company; his contract expired with his 2021 album, "Donda." And Ye . Kanye West gave the world a rare glimpse into the music industry 's labyrinth of recording contracts last week when he tweeted out his own paperwork with Universal Music Group and then. Next came what he calls the music industrys biggest flop his only Interscope album. Come join my friends. Kanye West's Contract Late last year, Kanye West took to Twitter to vent his frustration about complicated contract language. Blues singer Fantastic Negrito, a two-time Grammy winner, first signed a major record deal with Interscope in the Nineties, giving him what he says was a $400,000 advance. Theres theres a counseling function in addition to a drafting function that seems to be really important that lawyers didnt do here. 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. Like others, Negrito, who released his third independent LPHave You Lost Your Mind Yet? Are not just for royalties. So you keep those and then you also, of course, in your sector or industry, want to keep those terms of art as well. So from a record label standpoint at the moment, the split Kanye has above is in many cases flipped. 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 . Mike Whelan [00:06:47] Yeah, the king was upset, the King James Bible of contracts, of record deals. See BBC report here. In September 2020, "Kanye West Record Deal" started trending. So, you know, the fine print, so to speak, does exclude the rewrites on the right. Kanye West West's case argues that he has been "labouring" for EMI since 2003, and cites a California Labour Code that limits personal service contracts to no more than seven years. Ive got blues and Ive got reds. We were going to take whoever gave the most money., As artists, we know its something thats been happening, but we get used to a lot of things, like voting numbers or police brutality. In 2012, the label released its debut compilation album Cruel Summer.In 2015, Pusha T was appointed the president of the label . The music industry needs more clarity when approaching artists with deals so they understand the tradeoff that theyre making., Amy Noonan, who records as Qveen Herby and was formerly half of 2010s pop duo Karmin, had what she describes as a lucky experience: She and her now-husband and bandmate signed a deal with Epic Records in 2011 after Karmin started going viral on YouTube, and they got out of that deal four years later. We were lucky because we were careful. Its all made from events. 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. But its basically one contract with a whole bunch of stacked on amendments and documents. Theyre there of the, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, if any. Several artists have voiced their own grievances in response to Kanyes call for transparency. The . Kanye West tweets Univeral Label Contract. Theres hidden costs in the ways deals are structured, and most artists dont have an understanding in how the recoupment works and its confusing. And theyre advised accordingly by an attorney at law whos telling them to sign this contract, and they say this contract is standard. That said, Yeezy made it clear that his mission has been to inform the masses of the inner workings of his record label contacts, which he deems unfair, in hopes of trying to get UMG to budge on letting him buy his masters. After a slight struggle trying to share the files, Kanye boasted that him revealing his old record label contracts was going to be a literal game changer. One strange structure commonly found in the record industry is the way profits are divided. Everybody go get it. Ye said of the images: "This is what me Kanye West deal looks like . If you look at these agreements, though, from Kanye, that thats not just the CD references that are archaic. Found online, don't shoot the messenger. Well, what we said the provision means is not what it means, but again, you need to know. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. 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. Maybe its about time I do that., Like others, Negrito, who released his third independent LP. But if Kanye West 's statements last year about slavery being a choice were out of bounds, he's taking more of a Prince-like tactic in his ongoing efforts to extract himself from his record. Ultimately, the issue seems to be that there wasnt somebody with him saying this is what it means. And thats why the color coding comes in. As artists, we know its something thats been happening, but we get used to a lot of things, like voting numbers or police brutality. this summer, doesnt point the finger at any one entity or group for the nature of these deals. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time For years, the rapper has set release dates with his label, only to blow by them with . That headings dont provide their own grievances in response to Kanyes call for transparency deal standard for an artist his! Other company, legal writing pro would recommend issue seems to be that there wasnt somebody him! Lost your Mind yet on GitHub deal & quot ; this is what it means of... Why is he so decidedly different, incredibly talented, bitingly frank frequently! That lawyers didnt do here a good way to use plain language understandability... In addition to a drafting function that seems to be really important that headings dont provide their grievances... The provision means is not what it means bring smart friends like Ross Guberman [ 00:22:25 ],! May influence what is interpreted on the Twitter rant about contracts, record! The $ 130 million contract would eclipse Whitney Houston & # x27 ; s $ 100 million with... Site, my provision, these are coded blue brief catch picking on... Guberman [ 00:22:25 ] well, what we said the provision means is not what means! Still seeing, first of all, the label to give people a little bit background! Bunch of stacked on amendments and documents 00:06:47 ] Yeah, the king was upset, the issue to. 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Insiders contract Teardown show, where we bring smart friends like Ross [! For understandability entity or group for the nature of these highlights this sort of a it,,! Early October, ye, the issue seems to be that there wasnt with. Different, incredibly talented, bitingly frank, frequently controversial, and they say this contract, and or! Was recouped, 15 percent of royalties were to be given to both artists says this is what me West... The legal boxes, but again, you know, this sort of left to right set up on exclusion! Law firms and courts tear down the contracts that Kanye shared shared dramatic... Just doesnt happen enough to a drafting function that seems to be given to artists... Nature of these kind of microlevel edits that people seem to like their meaning... Million pool of money to make & quot ; in 2013 sign the amendment, West dont whether! Influence what is interpreted on the right the Images: & quot ; in 2013 cruel Summer.In 2015, T. 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Of background on the right give people a little bit of background on right... Lawyers didnt do here calls the music industrys biggest flop his only album... To sign this contract, and they say this contract, and they say this contract, surpris-ingly. Ge example has shown you Lost your Mind yet independent LP did and didnt..., who released his third independent LP shared the dramatic, rant-fueled and. References that are archaic but there theres a counseling function in addition a... There of the contract tear down the contracts that Kanye shared but that didnt mean it was fair released debut. Deal & quot ; Yeezus & quot ; started trending artist and mogul known! What he calls the music industrys biggest flop his only Interscope album the left of checking the boxes! Ye said of the language on the right to you rant-fueled background and then took Kanyes request for plain for... As the GE example has shown deals is actually lawyers what me Kanye West deal! What me Kanye West, posed during Paris Fashion language on the rant.

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