Should the labels be able to make a profit off of this? One common grievance: Many aspects of record deals do not reflect how the business has dramatically changed over the past decade. Contribute to NetOpWibby/kanye-west-contracts development by creating an account on GitHub. Mike Whelan [00:10:12] Hey, everybody, Im Mike Whelen. You take expenses out and then people are sharing whats left. 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. He says that what he wants to do specifically is move the entire music industry into the 21st century because he didnt feel like that was adaptive. Kanye West leaked his recording contracts on Twitter. I hope youre enjoying this episode of the contract tear down show. Were were coloring pictures for you so you understand whats happening here? Almost ALL new deals now are based on ALL songs going to a store or app. In this episode of the Contract Teardown show, guest Diana Isyanova shares three possible approaches. 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. ET . Kanye West Posts Over 100 Pages of His Record Label Contracts, Tweet by Tweet Tyler Sharp Published: September 16, 2020 David Crotty / Patrick McMullan, Getty Images Kanye West made. This past Wednesday, September 16, Kanye West, in an attempt to " change the music industry for good ," shared his recording contracts with Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam Recordings, and Universal. Ross describes a counselor that can thread this very tough plain language needle. Maybe even my own lawyer is not really looking at the language from my point of view. If you are interested in being a guest on Contract Teardown, please email us at community@lawinsider.com. As artists, we know its something thats been happening, but we get used to a lot of things, like voting numbers or police brutality. Although, there is a concern here. Ye (/ j e / YAY; born Kanye Omari West / k n j e / KAHN-yay; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer.. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the early 2000s, producing singles for several artists and developing the "chipmunk soul" sampling style. This is a tool that is available to anyone looking to implement plain language into their contracts. And for Kanye and for all these performers, they were really giving money based on albums, unlike CD sales, which is not a thing anymore. Youre going to sign the amendment. See's Kanye West's Record Contract Tweets, revealing the intricate details of his record label contract. 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. In a follow-up tweet, Yeezy said, "I have to tweet page by page The PDF is not loading on twitter.". So what I what I what I did here is just pull pull one of the key provisions on the substantive side from this profit sharing agreement so we could try to figure out again whats possible for for the Kanye West of the world. If you look at these agreements, though, from Kanye, that thats not just the CD references that are archaic. We get used to these things and then sometimes, theres a wakeup call . Some of the phrases are unnecessarily complicated. Wests contract could even be considered favorable among superstar contracts, with Universal heavily investing in Wests works, entertainment attorney Christiane Kinney says. So, you know, theres a lot in contract language thats really just generic legaleese the same kinds of things you see in other documents. The language looks like something you might find, you know, 50, 100 years ago. 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. 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. 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. Its on the left, just as people dont want, you know, headings and contracts to have meaning as well. Then you, Kanye, get your money. Kanye West Attempts To Share His Recording Contract Page-By-Page On Twitter Aaron Williams Hip-Hop Editor Twitter September 16, 2020 For someone who goes on Twitter so much, Kanye West. In fact, according to one of his recent Instagram posts, the Three Stripes offered to buy Ye out of his contract for $1 billion. Youll get access to more content like this. That was pretty awesome. Right. In follow-up tweets, he shared screengrabs of 10 documents that included a profit sharing agreement and a recording agreement. So tell me, is the language on the right? Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. Music. 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. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time Harvard Business Review did a big piece on it, and the general counsel of that division really took this whole plain English thing seriously instead of just giving it lip service and actually redid a lot of their commercial agreements. Come join me. They dont want they dont want whats on the right to somehow control. Why should the lawyers watching this thing care other than the sick entertainment value of watching somebody have a breakdown about contracts? 25. And of course, this became a big story, in part because he totally undermined Taylor Swift some number of years ago about get wanting to get her masters back and saying, look, you just got to play the deal in this case. 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. Mike Whelan [00:22:56] So, Ross, I appreciate your thoughts on this. There was about 100 pages of documents that he probably should not have posted on Twitter, but he did anyway. However, Gruberman says this is still a good way to use plain language for understandability. Is this incorporated in in any way? 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. The rapper has put out nine albums over 17 years through Roc-a-Fella Records. It is not uncommon for a label to take their cut, then take out expenses, and then pay the artist. Kanye West, seen in 2019, has lost business deals in light of his recent antisemitic remarks. The first contract Kanye posted, dated April 13, 2005, is our earliest look at his deal with Universal through its subsidiary, Island Def Jam. Ross Guberman [00:03:18] And so Im the president of legal writing prose, so Ive been doing workshops and consulting on all different aspects of lawyer writing and judicial writing for a couple of decades now. Its actually gotten a lot of press. So from a record label standpoint at the moment, the split Kanye has above is in many cases flipped. I do a lot of these kind of microlevel edits that people seem to like. Its also important that headings dont provide their own meaning all by themselves. So this is right up my alley and Im calling from calling from the Capitol, right outside the Capitol and Northern Virginia. In 2012, the label released its debut compilation album Cruel Summer.In 2015, Pusha T was appointed the president of the label . In early October, Ye, the rap artist and mogul also known as Kanye West, posed during Paris Fashion . You meme creators, but you, Ross Guberman [00:04:05] look a little to hip to be from D.C., though, and. XXL has taken a deep dive into Kanye's record contracts. Kanye West continues his campaign against major record labels. "UNIVERSAL WONT TELL ME WHAT MY MASTERS COST BECAUSE THEY KNOW I CAN AFFORD TO BUY THEM," Kanye tweeted on Wednesday (Sept. 16). . Among his concerns: the need for plain language in legal documents (and the disproportionate power complex language can give one party). Dependents. A lawyers role is to improve deals, not charge for contracts we cannot understand or track. As lawyers and contract drafters trying to implement plain language, we have to find a way to do this while staying true to the contract. Island Def Jam can also recoup 100 percent profit ofCruel Summer/Hawaii costs. Intro Voice [00:00:10] Welcome to the Contract Teardown Show from Law Insider, where legal experts tear down contracts from some of the most well-known companies and high profile executives around the world. The Record Industry Spencer Cornelia 486K subscribers Subscribe 98K views 2 years ago Kanye West recently posted his record contracts on Twitter and it's clearly become a. 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. So I have to keep it versus this is archaic and useless. The deals not bad what is that based on? Negrito asks. Right. 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. So the rest, you know, if its not a one of those categories, its either an industry term of art or just normal English talking about finance or recording. His musical career has been marked by dramatic changes in styles, incorporating an eclectic range of influences including soul, baroque pop, electro, indie rock, synth-pop, industrial and gospel. But its all too new to know whether in any kind of dispute that language would actually be entered as evidence. 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. For Kanye, his 15% royalty rate on wholesale for each sneaker sold has netted him roughly $150 million pre-tax annually. Youre not trying to make it really friendly for consumers, but you are trying to make it friendly for business people while still preserving, as you can see in the rewrite as most of the actual terms of art. Broadly, what Ill say is theres this really weird profit sharing structure with this with these deals, because what the the record label will do is say we get our money, then we take expenses out. 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. Kanye West posted a number of tweets that caused a great deal of controversy in the music industry. So one of Kaynes and all musicians, big beef is that essentially the artists are paying for production of music videos. . I didnt know this was the thing, but apparently its a Twitter meme. It was an emotional breakdown about contracts, which just doesnt happen enough. The once hesitant label has now hit the. Email us at community @ lawinsider.com and a recording agreement deals not bad what that. Something you might find, you know, 50, 100 years ago at... 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