Crazy how the solution to someone like Taylor Swift getting an investor’s share of her own music is to further firewall artists from the revenue of their art.
I’m sure someone could say something on this, if they were interested in calculating the real value of labor.
It really is a perfect example of the way that “intellectual property” as a concept has been far more effective at stealing the work of artists rather than protecting their claim to it.
Honestly, why would anyone sign to a major label anymore?
Exposure, connections and radio play. Radio play is still important for industry connections, so I’ve heard.
“free” access to recording studios, sound engineers, songwriters, lyric writers, producers
Signing to a label is basically taking venture capital investment for your company except the deal is way worse because the label takes back all the investment capital and owns your music
its a lot more attractive to traditional musicians. digital artists can do all this on their imac these days and self publish but its harder to do when you need actual space and equipment to record live drums and shit
Slave deals, slave deals as far as the eye can see
I constantly think of Mario Judah as the 100% reason why we don’t play with these majors
If you’re a struggling artist and some slick A&R guy hands you a big contract, you probably just say fuck it and sign most of the time.
Problem is that’s not the reality any more. The majors wont consider you if you dont have your own following because they dont want to invest in building up buzz behind an artist and would rather you did the work yourself (for free).
That’s true. A following doesn’t always mean you’re not struggling though. It’s a tough industry to make money in as an independent, even if you have a good chunk of fans.
I’m really surprised their contracts didn’t already include giving the label full rights to the song. Like I would never have expected an artist to just be able to leave their label and re-record their songs like Swift has done.
Music copyright is split between composition and performance right? I thought labels would want to own both, not just the performance.
There’s also publishing.
This video is basically an ad for a new venture but it explains rights and payment well.
https://youtu.be/-TM9foEQJ-Q?si=JekKRS0pyFs9SC7B
EDIT: I believe that Taylor already owned her catalog but she didn’t own her masters (the actual recordings). Therefore she was able to re-record her albums because she owns her songs, just not the original recordings.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
