Things you should know as an artist

by up for music

Identification of parties of a contract

The producer / label and its licensee. The parties must be of legal structures or association, an individual cannot sign a license agreement.

Subject of contract

The licensing agreement involves the grant, the producer or independent label, the licensee (or Major Label), the right to reproduce, produce and communicate the registration of this contract to the public. The support for reproduction, communication or marketing includes present and future technologies (we do not sign an exclusive license for a CD-only release, that is the distribution of a natural or non-exclusive license for a compilation).

Definite and optional recordings

A license agreement may contain options on future recordings (1 to 4 in general, distinct and successive.)

Implementation options

You must send your new recording by registration mail with acknowledgment of a specified recipient. Upon receipt, the licensee has X days (usually 30) to make a decision on whether to apply or remove the option.

If the option is applied, you must provide all the elements of the recording in their finished form to the label (master, lyrics, album artwork) so that the option can be exploited adequately. If the option is rejected, it is necessary that the contract exclusivity ceases immediately (not for the current recordings being utilized, but afterwards. Otherwise, your career will be blocked and you will not be allowed to sign with an another label for your future productions.

The duration of a recording contract (whether exclusive or non-exclusive)

From 2 to 5 years from the date of the contract signing (do not sign a contract stipulating its validity on the date of "commercial release of the work,” knowing that you have no authority over it .

The territory

Ideally, you must first learn about the legal structure and the implication of your future label and more importantly, be realistic!

It is advisable to sign a license only for the country where the future licensee physically resides, and to clearly request a marketing plan and promotion outside the borders so that you can consider it, given that signing a license agreement is equivalent to an advance and it is better to sign for several licenses in multiple countries and combine them, rather that provide you with a single advance for the world.

Note that some labels justify THE WORLD by announcing the sale of your works on global platforms to you. This is wrong, because this does not require a license agreement but you must sign a distribution agreement; a license that implies any effort to increase the project's visibility and make the public aware of it (promotion, marketing, and physical and digital sales only come after).

Regarding the clause, which allows the producer to claim a territory, if the label has not exploited a work in the latter, note that some difficulties will arise, for example:

I signed my work for Canada, where there has been promoting, radio interviews, press and promotion, and then there's the world, where my title is only available on iTunes, surrounded by 2 million works, without ANY promotion (ie a potential sale of zero).

If your contract allows you to retrieve the rest of the world (excluding Canada), be aware that if your title has been released on iTunes, http://www.facebook.com/l/278e4;Amazon.com.. it will be difficult and time consuming to apply for a withdrawal of the works for the republishing under the new label, and it may take several weeks to several months.

Only sign for one country to begin with, and learn to proceed gradually.

Operations, Marketing and Promotion

The purpose of the licensing agreement aims of your marketing or your products. The license must therefore guarantee it and specify the period.

You must also pay attention to a situation that repeats itself often still to this day:

A label takes licensed work, makes a few promotional CD's, sends them to the media, and awaits feedback.

If the return is negative from the media, the project gets put on the shelf (profit and loss accounted for by the company).

The licensee may however be covered by digitally distributing your production (it costs 0 euros for information), but we want to draw your attention towards this important clause in the contract, because without advertising and marketing, there will be no optimized usage and therefore you will gain nothing (both financially or in reputation).

Not all situations are quite as being described, but we simply wish to draw your attention to the fact that a signed contract is deemed accepted and there is no going back afterwards. Most importantly, we want you to understand that a license is not a publishing contract, and even less of a physical or digital distribution agreement.

In case the licensee does not sell the work in question, the producer may, in principle, require the termination of the contract and the payment of compensation for a loss of profits (not easy to estimate, each situation is different).

Remember to discuss, propose and request information about the marketing plan that will be implemented (POS, purchase of space in the media and non media, buzz on the Internet) and you must also be interested in the project after the signing without interfering too much in the company's business.

Advances

There are no rules for an advance, it can range from 0 to millions of euros if you ask Mariah Carey. Some major labels are providing up to 10 000 for a single in France, whereas an independent label advances about 1500 euros.

For an album, we see averages of about 50 000, but beware, this rarely applies to an artist in development, especially without support from the media (radio, clubs, etc) for which the advance may reach only 10 000 euros given the status of the album.

The advance is usually paid in half upon the signing of the contract and half upon delivery of the master recordings, or 100% upon the signing of the contract. It depends, since nothing is really cemented during such negotiations.

The recovery of advance

The advance is said to be recoverable but not refundable. The amount will be deducted from the fees altogether. The label will advance money because it believes in the project, so it will make every effort to ensure that it works and it can reimburse the costs.

Neighboring Rights

The rights accruing to the neighbors (private copy, fair compensation) are generally shared equally with the licensee. See article "Neighboring Rights"

Secondary uses 1 is a venture that was not initially intended by the parties and covers mainly the audiovisual synchronization (the recording becomes music for a advertisement, a movie, television).

If the contract authorizes the licensee to carry out this type of operation, the fee may be about 60/40 for the licensee and maybe even 50/50. This allocation is to be specified in the contract.

End of contract

When the contract expires, the licensee usually has a period of 6 months to non-exclusively the copies of the work that remain in stock. After this period, the capital right reverts to the producer and the licensee is obliged to destroy the remaining copies.

Competent jurisdiction

This is the clause that states the location of the competent and appropriate courts in the case of litigations. These courts are often located where the license agreement was implemented.

The artist's letter of inducement

A licensing agreement is signed if the producer holds a signed contract with the artist. It may be, for one reason or another, that the contract linking the producer to the artist is broken. Therefore, it can happen that licensees require a letter signed by the artist pledging to sign directly with the licensee in the event of a dispute with his or her producer.