Sony claims of Artist's Name URL For Life

Effugas writes "Apparently displeased that individual artists might try to contact their fanbase All By Themselves(TM), Sony has been inserting clauses in their contracts that assign eternal ownership of any URL that even slightly references the artist's name to The Company. " Sent some shivers down my spine.

Comments

Try this...

[YuppieScum]

...shall have the exclusive right, throughout the world...

Right then. We all stump up some cash for a satellite and a Linux box, and start selling .orb domain names.

Not only does their wording preclude orbital hosting, but who would they find to have juristiction so they could sue?

Similar situation with Douglas Adams Books

[alexmc]

A similar (but different) situation with any kind of domain name which uses references from Douglas Adams' books: in particular the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Adams work is being "controlled" by a company called The Digital Village (which he partly owns - so it isn't as bad as Sony). The TDV Lawyers have issued a general request for everyone to cease using domains mentioning characters or places or things from any Adams book.

Now of course this seems to be just posturing on the side of TDV lawyers as people in the company itself seem to be quite nice and reasonable but it has led me to start the move changing a domain: megadodo.com to galactic-guide.com

Ok - not quite the same thing as Sony but connected non-the-less.

Alex Mc

Re: This is a good argument for gun control...

[0xdeadbeef]

Let me rephrase that: if what is desirable is possible, though denied due to the lack of resources, it is a fantasy. So what you're saying is, that it is up to those with the power to set the standard for what is fair and acceptable? How would you respond to that assertion in a political context?

Besides, if the market will fix it, why hasn't it already? CD prices have gone up, yet the cost of production has gone down. Maybe promotion costs have gone up, but why has that increased the price of my favorite, relatively unpromoted, artists? Why does it take such a revolutionary advance in technology like the internet and MP3 for people to even begin to consider the possibility that the music cartel may break down? Do you not believe in cartels? Then why aren't the big labels in a price war, rather than colluding to force SDMI on us and rallying behind the RIAA?

And why will the clause be laughed out of court? Like the original poster said, no one's putting guns to people's heads... for the court to revoke the clause means they basically agree with me, that it's disguised coercion, or consider it unenforcable.

Uh, oh... I found the REAL stinger

[Graud]

host any and all Web sites relating to the artist

This is also part of the included clause...

I can imagine them using this part of their contract with the band to say that any web site ABOUT the band is trademark infringement. I can only imagine a record company telling every fan of JoeBloeTinyBand who has a website to cease and desist, or face fines, because despite JoeBloeTinyBand's general happiness at having fan sites scattered about the internet, only the record company has a right to publish web sites ABOUT the band.

Actually, the more I write/think about this... the less likely I think it is to stand up in court... I guess at least in the US there are still some freedoms of the press. *shrug*

More than just the URL

[Croaker]

If I read this correctly:

Sony and its licensees shall have the exclusive right, throughout the world, and shall have the exclusive right to authorize other persons, to create, maintain, and host any and all Web sites relating to the artist and to register and use the name '[artist name].com' and any variations thereof which embody the artist's name as Uniform Resource Locators (or 'URLs'), addresses, or domain names for each Web site created by Sony in respect of the artist... All such Web sites and all rights thereto and derived therefrom shall be Sony's property throughout the territory and in perpetuity."

That means that an artist cannot have any website of their own, even if they are quits with Sony. Forever. Whee. Makes software licensing terms look like a bargain, eh? If the future is what a lot of people think, music will primarily be distributed over the net. No webpage means no income.

I do doubt how enforceable it would be in reality. After all, clauses in employment contracts that require people not to work for a potential competitor for a year or so after leaving the company seldom seem to hold up. Even so, though, the threat of having to fight a major lawsuit before you can even start publishing your music again seems so daunting that it would keep artists in line. Which is really what Sony wants.

Re:More than just the URL

[ua]

When I was dealing with non-compete/non-disclosure issues at a previous job, my contract lawyer told me about Sony's non-compete.

Most of the non-competes that I've seen prevent the employee from working in the same geographic area (usually the city, possibly the state) for a period of time (I've seen 1-5 years).

The lawyer told me that Sony's non-compete goes far beyond that: they include the phrase "the solar system" quite often. Scary, eh?

IANAL, but I understand it's unreasonable, and probably unenforcable to put such wide geographic limitations on a person's career. I know that it's unenforcable to prevent somebody from working in the tech field for five years. The courts may permit up to one, but five will be laughed at by the judge. An intelligent judge anyway. :-)

WRT Sony's URL-grabbing, I would assume all stage names are Sony's, period. If the signee became famous with their real name, that /may/ be arguable in court.

I searched a bit, but can not find any Sony NDAs or non-competes on line. A lucky virtual nickel (5c) to the person that can reprint one!

Re:What about the artist formerly known as Prince?

[jonathanclark]

That's interesting, I didn't know there was a 26 character limit.

You can get around this limit with subdomains.

the.artist.formerly.known.asprince.com

(asprince.com is available right now! - and I doubt prince has trademarked it) :)

This is one of the strategies to find buffer overflows in servers. Create a really long subdomain name and surf around the net and you'd be surpised at how many cgis you crash. Is there a limit to how long a subdomain name can be or how many deep you can go?

Re:Sony Suicide

[eponymous cohort]

Once a week they tell the hundred radio companies which bands they think are going to be popular next week. They are usually right.

And the reason they are right is because the hundreds of Program Directors for these radio stations listen to them and add these artists, so it's a self-fulfilling prediction.

This will change if radio ceases to be the primary means of promoting artists

But if the Internet were to replace radio, you'd still see a similar situation because the artists have to eat, and the promoters need money to promote, etc. Artists running MP3 sites just won't cut it.

How can the Artist sign it away?

[Graud]

If the artist in question hasn't registered that domain name (with InterNIC, or whomever) how does Sony actually expect to hold up that contract? The artist in question doesn't have rights to it, just by having the name. We've been through this here before, and I think most of us agree that just naming a band doesn't give rights to .com.

So, this contract asks the artist to say "Hey, this thing I don't own... you now have rights to it!!"

sounds like BS to me

Re:How can the Artist sign it away?

[SEE]

Obviously, this doesn't by itself allow Sony to sue J. Random Webmaster for using the domain name -- but it does allow Sony to sue the band if the band tries to later use such a domain name without Sony's permission.

It looks like it's primarily intended as an end-run around the recently proposed U.S. legislation that would allow ex-band-members to use the band name in promotional materials. This way, Sony doesn't have to worry about the legislation allowing an ex-band-member from getting a URL that looks like an official-legal one.

Re:How can the Artist sign it away?

[rve]

Do you crash your instruments onstage?

Re:How can the Artist sign it away?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, my band "Microsoft" is still battling its way through the courts, and we are still determined to get what is rightfully ours away from those stupid domain squatters!

Re:How can the Artist sign it away?

[M@T]

So, this contract asks the artist to say "Hey, this thing I don't own... you now have rights to it!!"

No... The article appeared to be stating that Sony will, by default, now own the rights to all URLs related to an artists name - but that's just FUD.

As an added bonus to what they're really doing, they're also scaring fans, name sakes etc. away from those URLs by asserting ownership even though they may have no legal basis for such a claim.

IANAL, but I think the real situation here is that Sony is telling the artists, by way of contract, that "the artist" will never be able to register those URLs. ie. Sony is blocking the artists ability to contact its fan base directly on the net.

I assume Sony will use the usual trademark/copyright route through the courts to hassle anyone else who happens to lay claim to a particular URL.

M@T

Sony Suicide

[KuRL]

It's amazing how backwards a company like Sony is thinking. Record labels will soon lose their grasp on being "the only way for an artist to get distribution," especially with major artists like Bowie and the Beastie Boys embracing the net.

Record companies, in addition to taking the vast majority of profits (getting $0.70 per CD sold is very difficult to do for a major artist), nevermind the fact that the label handles distribution and virtually nothing else.

If trucking companies charged 85% of the value of the goods to ship, there'd be no way that one would use them, yet labels do the same thing, acting as a cartel, stifling artistic talents, while looking to cash in on the next big thing.

But I digress, the last thing labels need to do is place more restrictions on artists, in any form. With advancing technology, soon it won't be so difficult for artists to handle their own distribution, and the labels need all of the leverage they can get.

In summary, I forsee the death of labels within the next 15 years, and that's pretty damn conservative.

Re:Sony Suicide

[Kyrrin]

> There are ten record companies. Once a week they
> tell the hundred radio companies which
> bands they think are going to be popular next
> week. They are usually right.


But are they right because they actually can predict what "the masses" want, or are they right because what they predict is *automatically* what "the masses" want, because it's what they're being given?

I live just at the edge of WXPN, in Philly -- member-supported public radio. And I almost never hear the same thing twice in a month from them. Contrast that to any of the pop stations, where you'll hear the 'song of the week' three times in one day...

Is it that the mega-successes are *good music*, or is it just that they're pushed down everyone's throats until a demand is created?

(Is Windows good software, or is it just that "everyone uses it"...?)

Re:Sony Suicide

[BirksNCap]

In addition, Sony has the distinction of being one of the most anti-taping labels around, if only through their WORK nameprint, which services folks like Jamiroquai and Fiona Apple. They also control Ben Harper and Barenaked Ladies. Many of these artists treat fan not-for-profit/fair-use taping as free advertising. David Schools of Widespread Panic was astonished when they first began to play Colorado after playing small clubs in the southeast as a "Dead Covers band" and people at the concerts would mouth/sing the lyrics to the songs.

Artists like Phish, Dave Matthews Band, and of course, the Grateful Dead, took the example of early bluegrass artists and allowed folks to bring in their own recording equipment and record concerts for their own archives. People like me would take these recordings and trade them at no profit for either other recordings or blanks and postage to our friends or others who request them. It's a concept I've been involved in for several years, and what initially attracted me to Open Source.

At any rate, Sony fights all taping, and generally throws in language in artists' contracts forbidding even recording themselves for their own archival and study[never hurts for a band to be able to bone up on old material or see how they sounded x years ago.] We can only hope that other labels like RCA [ granted, they're a BMG label, but they have a clue on taping, with artists like Bruce Hornsby, DMB, Agents of Good Roots and Vertical Horizon, which are all pro-taping and have it in writing in their contacts from what I understand!] have some effect on the industry as a whole and discourage Sony from more restrictive ideas like no taping, SCMS [ bleah! ], or SDMI, not to mention the opposition of artists to control their own destinies with regard to their operations on the net.

"Who are you?What do you want?Why are you here?Where are you going?"-JMS

What about the artist formerly known as Prince?

[treilly]

To me, this represents an Enigma. If Prince is legally no longer known as prince, I would think that domains such as:

prince.com
and
theartistformerlyknownasprince.com

should not be covered by this restriction.

However, since his name is not currently part of any ISO Standard character set, and thus can not be a part of a url, I would think that this means that any website devoted to prince would not be covered by this restriction.

Sony's view of the Internet

[bink]

It amazes me how differently corporations (in this case Sony) view the internet. If they're not trying to patent banner ads (ala Doubleclick) then they're trying to wrest away our first Amendment right to freedom of speech. What does Sony think the difference is between a fan web site and a fan magazine? I think ultimately the problem is that "big business" sees the internet more like television than anything else. That's why we saw the channel paradigm a few years ago, and that's why we see portals today. Sony thinks that if it cuts off competition, it will get more viewers. What they don't get is that the internet is meant to be an active medium, and that active participation produces far more buzz than a passive medium does (witness /.). Ultimately, if Sony were to try to shut down fan website, they'd fail...but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Contract editions

[Dan B.]

A record deal isn't just about distribution. It's a lot more to do with the marketing than anything else. Anyone can press out thoushands of CD's for about 25c each, but you need to advertise to sell them.

In Australia we have 200 "chart" stores that are the record industries worst kept secret. All the major labels put ultra marketing dollars in to these stores (and very little in to any others) in order to pump up the album on the charts. Once they're in the top 20, the CD moves to the chart rack and will be carried by ALL the stores. The label will also release your singles to the radio stations for air play. Where else are the general public going to here your music?

The only saving grace is that once you've got a hit, people may actually look for your album (It took me a week to track down "The Living End" EP before their album release). If people look on the 'net, well, what more needs to be said.

I suppose if you use the net to advertise/market your album, you can bypass the misguidings of a record label, but... You absolutely have to have a fan-base/name/history/etc before you can go it alone. When you're that big, you can delete items you don't like from a contract. Just put a line through it on the contract, then it's legally deleted from the contract.

For this reason. I don't think we will see the death of the record label for a long, long time.

Microsoft's next move?

[XiRho]

Think about it, Microsoft could create a band called "The Slashdot," get published by Sony and have /. wiped off the map. Heck, why stop there? Imagine the pack of new groups that Microsoft will be "encouraging" Sony to publish, The Linux, The FreeBSD, The RedHats, The Kernel.Org, the DepartmentOfJustice. And you thought Wintel was bad, wait until the Unholy Triumvirate Of Technology starts having all non-Microsoft promoting websites shot off the web!

"If you don't use windows then what do you use?"
"FreeBSD."

The cost of Promotional Investment

[Skevin]

Hmm, you have a few good points, but consider that most musicians don't have the kind of funding to back themselves the way a megacorp does. I see it more of a loanshark mentality - "We'll pay for all your promotions, and we'll give you a very small cut of what we make off of you..." Strange, but that's the mentality I grew up with... and I subconciously accept it as being equitable!
The actual cost of promoting oneself is surprisingly little... For a little more than $20k you can actually get your own music up on the listening stations at Tower Records (back in 1996). I never went through with it because when I was writing music prolifically, I was still a poor student who never even knew what 20k looked like.

DEVIL'S ADVOCATE MODE ON
I don't think you can compare a record company to a trucking company: an artist has indeterminate outcome value - his/her ultimate dollar sum is reliant on the popularity of his/her music (or image, in the case of Artists That Suck). From the record companies' point of view, they are making an investment which they hope will turn out well for them. I'm sure that for every Brittany Spears, a record company has lost money on dozens of no-name people who labels never made it to the record store.
In a nutshell, the general outlook on money here is, "I put up most of the capital, so I should reap most of the profits." IMHO, that's a very healthy capitalistic mentality. "If you, the Artist, don't want my funding, find it elsewhere, or do it yourself."
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE MODE OFF

Admittedly, most artists don't have money, and along those lines, the Web is a wonderful way to distribute one's own music without much starting capital, provided you have a product that stands up. In my experience, I have noticed that if there is anything bad about putting one's music online, it's trying to get noticed above everyone else who's trying to do exactly the same thing, which is why I'm now going to go into...

PLUG MODE ON
What better place to plug my music! I write a lot of symphonic/orchestral stuff, and have full MP3s of some of my works here, all of it for free! (assuming you don't try to use it for commercial stuff, for which I'll want a royalty.:) ) Unlike a lot of artists, I don't expect to make income off of this, since I prefer not to sell my soul (SMS) to record companies, and believe you me, I have some... interesting, contracts on file that I never got around to signing.
PLUG MODE OFF

Okay, I'm going to pray I didn't just start a /. effect on my server...

S. Kevin Chang
DBA / Programmer / Composer
[Insert Large Evil LA-based Entertainment Company here]
[Hint #2: it's in Burbank]
malusdei@pacMAUSHWITZbell.net
[to email, rem all caps from address]

Tour income vs, Album income

[Dan B.]

Concerts make very little money compared to album sales. Especially for smaller name bands.

Picture this:

Big name band puts out new album, sells 500,000 copies with an income of about $1.00 each. That's half a million dollars, plus what the label paid them to record it in the first place - Probably about another $500,000 - Total, $1 million.

Same band goes on tour, plays to, say 30 concerts at 30,000 people each - 900,000 people and charge $40 per ticket. Of this, it costs about $35 per person to put the concert on in the first place, plus tour expenses, plus this, plus that. The promoter takes a cut, the label takes a cut and eventually the band may end up with about $500,000 after 30 concerts. Not bad but...

They just advertised their music in a major way and reeled in a few new fans. "Liked the concert? Buy the album." That is the pupose of touring for the bigger name bands.

Hey presto album sales dollars again. Usually more than before.

Now look think about a little band that get's little support from their record label.

They record a CD, sell about 20,000 copies (maybe!) and get about $0.60 per copy. To get more sales, you need to get more fans, so...

They have to tour to advertise and can only charge about $10 so people attend. Nearly all of the money received on touring is spent on tour!

It only serves as a marketing tool to sell albums.

Re:Tour income vs, Album income

[fornix]

Concerts make very little money compared to album sales. Especially for smaller name bands. Picture this: Big name band puts out new album, sells 500,000 copies with an income of about $1.00 each. That's half a million dollars, plus what the label paid them to record it in the first place - Probably about another $500,000 - Total, $1 million.

Sounds plausible, but not really accurate. Record companies give artists miniscule royalties from each CD sold, and they recoup the cost of recording/producing/etc from the artist's tiny fraction of the royalties. The overhead for live performances is not as high as you suggest above, and live concerts are indeed a major source of income for artists. Although they had it worse than the typical band, the Goo Goo Doll's plight with their record company, as recently aired on VH1, really illustrates how badly the labels will try to screw the artists. Their "A Boy Named Goo" CD was selling like mad, the cut "Name" was all over the airwaves, and they were on top of the world. When they got home from their tour, they got their first royaly statement in the mail. After sales of the CD (selling really well) and recording/production costs were considered, the band owed the label something like $100,000. Ridiculous. They sued and settled out of court to nondisclosed terms. They toured some more so that they could pay for the ongoing legal battle.

The point? Touring pays well, royalties from CD sales are usually quite unfair to the artist.

Artists will take more control of the process: Prices for quality digital recording workstations (PC based, or machines such as the Roland VS1680) are falling. Distribution, traditionally a stumbling block for artists who were able to get over the recording/production hurdle, is being solved by the internet with sites such as MP3.com and the like. Promotion & advertising? Well, in the "old days" it was word of mouth around town. Now it will be word of mouth around the world.

Artists will become "overnight sucesses" when a critical mass of people on the net who like their stuff spreads the word. There will be a lucky few whose mp3 archives will be slashdotted one day by a link or story in a highly visible forum, and their careers will be catapulted. We will need record companies about as much as we will need travel agents.

Vindication for MP3 advocates

[BLiP2]

This shows just how scared record companies are of the possibility of MP3. The whole idea of them losing fortunes through Internet piracy is complete nonsense. Go to just about any pirate MP3 site and you'll find low bandwidth, limited selection, broken links, and ratio servers. With these conditions it's impossible for the pirates to move anywhere near the amount of music as the major record stores.
A legitimate artist, however, can easily set up a high band-width web site to distribute MP3 files and sell CD's, cutting out the record company completely. By using this contract clause, Sony can prevent that possibility from ever occurring. Giving them complete control over the electronic medium of the artist, even if things fall out later on (i.e. the artist get angry, and decides to go independent). Expect other record companies to follow suit now that the precedent has been set.

Baseball's Reserve clause

[Zachary Kessin]

This reminds me of the baseball reserve clause.
Untill the 70's any ball player who singed with a club had to stick with them for life. Now the major difference was that there was only one Major League baseball where as there are a number of record companies (OK a small number) so there is some posibility that a court would rule this at least partialy un enforcable.

Ofcourse I could be wrong. Depends on your jurisdiction.

Re: This is a good argument for gun control...

[0xdeadbeef]

Why is it that every corporate apologist portrays the idea coercion must equate to guns to peoples' heads?

I mean, you live, or you die... but you still have a choice! How can there be coercion when you have more than one option?

Do you see the point here? Choosing between limited options, where those limitations are artificial, is not freedom. An artist can sign to a big label and make money, yet practically forfeit their firstborn, or go independant and live in obscurity. There are exceptions, of course, but this is the way it is for most artists, and the record companies collude to keep it that way. They have even manipulated government to give them unique priveledges, such as taxes on recording media! What was that about guns...

Besides, suppose the free market fairy does make everything all right in the end, it won't happen unless artists resist this kind of bullshit, and consumers don't buy from companies that do it.

Either way, our resentment toward Sony is justified.

Ummm, check your facts

[DrumHacksaw]

While I think most record companies are hideous monsters, let's give credit where credit is due:

Typically the record company arranges to have you recorded professionally, often to the tune of $100,000 to $250,000 to much more if the folks in attendance believe it's worth the money for the extra time. They handle national promotion, including booking tours and getting you to them. And, of course, they handle distribution to distributors, unless they are their own. Most aren't, because it's too annoying to make and keep millions of local contacts.

On the flip side, It is basicly correct that most band gets about $.65 a copy, but it takes a while to get that. After all, you need to pay for the promotion and recording.

If you are doing it all yourself, you can expect to get about $3.00 a copy, when all is said and done. How many copies you sell will be a function of how well it is promoted, as well as how popular it is.

It cost about $.75 to press the cd's, $.50 to package them, Add a quarter for shipping handling to stores. Add in production, and promotion. If they ship 100,000 copies, you might recover this money. The record company adds on a markup, probably 100%. You get paid out of that, if the promotions and production have been paid. The distributor adds a markup, the retailer adds a markup.

In the end, the record company gets the $3.00 and gives you some of that.

Never the less, bands should not sign contracts assigning their copyright to the company, and should not sign any assigning the company anything in perpituity. That's asking to be screwed. See http://www.digitalglobalmobile.com

Other names, Alternic, etc.

[GoRK-DC]

Why does everyone always assume that a website name has to be 'companytrademark.com' or 'bandname.com' ?

What if you had to type bunnypeople.com to get to Intel's website? "I'd never find it!" you scream at my comment. I say if Intel decided to use bunnypeople.com and leave intel.com out in the rain, people would know it. The hell gets promoted out of intel.com anyway.. why not bunnypeople.com?

That all being said, I hate these companies that register a billion domain names and stick a bunch of stupid "sections" of what is really just one site all under one domain. Get a clue corporate america! one domain; one domain name. You don't get two unless your company has two divisions that do highly different things. imagine if you had to go to pentiumII.com to find out about the p2 but you couldnt find out about the p3 without going to pentiumIII.com. That's what it's like. STUPID!!!!

It's all about marketing and I'm about to puke my guts out. Big money thinks they can make the net into what they want it. They seem to want it to be a mess. Man, I wish alternic.nic had taken off. I supported them whole-heartedly. The Internet would have a much different (and I believe better) structure today if they had 'made it' so to speak. Everyone wants "DOT-COM" what a load of bunk!

~GoRK

DNS!=trademark

[jafac]

It's a name for a server, a computer, a box of hardware! It's not a trademark name! ick!

If Compuserve had been the dominant network, would companies be able to trademark "GO IBM" or "GO MICROSOFT"? How about GO TAKE A FLYING LEAP?

I guess they won't be able to do Motley Crue, because DNS doesn't like spaces, or umlaut characters.

"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."

Unfortunately, this is typical.

[tilde]

I've worked for a major record company, and this doesn't surprise me in the least. A lot of newer bands will do just about anything to 'get the deal' since they're usually very young, eager and sometimes naive. They're so taken with being catered to and treated like stars that they don't realize the reality of having it all yanked away from them when their next CD fails to move enough units.

I'm really hoping that the whole MP3 thing (or whatever format is next) will serve to stick it to the major record companies in a big way.

~

How to run a record company:

[Apuleius]

1. make a cream pie.

2. take bookend from living room, place on kitchen table.

3. lean pie against bookend, at 45 degrees.

4. take 5 steps back.

5. run into pie, head first.

6. go to step one.

Imagine this scenario:

[mircea]

Disclaimer: all names portrayed here are fictional!

Say I have a web site called, for the sake of the argument, umh..whatevername.com. All is well, but after four years, Sony comes up with an artist called "whatevername". Where do I stand? Do I have to get license from them to continue running my (preexistent, mind you) website, or get sued by them? The way I read the terms, they would think I do. Pure madness!

Re:Imagine this scenario:

[phil reed]

Nope, because you did not sign a contract with Sony. You might get sued by them (cf: Hasbro vs. Clue Computing over clue.com), but as long as you're not impinging on their trademark area of business (music), you should be fine.

A contract is an agreement between two parties. If you didn't sign the contract, then you're not part of the agreement.


...phil

Typical of mass media

[Wanker]

This is not a particularly surprising inclusion. Media companies put all kinds of language in their standard contracts assigning ownership to The Company.

For example, cartoon companies routinely have the creator sign away rights to the characters and style, allowing The Company to continue to publish the strip even if the creator quits. I'm sure some of us remember how bitter Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes was...

Unfortunately, people go ahead and sign these contracts since their only other alternative is to be forever consigned to oblivion. Without a publisher, these artists would never have been noticed.

With the advent of cheap (or even free) web publishing, this is all changing. Anyone can make their art readily available-- witness the popularity (for both consumer and supplier) of mp3.com, User Friendly, and others.

The Internet is starting to force media publishers back into the role of promoters rather than controllers, and they are understandably upset and/or scared. Consumers will still need publishers to help pick out what is good, but they no longer need be restricted to only what the publishers wish to promote, so the publisher will no longer have the same power over the artists they once had.

You're allowed to cross out sections from contract

[Dan B.]

Only replying to this to get it at the top but...

On every contract you ever sign, you can legally cross out anything that you don't agree with. That's why both parties sign it. You pick out what you don't want, and sign. They either agree and counter-sign, or disagree and write up a new contract.

Any artist considering signing with Sony would be advised to dlete this from their contract.

Just my 2 bob.

The key here is "standard contract"

[Our Man In Redmond]

I don't know a whole lot about music industry contracts, but I know something of publishing contracts, and I expect they're similar.

In an ideal world, the artist sits down with his/her/its/their agent, goes over the contract line by line, and approves or disapproves of each clause, making changes to the contract as necessary. Then it goes back to the publisher (or, presumably, record label), which can accept or reject the proposed changes. The back-and-forth continues until both sides accept the contract and everybody starts making money. Nobody has to accept any clause in the contract if they don't like it or don't want to.

The article did in effect note, though, that a lot of artists (especially first-timers) are naive in the ways of the music business and have no idea what the things they're signing away, like T-shirt licensing deals and URL control, are really worth -- and the standard contract is designed precisely to give the publisher/record company/whoever as much control of the product (read, band and music, or writer and books) as possible. It's much like a negotiation where one side names its wildest pie-in-the-sky offer, expecting to be haggled down to something sensible. When Big Mama Sony is dangling a six-figure check and a contract in front of The Garage Fish, whose biggest gig to date has been the American Legion hall, as the article says, it's hard to say no, and often they sign, giving Sony control over their entire artistic lives. (This is not to pick on Sony. It's the same with Warner Brothers, or Columbia, or anybody else. YMMV)

It's also possible that if Sony wants control over an artist's web presence badly enough, they can say, "Well, sorry, if you don't include this clause we won't sign you."

Personally I think the artist should keep as much control over his/her/their product as possible. You never know when it's going to mean a few (or a lot of) extra dollars. Just as an example, an obscure newspaperwoman and novelist named Irene Kampen made sure the contract for her first book, "Life Without George," gave her the television rights instead of the publisher. At the time the book was published television was still in its infancy, so the publisher probably didn't even notice -- but until her death last year she was collecting residuals for a TV show based on her book. You might have heard of it. It was called "The Lucy Show." It ran in prime time for 12 years and is probably still running somewhere at this very moment.

Artists, think twice before you sign away those satellite, holodeck and telepathy rights!
--

Crossing yourself out of a deal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how it works, tho.

Sony is making this language a "deal breaker," as in "take it or leave it." And Sony knows if you're a young artist who has been working for years to get "a break" then you would sell your soul, let alone a lousy URL, to get a deal. That's why artists let labels take 25% off the top of retail for "packaging deductions" when calculating royalties AND "breakage costs" that harken back to the days of shellac records, NOT TO MENTION taking 25% off the statutory rate set by Congress for mechanical royalties owed to publishers just because, as a cartel, they can.

Make no mistake, the big 5 major labels are an oligopoly that rips off artists big time!

Remember George Michael?

["Zow"]

He signed a 5 album deal with Sony when he went solo (Probably becuase they did a good job promoting Wham!). And everyone reaped the benifits of Faith. But he released Listen Without Prejudice the same time that Mariah Carrey came on the scene, so Sony did almost nothing to promote it (let's keep in mind that Mariah went on to marry the Pres of Sony Music). This pissed Mr. Michael off to no end (and judging by the responces here, it'd piss any of us off too), so he demanded to be released from his contract. A team of lawyers couldn't help him. So he just stopped releasing anything. All his music was done in collaboration with other artists and released on their labels (remember his stints with Queen and Elton John?).

Then, and I'm not quite sure how this happened, he released Older on DreamWorks SKG Records. Let's keep in mind that the S in SKG is Speliburg (sp?) and the G is Geffen. So the point I've been leading up to is it's possible to get out of a contract with Sony, but you should have a good idea by now what it takes.

Re:theartistformerlyknownasprince.com

[vectro]

(Observe as I am moderated down for being offtopic)

AFAIK, this is an InterNIC (AKA Network Solutions, the dot commie people) restriction, so you might be able to get theartistformerlyknownasprince.to, for example.

I am in a band and this is scary.

[Ken Broadfoot]

I know for a fact that if Sony came to us with a contract wew would probably sign our lives away on the spot.

Making music in America simply does not pay very good at all. It is not just the record companies, but the club owners, promoters etc.

Even the NXNW event in Portland, Oregon which is drawing mp3.com's CEO as well as other music and record company people requires the bands to PAY THEM to perform for nothing.

Basically we are all broke and the smell of money, even a little, will blind us to these contracts.

A good friend of mine up in Seattle knows Kim Thayil from Soungarten. Kim came by his house and my friend quipped, "Boy, it must be nice to have all that money." Kim answered, "I should have a bunch of money but I am not sure what the hell happened."

Somehow, in America, we simply do not support the arts.

In Germany it was different. Bands got paid enough that a friend of mine after leaving the army to play music full time, he now owns a house and and just lives there.

Anyway most of us play just because we like it. ( Or for girls *wink* )