Who Owns the Masters? Info every studio owner should know

[DrFord]

Carl...
I'm lmao.

I LOVE BOOGIE NIGHTS!! I can't believe I didn't catch that reference.

Doc

[DrFord]

New Edit in original posting with new information.
Located at bottom of original post.

See "Termination Rights"

[IntelDoc]

Originally Posted by DrFord

My goal with this article was to fill it with legitimate information, and not Myth of hearsay. If there are corrections to be made, I will happily do so. I think more than anything it is important to share knowledge for our collective to become stronger.

I ask that as Bob O did, please link resources / corrections and make no statements for the sake of argument, but to better this article.

Thanks,
Doc

Good info....

BTW: There is only ONE "DOC" and He is I!

Thanks!
Doc

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by DrFord

...owning the masters comes down to paying for the studio time. If you finance the studio time, then the person who pays the bills is the executive producer and owns the master recording. ..

Not exactly. Everybody who works on the recording co-owns the master. That means nothing can be done without everybody's agreement.

[DrFord]

Bob,

You know how much I respect you, and have had you work on my projects!

However your statement about everybody working on a project owns the masters isn't correct and is in fact mis-information.
This is why I cited links at the bottom of my original article.

In real life situations, someone foots the bill. You wouldn't master a record for free, and since you get paid you don't own anything. "Work for hire" is covered in detail in the above article...

The caveat of course is that the person who is Executive producing the project gets contracts handled.
Refer back then to Verbal argreements.

You agreed to work for money. I paid you, so you DO NOT own any part of the master.
This is law, this is precedence, and this is available info, check the links I provided.

I also went to music business school specifically for this.

[DrFord]

Now, in supplement, I added the section on Termination rights.

Termination rights are for Songwriters or Co-Executive producers.
Read the "Edit" section of my original post.


This is held in tandem with "Right of First Release."

Right of First release says that a songwriter gets to choose who releases their song (usually saving it for themselves.)

Termination Rights are for multiple songwriters, when they do not want an artist to release a song they own, they can get a lawyer, get an injunction, and stop a song from being released on the grounds of "Right of First Release."

This means that all song writers on a song have to agree the song is allowed to be released under the artist releasing it. This however has nothing to do with owning the master recordings.

Just remember that Publishing is only 9.1 cents and songwriting is 9.1 cents for every song sold, licensing fees are determined by the Publishing company and are not actual law, they are just common practice.

This leaves a margin of say 99 cent download - (18.2 cents) = 80.8 cents per download back to the owner of the master recording, then divided as per contracts under their specific agreements. (This could be points to a producer, artist's share, reimbursement of artist's advance, reimbursement of marketing costs, so on.)


Bob,
I know you know all this stuff, I just want to clarify that for everyone else reading.

Doc