KANYE West has been tweeting about the music industry and artist’s rights this weekend as he vowed to get his masters back.
Kanye, 43, took to Twitter on Sunday to post about “NEW RECORDING AND PUBLISHING DEAL GUIDELINES”.
Dedicating an individual tweet to each of his points, he began with: “1. The artist owns the copyright in the recordings and songs and leases them to the record label / publisher for a limited term. 1 year deals.
“2. The record label / publisher is a service provider that receives a share of the income for a limited term. The split can be 80/20 in the artists favor.
“3. DEPENDANTS Artists must be dependent on no one but themselves to manage their catalog. You should need NO ONE else to understand the business you’re in.”
He then went on to reference lawyers and tweeted: “the first thing that changes about Record Deals is actually lawyers.
“We need Plain English contracts. A Lawyers role is to IMPROVE deals…. not charge for contracts we cannot understand or track. Re-write deals to be understandable from FIRST READ.”
Kanye’s fifth point stated: “EQUITY & BLANKET LICENSES ARE THE MAJORITY OF FUTURE NEW INCOME.
“If you’re with a major you have invested your ‘songs’ as shares in their power to get equity and deals. Almost ALL new deals now are based on ALL songs going to a store or app. The equity is the Artists.”
The rapper continued: “NO MORE blanket licenses. It should be clear from day one… what shares you get NOW and when you leave. If your song helps a deal over the line you invested in that store / app same as they did.
“ADVANCES ARE JUST LOANS!! On Artists re-signing these stop. Advances are Loans with 75% interest rates (or worse). NO other business in the world takes a look at the business, buys shares, starts to profit when it profits. Record Companies have to buy into you, not loan you.”
Kanye went on to tweet about royalties and portals, before telling his 31 million followers that he will get his masters back.
A “master” is the jargon used to refer to the underlying rights to a song, and the “master recording” is the original version from which everything else stems.
Traditionally, the music industry often structures deals so that the label, not the artist, owns the masters of all songs created during that record deal.
In exchange for signing over the master rights to their recordings, artists are often given an advance and a royalty percentage from all profits made off the music.
Kanye tweeted: “This is a call for all artist to unify … I will get my masters , I got the most powerful lawyer in music and I can afford them but every artist must be freed and treated fairly.”
On Saturday, the father-of-four claimed that he will even help singer Taylor Swift get her masters back.
“I’M GOING TO PERSONALLY SEE TO IT THAT TAYLOR SWIFT GETS HER MASTERS BACK. SCOOTER IS A CLOSE FAMILY FRIEND,” he wrote.
His latest Twitter rant comes after it was reported that his wife Kim Kardashian is “deeply disappointed” in troubled Kanye as he “refuses to stick to care plan” in his bipolar battle.
The reality star’s marriage to the rapper has been crumbling since his presidential rally in July.
A source told Us Weekly: “She is deeply disappointed and sad because Kanye is struggling.
“It’s a vicious cycle that Kim has had success at interrupting successfully for months at a time.”
The insider added that the beauty mogul “isn’t surprised” that her husband has not been “abiding to terms of his care plan” and blamed part of his “downward spiral” to the coronavirus pandemic.
The source said about Kanye: “Being isolated and alone essentially in his head isn’t healthy.”
In July 2020, Kim and Kanye’s marital struggles became public following his presidential rally where he claimed that they considering aborting their oldest child, North.
Since then, Kanye has had multiple public meltdowns on social media.
