Challenging yourself to put things in terms people can understand without affecting the overall meaning can uncover ambiguities, saving you time in the long run. Kanye West had already been burning bridges in the music industry. So lets take another example from the Kanye contract. This is the Def Jam amendment. They are long. Tell me how this is more understandable again for someone, not a 12 year old, but someone like Kanye in the decision making phase. The equity is the Artists. Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future. Ross Guberman [00:22:31] but definitely something to that. So, Ross, were going to tear down the contracts that Kanye shared. So, yeah, there you go. Dependents. And we have to be very careful, of course, you know, translating things like provisos like provided, however, that in dealing with Shell and the like. For that LP, there was a recording fund amounting to$2.5 million. Undoubtedly, who We have been engaged in an ongoing dialogue with Hit-Boy and all the concerned parties to address his concerns and will continue to do so until a reasonable solution is achieved.). Advances. The deal. Mike Whelan [00:10:12] Hey, everybody, Im Mike Whelen. Mike Whelan [00:16:08] in a brief. That was pretty awesome. "And y'all still gave him contracts, documentaries, endorsements . Theres theres a counseling function in addition to a drafting function that seems to be really important that lawyers didnt do here. Mike Whelan [00:04:08] wearing the shirt. Kanye West's recent Twitter rant has led to himrevealing the intricate details of his record label contract, which he initially signed over adecade ago. Theres hidden costs in the ways deals are structured, and most artists dont have an understanding in how the recoupment works and its confusing. He is no longer signed to Def Jam, his longtime record company; his contract expired with his 2021 album, "Donda." And Ye . Roc-A-Fella was to approve any "recording elements,"which are listed as: selection of individual producer(s), selection of compositions to be recorded, specification of accompaniment, arrangement and copying services, selection of dates of recording and studios where recording is to take place. West's contracts laid it all out. And, to an extent, they're not wrong. And thats why the color coding comes in. A pair of Kanye West's Nike Air Yeezy 1 sneakers for sale for $2 million at the Sotheby's show in Hong Kong on April 16, 2021. "We get used to these things and then sometimes, theres a wakeup call, says one artist. I mean, there there are many words and phrases that do need to remain intact because the risk of trying to translate them informally into common terms is is much bigger than any benefit. The . Youve been dealing with this for a while. Kanye West continues his campaign against major record labels. So if Im a lawyer and Im negotiating with another side and youre very practical about these things, like although the plain language movement is nice, in theory, youve got to negotiate with somebody else who might like that archaic language. If you have a kid who knows nothing about law and sees all this money, these contracts are 60 pages long, who the fuck is reading that? Anokute says. Like youre youre still youve got a complicated sentence with clauses. The contracts show Kanye received a $2.3 million advance in 2005 for his album, Late Registration, with an additional $1.2 million as a recording budget.For . Music. Kanye West has been active on Twitter once again. Before we do, Ross, I want you to tell me about yourself. We need plain English contracts. The lawyers in this industry who are used to the status quo are going to say its worth it, but if I make a deal with you and go to lunch and say you pay 70 [percent], I dont think youll say its fair. The rest went for recording costs, sample clearance, and other costs involved in making the album. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. Its on the left, just as people dont want, you know, headings and contracts to have meaning as well. In order to maintain the original intent, some legal jargon and industry terms must remain intact. mrbonesHOK Portals. Youre not trying to make it really friendly for consumers, but you are trying to make it friendly for business people while still preserving, as you can see in the rewrite as most of the actual terms of art. So I apologize to both of you D.C. people watching. On Wednesday afternoon, Kanye West publicly posted what he purported to be his Universal Music Group recording contracts, sharing them page by page via Twitter. Its an interesting thing. Money and Music must stay together. Welcome to Law Insiders Contract Teardown Show, where we bring smart friends like Ross Guberman over here to break down some contracts. The suit said West. There are no reviews yet. Its also important that headings dont provide their own meaning all by themselves. In this episode of the Contract Teardown, Foster Sayers joins Mike live at ContractsCon to beat up the ChatGPT Terms of Service. One common grievance: Many aspects of record deals do not reflect how the business has dramatically changed over the past decade. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. After that point, UMG can distribute the albums on their own. You dont want to change reasonable efforts where you dont necessarily want to rewrite the word severable. Rosss balanced language approach will help you meet your clients demands for both clarity and effectiveness. this summer, doesnt point the finger at any one entity or group for the nature of these deals. #kanyewest #dramaalert #grammyWanna continu. Labels generally hedge their bets on younger artists not just so the labels can reap considerable profits, but in order to protect their ongoing existence: Most artists who get signed wont break through, and the success of one major star can help make up for those bad bets. One strange structure commonly found in the record industry is the way profits are divided. Music won't offerservices or provide A&R or label services related to more than two rejected artists. He says the industry must holistically evaluate how to improve for any major changes to shift. So we dont want to change recouped because now we would be not faithful to the substance. Where you calling from? Almost ALL new deals now are based on ALL songs going to a store or app. Not withstanding anything to the contrary contained in the recording agreement, Ive got the word Shall a couple of times promptly. Prior toKanye's relentless tweeting session, heinformed his followers that he wasgoing to share 10 of his contracts with UMG, the parent label to his G.O.O.D. One thing that could be highly damaging in any industry is having a client going around feeling as if the company or even their lawyer is trying to take advantage of them. Law Insider compiled Kanye West's contract tweetstorm into complete, downloadable contracts. I guess my question is, could Kanye read this, do you think? Another example is General Electric. Kanye West's music-publishing contract essentially does not allow him to retire - a common provision of such contracts, a source tells Variety. Are not just for royalties. See BBC report here. The decline centered around controversial anti-Black and antisemitic comments and other erratic behavior. Royalties. Maintaining the Integrity of the Contract, Lawyer Forward: Finding Your Place in the Future of Law, How to Choose Arbitration Language Consistent with the Relationship. An advance constitutesany moneypaid, costs incurred or costs to create videos. But there is some movement, especially in the tech industry, also consumer facing company, some movement, and then a little bit, too, in the more staid commercial world. West created his first Yeezy shoes with Nike in 2007, and then . Next came what he calls the music industrys biggest flop his only Interscope album, The X Factor. Milana Lewis, CEO of music distribution platform Stem, says record labels should start including explanatory pro-forma documents with deals, in order to promote transparency and make it easier for artists to understand what comes in their agreements. Ross Guberman [00:01:18] If it works, right? When your term ends, download it all. See's Kanye West's Record Contract Tweets, revealing the intricate details of his record label contract. Tell me what people are talking about. You need a business manager to read how you did? Music for that rejected artist, the labelhas the right to enter into an agreement with a third party label. For Kanye, his 15% royalty rate on wholesale for each sneaker sold has netted him roughly $150 million pre-tax annually. He admits that while this is still a complicated section in general, someone like Kanye could understand it enough to know what he is signing. So I want you to do it, take advantage of it. I PRAY IN THE NAME OF JESUS THAT IT DONT LOOK LIKE THIS TOMORROW," Ye wrote in a tweet with the five accompanying images. Law Insider Completes First Legal Tech Investment and Distribution Partnership with Inkly, All contents of the lawinsider.com excluding publicly sourced documents are Copyright 2013-. Not every artist has time to read the, Amy Noonan, who records as Qveen Herby and was formerly half of 2010s pop duo. This method perhaps isnt as friendly to consumers as LinkedIns method, but its close enough to the source material and still understandable. The first thing that changes about Record Deals is actually lawyers. Ross Guberman [00:07:15] So youre looking at a movement that started when those Capitol Hill hearings, but the tech companies were in the news. As for Kanye's royalties, the percentages varied for his first, second and third contract periods. Were lucky we were told the truth in so many ways.. When youre awake to this, you cant be the perpetrator anymore.. He says the industry must holistically evaluate how to improve for any major changes to shift. What contract language is unnecessarily archaic and what isnt? There was about 100 pages of documents that he probably should not have posted on Twitter, but he did anyway. Ross Guberman [00:09:03] Yeah, exactly. This is the same deal your favorite artist signed, this is their label. What do you expect a young, naive artist to do? The plain-language portion may influence what is interpreted on the left. Wests contract could even be considered favorable among superstar contracts, with Universal heavily investing in Wests works, entertainment attorney Christiane Kinney says. So so talk to me about this profit sharing piece. Ross and I dig into Kanyes request for plain language drafting and whether its even realistic. Kanye shared a 2005 superseding agreement of his original 2002 recording contract and a handful . So you dont have to blow the whole thing up in order to meet Kanye West at least half way. All contents of the lawinsider.com excluding publicly sourced documents are Copyright 2013-. Addeddate 2020-09-21 23:04:27 Identifier KanyeWestContracts Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t0jt91382 Ocr Send us a tip using our anonymous form. You know, this first sentence youre still seeing, first of all, the first sentence is six lines, right? Everybody go get it. Kanye West's battle against his music publisher, EMI, has moved back to the courts after talks between the two sides failed to produce a settlement. We were lucky because we were careful. And although I didnt start my career with contract language, I certainly immerse myself in it. Lets rewrite the deals to be understandable from first rate. Uploaded by Advances are loans with 75% interest rates (or worse). The after section shows which changes Gruberman suggests need to be made. Within the deal, Kanye was obligated to release six albums, inaddition tohis initial effort, TheCollege Dropout(2004), within a 12-month span. Mike Whelan [00:01:20] Pretty classy nightstand, Ross. Kanye West gave the world a rare glimpse into the music industrys labyrinth of recording contracts last week when he tweeted out his own paperwork with Universal Music Group and then lambasted those agreements as exploitative and unfair, demanding his copyrights be returned to him. But its all too new to know whether in any kind of dispute that language would actually be entered as evidence. You take expenses out and then people are sharing whats left. Music, is no. Kanyes main issue wasnt that the contract itself was impossible to understand but that no one had sat down with him to put it into terms he could comprehend. If you want to be on a future contract tear down. Obviously, we cant share the whole thing, but well make sure that you have a link to the whole thing in the show notes over at LawInsider.com/Resources. In 2011, Kanye and Jay-Z joined forces musically and created theirWatch the Thronejoint album. Mike Whelan [00:12:56] So what are the some of just some of the language pieces that stand out to you? Distribution fees, for example, are frequently cited by industry critics, who note that CDs and vinyl no longer drive sales, and the hefty label surcharge intended for moving physical units across the country may not be altogether necessary. Kanye West's call for transparency in the music industry has led other artists to speak up. And they stack this money in a in a very beneficial way to the label because the way artists make money totally shifted. So this is right up my alley and Im calling from calling from the Capitol, right outside the Capitol and Northern Virginia. So you pay to see your money!!! Earlier this week, he denounced the contracts being provided by Sony and Universal . So, you know, my provision, these are coded blue brief catch picking up on a lot of those. Exclusive Recording Agreement THE ISLAND DEF JAM MUSIC GROUP,A DIVISION OF UMG RECORDINGS, INC. 1755 BROADWAY NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10019 Dated as of March 10, 2013 Kanye West c/o Carroll, Guido & Groffman, LLP 1790 Broadway, 20 th Floor Suite 800 New York, NY 10019 Attention: Michael Guido, Esq. So lets shift to the Kanye contract, and were not going to do a full breakdown of what all these documents are, because theres a lot and there are good YouTube videos out there. So I have to keep it versus this is archaic and useless. Mike Whelan [00:07:53] Well, and heres another one from LinkedIn, this sort of two column set up in the license image. What do you think of Kanye West leaking his own contracts to make a point? Somethings got a hold your drink place. not charge for contracts we cannot understand or track. If youre with a major you have invested your songs as shares in their power to get equity and deals. Thats a sort of grey area, and I think its an important conversation to be had., Editors picks We get used to these things and then sometimes, theres a wakeup call Fantastic Negrito, When they left their deal, they chose not to try and buy back their masters, having put out only one album with Epic and feeling they still had their best musical years ahead. You want to make sure everything is understandable, but you dont want to take related phrases within a provision and just willy nilly break them up into multiple sentences the way you might. Kanye West Tweets About His '10' Recording Contracts: 'I Need Every Lawyer in the World to Look at These' In his latest string of tweets about his recording deals Wednesday (Sept. 16),. How are businesses shifting to using plain language? Why should the lawyers watching this thing care other than the sick entertainment value of watching somebody have a breakdown about contracts? Ye went from $6.6 billion to maybe $400 million. If theyre doing this to me with all Ive accomplished through hard work, I can only imagine the kids who dont have big placements/proper guidance, Hit-Boy wrote on Instagram. 1-year deal. 22% royalty rate for Kanye (and 78% for the record label). THE HOST:Mike Whelan is the author of Lawyer Forward: Finding Your Place in the Future of Law and host of the Lawyer Forward community. The partnership was a nightmare for both Negrito and the label, he says. The way that Gruberman has identified these sections is by using his tool called BriefCatch. Yeezy, West's sneaker and apparel business with Adidas AG and Gap Inc., is valued at $3.2 billion to $4.7 billion by UBS Group AG, according to a private document reviewed by Bloomberg. If you look at these agreements, though, from Kanye, that thats not just the CD references that are archaic. I will not share the image of Kanye West urinating on his Grammy, though. Music label, has the right to take the rejected artist to a third party label. Of that, two-thirds ($8 million) was an advance for him to keep. The titles of the files cannot be seen in full, but three of the thumbnails are saved as amendments, one appears to be a record agreement and the fifth file says "Kanye WestJay," which likely pertains to their 2011Watch the Throne album. And thats, you know, damaging conclusion from many perspectives. And according to the general counsel, its worked wonders. Rather than looking at potential profits when labels were courting them, Noonan says Karmin was advised to take the most money they could up front, given how few artists end up recouping from their records. "UNIVERSAL WONT TELL ME WHAT MY MASTERS COST BECAUSE THEY KNOW I CAN AFFORD TO BUY THEM," Kanye tweeted on Wednesday (Sept. 16). Almost no artists recoup so the system obviously doesnt work, but its tempting. So tell me, is the language on the right? Soundtrack: The Great Gatsby. A month ago, Kanye West had an emotional breakdown on Twitter. A lot of people say they sign a million-dollar deal, but you dont get a check for $1 million, Noonan adds. August 6, 2021 3:35 PM EDT. Ye said of the images: "This is what me Kanye West deal looks like . Right. So as you can see, this is quite different from what LinkedIn is going to do. He was given a $6 million advance for his seventh album with $3 million designated to recording costs. Theres a lot going on here. And theyre advised accordingly by an attorney at law whos telling them to sign this contract, and they say this contract is standard. Kanye also has a right to have a digital store, in which he can sell his album and the deluxe version on a website, but the deluxe is only exclusive to him for 90 days. Ross Guberman [00:12:19] Yeah, I mean, as you said, Mike, theres theres a really, really complicated series of documents styled loosely as amendments, modifications, addendums. Mike Whelan [00:03:02] Thats right. Right. Mike Whelan [00:03:50] I realized after I got dressed to have our conversation that Im wearing the shirt that apparently everyone in D.C. wears. Music or such label paying Island Def Jam Music Group acounterbalance amountagainst overhead payments in an amount equal to the overhead payments in the applicable contract year multiplied by a fraction. He shared the dramatic, rant-fueled background and then took Kanyes request seriously. Last modified on Thu 13 Jan 2022 14.04 EST. Kanye West has posted dozens of pages of record contracts, and a video of a Grammy being urinated on, in a lengthy string of tweets criticizing the music industry. We were lucky because we were careful. They will help you draft better contracts faster. So notwithstanding anything to the contrary, the Shall problem, you know, using Shal for both obligations and future events, words that seem familiar, like promptly that have a legal layer causes. 25. If at that time Ye has not recouped his royalties, the reversion date will be extended until the day after the last day in the accounting period after receiving a statement indicating that the royalty account has been recouped. So get rid of it. But if Kanye West 's statements last year about slavery being a choice were out of bounds, he's taking more of a Prince-like tactic in his ongoing efforts to extract himself from his record. We were broke college kids right after the recession. Kanye Omari West (born June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur and fashion designer. I want you to do me a quick favor. Youve got defined terms of art in there. During his rant, Kanye declared that he would move the entire music industry into the 21st century, and he means to do this using clear and discernable language. What am I looking at here? How that how how that would play out. 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Offerservices or provide a & R or label services related to more than two rejected artists Ocr Send us tip! West leaking his own contracts to have meaning as well and useless the! That language would actually be entered as evidence for each sneaker sold has netted him roughly $ million! The finger at any one entity or group for the nature of these deals quick. Read how you did so lets take another example from the Capitol and Northern Virginia interpreted the... Of his record label contract enough to the contrary contained in the recording agreement, Ive the... Really important that lawyers didnt do here 00:01:20 ] Pretty classy nightstand Ross... For each sneaker sold has netted him roughly $ 150 million pre-tax annually antisemitic comments other. Where you dont want to be understandable from first rate the rejected artist to do it, advantage...