Miguel Candela / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images file Earlier this week, he denounced the contracts being provided by Sony and Universal . Not withstanding anything to the contrary contained in the recording agreement, Ive got the word Shall a couple of times promptly. So, you know, the fine print, so to speak, does exclude the rewrites on the right. Right. (Epic did not respond to a request for comment for this story. However, Gruberman says this is still a good way to use plain language for understandability. August 6, 2021 3:35 PM EDT. Ideally, he says, artists should have legal representation working in their best interest to point out red-flag clauses: While an artist should be wary of what theyre signing rather than looking solely at the immediate paycheck, young and starry-eyed artists whove never seen so much money may not understand that yet. Mike Whelan [00:01:11] Yeah, Im doing the fancy background with the product placement. Report: Kanyes Anti-Semitic Rhetoric Led to Assaults, Vandalism, 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? longtime A&R exec Chris Anokute, Anokute manages several clients including Curtis Waters, who recently went viral through his TikTok hit Stunnin. While Waters was courted by many major labels,at Anokutes counsel, he signed a shorter-term 60-40 profit-split deal with BMG. Mike Whelan [00:00:53] Hey, everybody. After that point, UMG can distribute the albums on their own. They are long. "UNIVERSAL WONT TELL ME WHAT MY MASTERS COST BECAUSE THEY KNOW I CAN AFFORD TO BUY THEM," Kanye tweeted on Wednesday (Sept. 16). This method perhaps isnt as friendly to consumers as LinkedIns method, but its close enough to the source material and still understandable. If you want to be on a future contract tear down. So you dont have to blow the whole thing up in order to meet Kanye West at least half way. A lot of people say they sign a million-dollar deal, but you dont get a check for $1 million, Noonan adds. He got into a major accident that put him in a three-week coma, and Interscope dropped him not long after. It's unclear if it actually will. 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. Almost no artists recoup so the system obviously doesnt work, but its tempting. He has also encouraged Black artists to sign with labels owned by Black people. So, Ross, were going to tear down the contracts that Kanye shared. In 2011, Kanye and Jay-Z joined forces musically and created theirWatch the Thronejoint album. According to West's court papers, he's been "laboring" for EMI since 2003, when during the recording of College Dropout he signed a "lopsided" contract with the music publisher. Wests contract could even be considered favorable among superstar contracts, with Universal heavily investing in Wests works, entertainment attorney Christiane Kinney says. Blues singer Fantastic Negrito, a two-time Grammy winner, first signed a major record deal with Interscope in the Nineties, giving him what he says was a $400,000 advance. Will we be seeing a President Kanye? 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. The decline centered around controversial anti-Black and antisemitic comments and other erratic behavior. If you are interested in being a guest on Contract Teardown, please email us at community@lawinsider.com. Island Def Jam can also recoup 100 percent profit ofCruel Summer/Hawaii costs. 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. Mike Whelan [00:17:34] Yeah, I like the phrase sufficient moneys. So we know there is going to be some language that must be included to avoid undermining the agreement. This is a tool that is available to anyone looking to implement plain language into their contracts. Theres a lot going on here. The split can be 80/20 in the artists favor. The record label / publisher is a service provider that receives a share of the income for a limited term. For years, the rapper has set release dates with his label, only to blow by them with . This is the same deal your favorite artist signed, this is their label. What do you expect a young, naive artist to do? Is this realistic to even talk about plain language and contract drafting? this summer, doesnt point the finger at any one entity or group for the nature of these deals. Calls for plain language arent new in the contracts industry, but those calls rarely come with celebrity buzz. Broadly, what Ill say is theres this really weird profit sharing structure with this with these deals, because what the the record label will do is say we get our money, then we take expenses out. And you guys, if you want to see this contract and want to get the show notes from this tear down where we can link you to these documents and to other resources that interpret the document, just go to lawinsider.com/resources. NO MORE. I guess my question is, could Kanye read this, do you think? Theres theres a counseling function in addition to a drafting function that seems to be really important that lawyers didnt do here. But asking for plain English is easy; writing a legal document thats both enforceable and clear is a bit more complicated. Should the labels be able to make a profit off of this? Youre going to sign the amendment. So so talk to me about this profit sharing piece. Until then, Ross, I appreciate you being here. A pair of shoes designed and worn by the musician Kanye West have sold for $1.8m (1.3m) at auction - the highest amount ever paid for trainers. So also, you know, go like Legal Writing Pro plus I have a book I coauthored with a retired corporate partner called Deal Struck. Uploaded for archival purposes. The remaining$1millionwas to be paid upon completion. The plain-language portion may influence what is interpreted on the left. Almost no artists recoup so the system obviously doesnt work, but its tempting. On Wednesday afternoon (Sept. 16), Yeezy shared over 100 pages of documents tweet by tweet, containing information pertaining to his recording agreement with the powerhouse, album amendments, profit sharing agreements, label agreements and documents on his joint album with Jay-Z,Watch the Throne. . For the sixth album, Kanye received a $12 million advance. Youve got a before and an after, and Ill share with you guys as well the sort of color coding that Ross is using for the different kinds of language on here. 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. on the Internet. However, phrases like notwithstanding anything to the contrary and promptly may seem unnecessary, but they have a legal layer thats important in order to maintain the integrity of the contract. And the whole thing does feel very, very dated and and remote. Youll get access to more content like this. Theres no more independent plants, no more putting all these CDs in a truck and shipping them from store to store across the country, Chris Anokute, founder of entertainment company Young Forever Inc. and a former A&R executive for labels including Capitol and Island Def Jam, tells Rolling Stone. They have before and after sections. Ross Guberman [00:01:07] Im doing well, its good to see you and good to see your room, too. Based on Kanye's documentation, it looks like there was also aCruel Summer film in the works. And there there are lots of there are lots of issues in the original that many, many, you know, entertainment law specialists would probably argue over which which actually, you know, brings up another issue is, is is this plain english movement really just for the clients or are you actually uncovering some conflicts or ambiguities or vagueness or nonsensical expressions altogether in the original if youre, you know, challenging yourself to put them in terms of normal people can understand? We were broke college kids right after the recession. And so were going to go through parts of this. $26.59 New. They dont give you updates, and in 25 years, Ive never checked about recoupments, Negrito says. Its unfair for the party that lacks visibility into the way the other party is thinking about the numbers, Lewis says. I PRAY IN THE NAME OF JESUS THAT IT DONT LOOK LIKE THIS TOMORROW," Ye wrote in a tweet with the five accompanying images. 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. Ross Guberman [00:00:00] You look at these agreements, though, from Kanye, thats not just the CDC references that are archaic, the language looks like something you might find, you know, 50, 100 years ago. The Record Label / Publisher is a service provider that receives a share of the income for a limited term. Although, there is a concern here. His musical career has been marked by dramatic changes in styles, incorporating an eclectic range of influences including soul, baroque pop, electro, indie rock, synth-pop, industrial and gospel. 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. What am I looking at here? Language such as hereinafter referred to and to the extent that are generic legalese that can easily be simplified without affecting the overall meaning of the text. In September 2020, "Kanye West Record Deal" started trending. 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. 88-Keys . Its an exclusion, a liability. It would also give Adele the largest record deal for a British musician by surpassing . The artist owns the copyright in the recordings and songs and leases them to the record label/publisher for a limited term. The partnership was a nightmare for both Negrito and the label, he says. Kanye West's music-publishing contract essentially does not allow him to retire - a common provision of such contracts, a source tells Variety. Its actually gotten a lot of press. The Nike Air Yeezy 1 Prototypes beat the previous . While Anokute points the barrel primarily at the labels dishing out deals arguing that these deals perpetuate the very inequalities for black artists that the labels have said theyre looking to change he acknowledges that labels alone cant take all the blame for unfriendly artist deals. In this episode of the Contract Teardown show, guest Diana Isyanova shares three possible approaches. So tell me about this before. Maybe its about time I do that., Like others, Negrito, who released his third independent LP. Late last year, Kanye West took to Twitter to vent his frustration about complicated contract language. Kanye West posted a number of tweets that caused a great deal of controversy in the music industry. Why is a shift to plain language important? Its its unfortunately the the words and phrases that are operative to. He got into a major accident that put him in a three-week coma, and Interscope dropped him not long after. See BBC report here. Some are asking what took so long. No, but nobody wants clients to to conclude that. The after section is where GE has broken down the text into something more friendly for business people. And then on the contract lingo, contract language side, we approach it differently. It was pretty awesome because it was specifically about contracts. Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future. T, hey dont give you updates, and in 25 years, Ive never checked about recoupments, Negrito says. Among his concerns: the need for plain language in legal documents (and the disproportionate power complex language can give one party). Every audio file, every asset, every deal stored WITH the money. Law Insider compiled Kanye Wests contract tweetstorm into complete, downloadable contracts. For Kanye's follow-up to TheCollege Dropout, which wasLate Registration, Roc-A-Fella gave him anadvance equal to the excess of $3.5 million over recording costs. He tweeted them so I made PDFs. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. And thats why the color coding comes in. The language looks like something you might find, you know, 50, 100 years ago. XXL has taken a deep dive into Kanye's record contracts. The before section has all the original wording, complete with legalese. Kanye West signed singer-songwriter Teyana Taylor to his record label, G.O.O.D Music, in 2012 while she was in the midst of production on his album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy . Right. So I want you to do it, take advantage of it. this summer, doesnt point the finger at any one entity or group for the nature of these deals. Thats why we brought contract language expert Ross Guberman onto the Contract Teardown show. The defined terms, look, the defined terms are this is conventional, we dont want to completely revolutionize everything theyre necessary because of this intersecting set of agreements. Ye says he wants his four children to own them. 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. We were lucky because we were careful. The contract indicates that these figures would increase with each release, and Kanye West and his company would receive 20 percent of each minimum after notifying the label that the. In this episode of the Contract Teardown, Foster Sayers joins Mike live at ContractsCon to beat up the ChatGPT Terms of Service. West created his first Yeezy shoes with Nike in 2007, and then . Royalty portals need to show (and do not now) Every song you delivered, Every store you are in, How many streams per song Income per song. But we at Law Insider put them all together in PDF, will make sure that you have a link to it. Wests contract could even be considered favorable among superstar contracts, with Universal heavily investing in Wests works, entertainment attorney Christiane Kinney says. Oct. 25, 2022 Updated 11:22 a.m. Were lucky we were told the truth in so many ways.. We need plain English contracts. There are no reviews yet. Push the button. But then Ive also you know, Ive also indicated which provisions are really in the realm of contract lingo or contract law. And so Kanye is at this point where hes like, dude, I got to have some other ways to make money. Welcome to Law Insiders Contract Teardown Show, where we bring smart friends like Ross Guberman over here to break down some contracts. So lets take another example from the Kanye contract. How do I nudge a contract toward plain language without undermining the agreement? Donda 2, due for release on Tuesday (February 22), is the follow-up to Ye's Grammy-nominated Donda, which achieved one of the biggest ever first weeks for an album on both Spotify and Apple Music when it was released in August last year.. Looking back, I've thought many times about what makes Kanye Kanye. Ross Guberman [00:01:18] If it works, right? Im going to give people a little bit of background on the Twitter rant about contracts. Soundtrack: The Great Gatsby. Search the history of over 797 billion Why is he so decidedly different, incredibly talented, bitingly frank, frequently controversial, and surpris-ingly or arguably humble all at once? So as you can see, this is quite different from what LinkedIn is going to do. You need a business manager to read how you did? The outspoken music artist - who considered running. Guberman starts by assuring that several companies are already implementing a plain language strategy in their contracts. West is also no longer with record label Def Jam a Universal Music Group subsidiaryas he has fulfilled his contract, Forbes reported Thursday, and his own label, G.O.O.D. Kanye West is at war with the music industry over the ownership of masters and unfair contracts. When your term ends, download it all. And clearly there are artists signing these things that dont dont know what theyre doing. Ross Guberman [00:09:03] Yeah, exactly. So tell me, is the language on the right? The deals not bad what is that based on? Negrito asks. A Lawyers role is to IMPROVE deals. All contents of the lawinsider.com excluding publicly sourced documents are Copyright 2013-. But theres also the issue of this is supposed to represent a meeting of the minds. The papers indicate that he started on a royalty deal frequently afforded to upcoming artists, which later evolved into a more artist-friendly pressing and distribution deal that gave Kanye more of the profits and bigger budgets as he became a superstar. 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. This is the Def Jam amendment. West also made his feelings towards the label clear in 2020, when he tweeted images of his record contract, noting he felt he was treated unfairly. THE GUEST: Ross Guberman is president of Legal Writing Pro, LLC and a consultant for law firms and courts. Contract #3. 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. 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. Theyll follow their attorneys recommendation. We wouldnt be talking about all this now if the label hadnt invested in him and put tons of marketing money into this for his leg up.. He released his two Grammy-winning albums independently more than 20 years later, and he hasnt inquired about the recoupment on his first record in years. Are they making too much? Music. The suit said West. And although I didnt start my career with contract language, I certainly immerse myself in it. Ye also had to seek written approval from the labelat least 14 days before the first recording session. He shared the dramatic, rant-fueled background and then took Kanyes request seriously. So so as I play this in the background, tell me about some of the phrases that youre seeing in this that are just driving you nuts. That was pretty awesome. See's Kanye West's Record Contract Tweets. It is a family. A written budget in itemized detail of anticipated recording costs was to be submitted to the label for approval and could be no greater than 80 percentof an amount equal to the applicable recording fund. This is what were going after. But, Ross, if people want to get in touch with you and get a sense of how to differentiate, I mean, this seems to be the hard skill is differentiating between this is a legally significant and archaic, but its significant. So come join us right now. And they stack this money in a in a very beneficial way to the label because the way artists make money totally shifted. How are businesses shifting to using plain language? Cruel Summer/Hawaii costs shall befully cross-collateralized with Kanye's main royalties account. 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. I AM ON MY KNEES THIS MORNING," he tweeted before dropping the proof. (Rex Features) Kanye West tweeted dozens of pages from his recording contract with Universal Music Group yesterday (Wednesday 16 September . Ye went from $6.6 billion to maybe $400 million. 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