explain royalties/masters and how is it important to the artist

[Long Live The Kane]

So, how come he needed that comeback tour to clear up his massive debt that was wildly reported before his untimely death. If he had that catalogue in his arsenal, shouldn't he had been good forever.

can anybody answer this? thats some interesting shyt

Because MJ had a LOT of debt...somewhere upwards of $500 million according to reports...that publishing was by far his largest asset and he was actually indeed using it as leverage to get out of debt...he owned half of the company with Sony and had made arrangements to sell half of that to them as well...here's an exerpt from an article that goes into it at length

Michael Jackson's Estate: Saved by Beatles Songs - TIME

Jackson, though, might not be able to sell his interest in Sony/ATV for its full $1 billion value. In 2006, as part of a deal to restructure his mounting debts, he gave Sony/ATV an option to buy half of his holdings in the company at a later date. Sony will not disclose the terms of that deal, but it probably limits what the Japanese company would have to pay Jackson for half of his Sony/ATV stake...

You can read the whole thing for a better explanation...but basically his stake of ATV/Sony publishing was reportedly worth $390 million in '07...he was in over his head in debt prior to that and had made a deal to sell part of it at a later date...I'm assuming he didn't want to sell all of it, because that was his biggest asset and a steady source of income in the future...so he planned a big comeback tour to come up with the rest...the crazy thing is (according to that article) apparently in the years following all of that the value of that company has soared tremendously...so had he lived he would've been straight regardless and whoever owns his estate now (haven't kept up with the particulars) should be eating well

 

[cleanface coney]

damn they prolly got rid of my nikka Mike smmfh

 

[Red]

So, how come he needed that comeback tour to clear up his massive debt that was wildly reported before his untimely death. If he had that catalogue in his arsenal, shouldn't he had been good forever.

MJ bought shyt he didn't need like a motherfukker. He was known for shutting toy stores down or going in after closing time and letting people hanging out with him choose whatever they wanted, and I mean whatever they wanted.

He would buy so much stuff on shopping sprees that when his finances were getting out of control his business managers would send it back to the store and he wouldn't notice a thing.

He also got fukked over once or twice by people exploiting his good faith and not managing his shyt properly.

This is why he got to the point where he was forced to sell/merge his ATV catalogue with Sony. They never gave up trying to come after that last 50% but since his death there's pretty much no chance of his estate losing that now. If he only managed to curb his free spending he would still own all that Beatles shyt probably and his great-great-great-great grandkids would be on motherfukkers. Probably still will regardless actually

As an aside.. imagine how much cake he'd have left behind if he managed to secure that deal to buy Marvel before the movies started hitting

 

[Ziggiy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is also a major difference between owning your Publishing and owning your Masters correct? Like most of the big name artists like Nas, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang, Eminem, Drake, Wayne, etc. do not own their own Masters but they DO own their publishing. Lupe Fiasco was describing something similar to this when he was breaking down how he was getting jerked by Atlantic. Basically if HE wrote the song, he gets full publishing royalties, but if he accepts a pre-packaged song like Nothin On You on the album, he gets nothing. This was also a source of the Jay-Z/Nas beef when Nas says "I count off when you sample my voice" and Jay says "You ain't get a coin, I know who I paid God, Serchlite publishing". MC Serch later confirmed that he got something like 15% of the publishing for Illmatic and that he and Nas has a slight falling out because Nas went back later and got ALL the publishing rights.

I also think that the phenomenal deal Drake got included 100% ownership of Publishing, NOT Masters as originally thought. The reason this is now considered a great thing is because a lot of new artists are being made to sign 360 deals which give up a portion of your publishing.


Again I'm not 100% sure on the particulars but I believe the gist is correct.

 

[L. Deezy]

dude sold over a million records 100% independently...If I'm correct, he's the most successful independent rapper of all time

Naw, Cormega is.. Remember?

 

[HipHopFeeling]

Naw, Cormega is.. Remember?

how much did he sell? Far as I know his independent albums combined couldn't have reached more than 500K...

Tech should be almost at 1.5mil now

 

[Nemesis]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is also a major difference between owning your Publishing and owning your Masters correct? Like most of the big name artists like Nas, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang, Eminem, Drake, Wayne, etc. do not own their own Masters but they DO own their publishing. Lupe Fiasco was describing something similar to this when he was breaking down how he was getting jerked by Atlantic. Basically if HE wrote the song, he gets full publishing royalties, but if he accepts a pre-packaged song like Nothin On You on the album, he gets nothing. This was also a source of the Jay-Z/Nas beef when Nas says "I count off when you sample my voice" and Jay says "You ain't get a coin, I know who I paid God, Serchlite publishing". MC Serch later confirmed that he got something like 15% of the publishing for Illmatic and that he and Nas has a slight falling out because Nas went back later and got ALL the publishing rights.

I also think that the phenomenal deal Drake got included 100% ownership of Publishing, NOT Masters as originally thought. The reason this is now considered a great thing is because a lot of new artists are being made to sign 360 deals which give up a portion of your publishing.


Again I'm not 100% sure on the particulars but I believe the gist is correct.

most artists should get 100% of their publishing, its more or less pretty standard unless you are signing a 360 which is more or less a new phenomenom.....

The songwriter gets the publishing credit, If Lupe didnt write the song and it was pre packaged then depending on the deal he wouldnt get any of the money

All of the publishing from Ill be missing you went to Sting from what i recall even though Puffy (or his ghostwriter) wrote the lyrics...


EDIT: from what i remember Puff bought half of BIGs publishing of Ready to Die of him for $200,000

 

[PewPew]

What about an independent label type of deal? If I started a record label called "Kidnap your moms" record, and we sign a $10 million dollar deal with Warner Bros., do they automatically get all the masters from my artists? Or is that split between the two labels?

 

[Kaydigi]

What about an independent label type of deal? If I started a record label called "Kidnap your moms" record, and we sign a $10 million dollar deal with Warner Bros., do they automatically get all the masters from my artists? Or is that split between the two labels?

Negotiate it.

 

[LilJuicyTaco]

Because MJ had a LOT of debt...somewhere upwards of $500 million according to reports...that publishing was by far his largest asset and he was actually indeed using it as leverage to get out of debt...he owned half of the company with Sony and had made arrangements to sell half of that to them as well...here's an exerpt from an article that goes into it at length

Michael Jackson's Estate: Saved by Beatles Songs - TIME


You can read the whole thing for a better explanation...but basically his stake of ATV/Sony publishing was reportedly worth $390 million in '07...he was in over his head in debt prior to that and had made a deal to sell part of it at a later date...I'm assuming he didn't want to sell all of it, because that was his biggest asset and a steady source of income in the future...so he planned a big comeback tour to come up with the rest...the crazy thing is (according to that article) apparently in the years following all of that the value of that company has soared tremendously...so had he lived he would've been straight regardless and whoever owns his estate now (haven't kept up with the particulars) should be eating well

Yes and no. The thing was he was about to go on tour which would have generated the money that could have paid off everything. That is one of the reason some say he was murdered so they could regain control of his catalog. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they get some of it back after he died? There is a video online of MJ bragging about outsmarting Sony and another detailing a music industry conspiracy against him.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't beat by the pound own most of the No Limit masters?

I think the ownership of masters is being overvalued. I agree that if you are a huge artist it's great. Both most artist now days are making music that no one will care about in three years let alone thirty. There masters aren't useless but at the same time it's not some hot commodity simply because future revenues won't be there due to no demand for it. Songs drop, they are promoted and made hot, they sell, then fade away. They have no real long term value.

Jay-Z doesn't own RD masters.

Tech isn't the most successful indie artist of all time. I'm pretty sure you had a few people coming out the bay area in the 90's alone who were doing more than a million indie. The industry had people thinking it was only Master P, Cash Money, Rap-A-Lot and a few others doing it. No, you had lots of indie artist and labels selling like crazy, they just didn't want you to know it could be done. Why would they promote it if they aren't seeing a piece? Even Mystikal's first album did 300,000 indie on Big Boy before he signed to Jive. Yet you never hear anything about Big Boy who had a roster of artist who all sold well. Dj Magic Mike did well over a million indie. There are several West Coast and Southern indies that did it big.

I doubt very seriously that Wayne owns any master's. It just didn't seem like Cash Money's business model to let that happen even for Wayne.

The feds went after Suge and Master P, that's why their empires fell.

Dre did leave Death Row with something just not what he was due.

 

[L. Deezy]

how much did he sell? Far as I know his independent albums combined couldn't have reached more than 500K...

Tech should be almost at 1.5mil now

It was sarcasm..lol

Cormega always references lil indie success after the firm shyt

 

[NvrCMyNut]

yall talking about indie artists caking off masters lol....what commercial or movie is using a tech 9 song?? I'd rather be a major label 'slave' like wiz and make 15 mill a year off shows, endorsements & merch then 15k off my masters like tech 9.

 

[Turbulent]

it depends who you are. for some owning the masters will make them more money. for others, getting more money upfront will get them more in the longterm. Then again, There's no way to know for sure what will happen. Hindsight is 20/20.

 

[Reggie]

It's a shame that the record labels have jerked artists for so many years and it's still allowed to happen.

 

[DaveyDave]

yall talking about indie artists caking off masters lol....what commercial or movie is using a tech 9 song?? I'd rather be a major label 'slave' like wiz and make 15 mill a year off shows, endorsements & merch then 15k off my masters like tech 9.

Last I heard Texh made something like 12 million back in 2009 or 2010. He tours constantly all over the world and sometimes headlines a show even if he's te "underground" act