when he regained his masters from WB, did he also get back The Time and other associated artists??

Given that he offered Kevin Smith The Time's catulogue to use in movies [back in 2001/ 2002], I would assume that he already owns them.

Not 100% sure about the masters, but he re-registered the trademarks to names such as "Mazarati" and "The Family" a couple of years ago. Not sure he'd bother to do that unless he did own the masters.

Militant said:

Not 100% sure about the masters, but he re-registered the trademarks to names such as "Mazarati" and "The Family" a couple of years ago. Not sure he'd bother to do that unless he did own the masters.

If Mazarati wanted to reform now, they would have to get permission from Prince to use their name like The Time and The Family did?

bluegangsta said:

avasdad said:

bluegangsta said:

Given that he offered Kevin Smith The Time's catulogue to use in movies [back in 2001/ 2002], I would assume that he already owns them.

Given I don't know Kevin Smith or who he is... I wouldn't assume....

I think you interpreted my post as cantankerous, which wasn't intended.

sexton said:

Militant said:

Not 100% sure about the masters, but he re-registered the trademarks to names such as "Mazarati" and "The Family" a couple of years ago. Not sure he'd bother to do that unless he did own the masters.

If Mazarati wanted to reform now, they would have to get permission from Prince to use their name like The Time and The Family did?

Only if they wanted to release a product under that name. I believe the trademark applies to release of audio recordings and that sort of thing, but not live performances.

And as a matter of fact, Mazarati DID reform already, with Brownmark and Morris Hayes and without Sir Casey Terry. They seemed to be doing some stuff a couple of years ago but I'm not sure if they are still pursuing it.

avasdad said:

when he regained his masters from WB, did he also get back The Time and other associated artists??

No he didn't.

.

Well, it's more complicated than that.

.

The Time, Vanity 6, Apollonia 6 and Sheila E. were signed to Warner Bros before the creation of Paisley Park. The masters of all their records, including those released after 1985, belong to Warner Bros and haven't been reattributed to Prince in 2014. I'm pretty sure he tried, but they are still in WB's hands to this day, as proven by the copyright notice of those of those albums that are on platforms such as iTunes.

.

However, according to Alan Leeds, the contract Prince had signed with WB when he created Pailsey Park Records stipulated that the masters of all the label's records would go back to Prince should the label ever be shut down. And this is exactly what happened in 1994 when WB shut down Paisley Park. This is evidenced by the fact that in 1995 Prince rereleased The Voice and Hey Man Smell My Finger on NPG Records through Edel, and execs from Edel have revealed that a bunch of other Paisley Park records were to be rereleased that way before Prince changed his mind for unknown reason. From memory, those albums included Eric Leeds' records, the Madhouse albums, Ingrid Chavez' album, Carmen Electra's album and maybe a few others.

.

There are however a few uncertain cases. For example Leeds said that because The Family was a very early Paisley Park release he was not sure whether the masters' retribution deal was already in place when the contract was signed, so WB may or may not still have that one. Other ambiguous cases are the Paisley Park/Reprise Records joint ventures: Taja Sevelle and Tony LeMans (I don't believe there's been others besides Pandemonium, but somebody correct me if I'm wrong). The fact that Taja released her second album only on Reprise Records in 1991, at a time when Paisley Park was still active, may indicate that she was never really signed on Paisley Park in the first place and that WB may still own her first album. Another hint is that Pandemonium is definitely still in the hands of WB even though it's likely a new deal was signed with the band in 1989, and it was a Reprise/PP joint venture. Another, similar case could be Kahoru Kohiruimaki's three Pailey Park albums (2 audio album and a video album), that were released in a joint venture with TDK, WB's japanese branch at the time.

.

Of note is the fact that, according again to Alan Leeds, Prince was never signed to Paisley Park in the first place: WB allowed the label to be placed on his records as a courtesy, to give the label some visibility, but like Sheila and The Time he was always solely contracted to WB.

.

Prince's copyright of the names Mazarati and also, in fact, Good Question (!!!) in the mid-2000's may or may not be related to masters ownership. As for The Family IDK how much of that is true but according to either Paul or Susannah (can't remember) the name had in fact already been copyrighted by some rapper, so Prince only attempted to copyright it (it seems the documents we had access to at the time were only filing for registration, not the registration itself).

bluegangsta said:

Given that he offered Kevin Smith The Time's catulogue to use in movies [back in 2001/ 2002], I would assume that he already owns them.

In fact it's funny because permission to use a song in a movie is only a matter of getting permission to use the recording (a song can be covered in a movie as in any other context).

Smith asked Prince to use both Jungle Love and TMBGITW. Prince said OK for Jungle Love but refused TMBGITW. In the end Smith used a rerecorded live version of jungle Love anyway but Prince probably wasn't aware that this was the plan at the time and most likely knew he couldn't prevent Smith to licence the song from WB. On the other hand he owned TMBGITW (though WB owned it too at the time, since while Prince owned the singles' masters, WB owned the TGE master, it's a legal puzzle), so he was in a position to decline.

On a final note, this year Prince AND The Time would be able to use the 35 years law to make an attempt at getting the masters of the first album back. I suspect associated artists don't care but it's very likely Prince will give it a shot. But maybe he will wait for a few more years and try to get several albums at once instead of going in a legal battle with WB for each project (The Time, the 6's and Sheila's albums).

.

Another ironic situation is that Prince owns the masters for albums he had virtually nothing to do with, including for example 2 George Clinton albums that Clinton or, after him, his estate, are likely to reclaim at some point. He also owns NPG Records' releases. Chaka once said that she plans to reclaim her albums to WB when the law allows it. She hasn't made a move yet but she may at some point. In that case one can wonder what Prince would do if she asked for Come 2 My House as well (I believe a journalist actually asked him about the masters for that album at the time and Prince said that he considered the record to be hers, but nevertheless it so far belongs to NPG Records and has been OOP for nearly 20 years).

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A lot of people (or their estate) will be in a position to reclaim their masters from Prince when 35 years have passed, but I will assume that only George, Chaka and maybe Mavis have a sufficient fanbase to justify the effort.

databank said:

dafuzz said:

databank said:

No he didn't.

.

Well, it's more complicated than that.

.

The Time, Vanity 6, Apollonia 6 and Sheila E. were signed to Warner Bros before the creation of Paisley Park. The masters of all their records, including those released after 1985, belong to Warner Bros and haven't been reattributed to Prince in 2014. I'm pretty sure he tried, but they are still in WB's hands to this day, as proven by the copyright notice of those of those albums that are on platforms such as iTunes.

.

However, according to Alan Leeds, the contract Prince had signed with WB when he created Pailsey Park Records stipulated that the masters of all the label's records would go back to Prince should the label ever be shut down. And this is exactly what happened in 1994 when WB shut down Paisley Park. This is evidenced by the fact that in 1995 Prince rereleased The Voice and Hey Man Smell My Finger on NPG Records through Edel, and execs from Edel have revealed that a bunch of other Paisley Park records were to be rereleased that way before Prince changed his mind for unknown reason. From memory, those albums included Eric Leeds' records, the Madhouse albums, Ingrid Chavez' album, Carmen Electra's album and maybe a few others.

.

There are however a few uncertain cases. For example Leeds said that because The Family was a very early Paisley Park release he was not sure whether the masters' retribution deal was already in place when the contract was signed, so WB may or may not still have that one. Other ambiguous cases are the Paisley Park/Reprise Records joint ventures: Taja Sevelle and Tony LeMans (I don't believe there's been others besides Pandemonium, but somebody correct me if I'm wrong). The fact that Taja released her second album only on Reprise Records in 1991, at a time when Paisley Park was still active, may indicate that she was never really signed on Paisley Park in the first place and that WB may still own her first album. Another hint is that Pandemonium is definitely still in the hands of WB even though it's likely a new deal was signed with the band in 1989, and it was a Reprise/PP joint venture. Another, similar case could be Kahoru Kohiruimaki's three Pailey Park albums (2 audio album and a video album), that were released in a joint venture with TDK, WB's japanese branch at the time.

.

Of note is the fact that, according again to Alan Leeds, Prince was never signed to Paisley Park in the first place: WB allowed the label to be placed on his records as a courtesy, to give the label some visibility, but like Sheila and The Time he was always solely contracted to WB.

.

Prince's copyright of the names Mazarati and also, in fact, Good Question (!!!) in the mid-2000's may or may not be related to masters ownership. As for The Family IDK how much of that is true but according to either Paul or Susannah (can't remember) the name had in fact already been copyrighted by some rapper, so Prince only attempted to copyright it (it seems the documents we had access to at the time were only filing for registration, not the registration itself).

This is correct, fdeluxes manager confirmed that some time ago here on the org

YES! U r correct it wasn't Paul or Susannah but the manager.

I have wondered about this in the past since nearly all of Prince's music has been taken off Spotify, yet the Time, and Sheila E, for example have all their stuff up there still. EVen Cyndi Lauper's When u were Mine, TLC's If i was ur Girlfriend, and CHaka's Feel 4 u can't be played on Spotify.

Regarding getting the Masters back, etc - why even bother if your intention is to do NOTHING with them?

It seems Prince has no interest in remastering all those albums (Paisley Park) & putting them out with bonus tracks, etc. Warner Bros. whatever masters they hold probably wouldn't bother putting them out on CD now.

Whatever Masters Prince holds, he could easily get people to work on them - remaster them & put them out, even if he can't be bothered doing so himself. There will be lot of unreleased tracks etc by associated artists in the vaults too.