the fewer record companies involved in Princes the better IMHO.

Also I would like to know what exactly are the Estate doing with Princes Vault at the moment?! When will they release stuff directly from it?

Prince's distrust of competent lawyers and advisors and an unhealthly lack of respect for (or faith in) the real world rules of business and contracts have cost him and his heirs his legacy. Its friggin' tragic.

Its a shame that his talent was so intimidating. If'd only held on to one friend to slap some sense into him.

maceoparker007 said:

the fewer record companies involved in Princes the better IMHO.

Also I would like to know what exactly are the Estate doing with Princes Vault at the moment?! When will they release stuff directly from it?

The Warner's stuff will be up to Warners (I assume heirs have approval rights but they have no reason to turn anything down, they need the money).

The non-warner (I assume post 1993) is up for grabs but this albums are not worth much in the eyes of SONY or WB. (UNI has no interest it them as they could have just offerred less but instead chose to recind entirely)

Seems like the WB contract is written very poorly and vague (thats what you get when you let Van Jones and non-laywers negotiate for you), so I would guess Warner's will just get all the rest of the catalog cheap "for 'a song' (LOL)" since no other company wants to run the risk of Warners making claims under the current agreement.

MORAL OF THE STORY: FIND A GOOD LAWYER, WRITE A WILL.

lastdecember said:

Kiss future remasters bye bye

why? there's finally some clarity now. it's obvious WB have strong claims to material
recorded during his time with them.

who else is going to go ahead and deal with that chunck of the vault? i don't think a
company in their right mind is going to try and get a piece of that pie, seeing what's
happened with universal now.

so what's to stop warners from going ahead with remasters for all his WB albums at
this point?

and now that it's clear that what the family can offer other companies is only rights
to publish his post warners material, i'm sure some company will snap that stuff up,
or they will have to find a way to release it themselves through an online storefront.
which would be the best thing to do perhaps?

a steady stream of liveshows, both music and video, complete albums prince made
and filed away, occasional songs, mixes etc. there's so much that could be released,
and it wouldn't stand in the way of his remasters or distract from them since beyond
us no one cared to start with so why would those things hinder warners now?

but fcuz none of that is going to happen it's perhaps too logical and too much of
what fans would want and actually pay for.

i'll tell you this though, if universal 'bought' the rights to publish all his material, or at
least thought they did, for 30 mil. then how much is the less desirable chunk of that
going to be worth to any company after this deal has been recinded and the kind of
press the estate and it's advisers have gotten because of it?

like 10 mil for the rights to release that stuff?

if the amount is getting that freakin low i do hope jay z will just buy it and set up a
tidal subpage with any and everything from the vault since 1996

now, having said that, i'll just wait for the usual suspects to come in and start to yell
at me for saying stupid things that make no legal sense. so perhaps a disclaimer is
due: this is just wishful thinking, i don't make claims that any of this is real. now gfy.

lastdecember said:

lastdecember said:

Kiss future remasters bye bye

Naw if there's money to be made...money will be made. Get real. I also don't think it's going to be long before they start pumping them out because every year the value of recorded music decreases thanks to piracy and streaming. They wait too long and the small market for physical product will be miniscule (I will also prefer physical product myself. F*ck streaming and f*ck mp3s)

SOMEONE has to be willing to pay a certain amount and be savy enough to recoup

emesem said:

Prince's distrust of competent lawyers and advisors and an unhealthly lack of respect for (or faith in) the real world rules of business and contracts have cost him and his heirs his legacy. Its friggin' tragic.

Its a shame that his talent was so intimidating. If'd only held on to one friend to slap some sense into him.

YEAH, not only about show biz but about drug abuse, loyalty, fidelity...you know, the real stuff that matters. Tragic...killed by Yes, ego, being reclusive.

emesem said:

Prince's distrust of competent lawyers and advisors and an unhealthly lack of respect for (or faith in) the real world rules of business and contracts have cost him and his heirs his legacy. Its friggin' tragic.

Its a shame that his talent was so intimidating. If'd only held on to one friend to slap some sense into him.

I don't think this is true. He knew exactly what he was doing and not having a will was intentional in my opinion. He worked for everything he had, why shouldn't others who have done nothing, work for their piece of the purple pie? He also set some things in place regarding his music and between that and PP, his legacy will be fine.

Rescission is the only option by the Judge. Otherwise UMG is going to file a lawsuit against the Estate.

The Estate is already in litigation hell. No need to add to the list.

Morris says P recorded 10 albums between 20Ten and Art Official Age.

You would think those albums would be worth something?

[Edited 6/27/17 19:38pm]

IstenSzek said:

imago said:

Let me be the first to say this:

ISaidLifeIsJustAGame said:

Morris says P recorded 10 albums between 20Ten and Art Official Age.

someone, please, take my $ 250,- i'd pay even more if i could get them this year

IstenSzek said:

imago said:

Let me be the first to say this:

imago said:

Let me be the first to say this:

Why am I not surprised you have not changed in the slightest

IstenSzek said:

ISaidLifeIsJustAGame said:

Morris says P recorded 10 albums between 20Ten and Art Official Age.

someone, please, take my $ 250,- i'd pay even more if i could get them this year

First I've heard this. Exciting.

ISaidLifeIsJustAGame said:

If WB hadn't made a bit of a mess of PR Deluxe I'd have said it's best they get control of all the music and assign one person/team to deal with remasters and new releases.

.

At least they won't have to worry about who owns the rights to what, depending on year recorded or released, etc!

.

There's a chance they'd have a better knowledge of what is available to release, and in a timely order.

ISaidLifeIsJustAGame said:

Rescission is the only option by the Judge. Otherwise UMG is going to file a lawsuit against the Estate.

The Estate is already in litigation hell. No need to add to the list.

Morris says P recorded 10 albums between 20Ten and Art Official Age.

You would think those albums would be worth something?

[Edited 6/27/17 19:38pm]

Morris Hayes? When and where did he say that?

IstenSzek said:

ISaidLifeIsJustAGame said:

Morris says P recorded 10 albums between 20Ten and Art Official Age.

someone, please, take my $ 250,- i'd pay even more if i could get them this year

When they're done taking your money they can come and quickly snatch mine off me too.

IstenSzek said:

lastdecember said:

Kiss future remasters bye bye

why? there's finally some clarity now. it's obvious WB have strong claims to material
recorded during his time with them.

who else is going to go ahead and deal with that chunck of the vault? i don't think a
company in their right mind is going to try and get a piece of that pie, seeing what's
happened with universal now.

so what's to stop warners from going ahead with remasters for all his WB albums at
this point?

and now that it's clear that what the family can offer other companies is only rights
to publish his post warners material, i'm sure some company will snap that stuff up,
or they will have to find a way to release it themselves through an online storefront.
which would be the best thing to do perhaps?

a steady stream of liveshows, both music and video, complete albums prince made
and filed away, occasional songs, mixes etc. there's so much that could be released,
and it wouldn't stand in the way of his remasters or distract from them since beyond
us no one cared to start with so why would those things hinder warners now?

but fcuz none of that is going to happen it's perhaps too logical and too much of
what fans would want and actually pay for.

i'll tell you this though, if universal 'bought' the rights to publish all his material, or at
least thought they did, for 30 mil. then how much is the less desirable chunk of that
going to be worth to any company after this deal has been recinded and the kind of
press the estate and it's advisers have gotten because of it?

like 10 mil for the rights to release that stuff?

if the amount is getting that freakin low i do hope jay z will just buy it and set up a
tidal subpage with any and everything from the vault since 1996

now, having said that, i'll just wait for the usual suspects to come in and start to yell
at me for saying stupid things that make no legal sense. so perhaps a disclaimer is
due: this is just wishful thinking, i don't make claims that any of this is real. now gfy.

Clearance has to be given to do any kind of anything to his work. He signed off on PR and that is why we got that remaster, the bonus stuff was taken from the sources that WB had possession of which is why everyone is going nuts over quality because what they have and probably what PRINCE had has not aged well, we forget that these demos and things are basically all cassette recordings from over 30 years ago, its not like demos he did in the last decade so people need to accept that they are going to get a lot of muddy sound and stuff. Then there comes the task of "if" someone lets WB touch the vault, who does it, who sorts through it, Prince left no direction so it will be up to the label to decide, and I know we all want people that worked with him then to do any kind of sorting but that will again be up outside sources. Also there comes the question what about things after he left WB? they have no control over that, he did not let those things go to them, his one off deals with labels like Sony Universal and Arista are not for WB to touch and though those albums dont need to be remastered anything he was working on then demo wise will also be an issue of getting. I know some are clammoring for later material and final concert but that ironically will be the hardest to get control of.

The 7-CD Emancipation reissue could be off for awhile. Shucks.

So did WB win the prince war?

Y'all act like since prince is dead WB can just put out whatever the fuck they want. WB would certainly like you all to believe they won.

So WTF was prince waiting for all those years? Didn't he regain full ownership after 30 years due to some law that WB hates? So how does that give WB full rights to do whatever the fuck they want with his work tapes they have lying around.

When prince was alive they had ZERO rights to release ANYTHING. Which is why they could not release PRremastered with the outtakes.

I believe since prince died, the ownership reverts to the heirs or estate. End of story. Ultimately the estate could decide when and how to release anything recorded ever, due to the 30 year limit. And even if the 30 years is bunk (i don't think it is), WB would need permission from the estate to release outtakes.

Clearly the estate worked on this presumption when doing the deal with Universal. And that presumption may still be accurate. All we know is that WB is making claims that they own it all now and is ignoring the 30 year issue that prince waited and fought for, for many many decades. The general public does not know why prince was waiting so long. Maybe the estate does not have a full grasp of the issue either. This feels like a big corporation trying to bully the estate with precedent (pr deluxe) and lots of lawyers and suing. Maaan they hated prince railing against their slave ship mentality for decades, and they certainly aren't going to hand over his "work for hire" (as they would put it) with out a huge expensive fight.

anyone who would continue to pass on misinformation that WB has the right to release anything at this point besides the wretched remaster of the PR disk alone, is literally going against EVERYTHING prince fought for the last 30 years.

with the lack of understanding and quality put into prdeluxe, I can only thank the bootleggers for what they have and continue to provide. They will be the keepers of his true legacy. Thinking WB will do anything other than milk the teet of a few scraps they have laying around would be foolish.

And anyone who bitches about bootleggers stealing money from prince ... well ... not only do they put out better product, provide shit prince nor wb would, and take more care in packaging .. but wb has stolen more from prince than any small run bootlegger ever will ...

The reality is that the ESTATE should have full rights to everything upon his death due to the 30 year law that reverts ownership to prince. Anything to the contrary is lawyers and loophole efforts. I hope the ESTATE sticks to their guns and wins agains WB. WB is just another money grubbing corporation that cares littel for the product or the consumers. Yay 'merica!

TrevorAyer said:

So did WB win the prince war?

Y'all act like since prince is dead WB can just put out whatever the fuck they want. WB would certainly like you all to believe they won.

So WTF was prince waiting for all those years? Didn't he regain full ownership after 30 years due to some law that WB hates? So how does that give WB full rights to do whatever the fuck they want with his work tapes they have lying around.

When prince was alive they had ZERO rights to release ANYTHING. Which is why they could not release PRremastered with the outtakes.

I believe since prince died, the ownership reverts to the heirs or estate. End of story. Ultimately the estate could decide when and how to release anything recorded ever, due to the 30 year limit. And even if the 30 years is bunk (i don't think it is), WB would need permission from the estate to release outtakes.

Clearly the estate worked on this presumption when doing the deal with Universal. And that presumption may still be accurate. All we know is that WB is making claims that they own it all now and is ignoring the 30 year issue that prince waited and fought for, for many many decades. The general public does not know why prince was waiting so long. Maybe the estate does not have a full grasp of the issue either. This feels like a big corporation trying to bully the estate with precedent (pr deluxe) and lots of lawyers and suing. Maaan they hated prince railing against their slave ship mentality for decades, and they certainly aren't going to hand over his "work for hire" (as they would put it) with out a huge expensive fight.

anyone who would continue to pass on misinformation that WB has the right to release anything at this point besides the wretched remaster of the PR disk alone, is literally going against EVERYTHING prince fought for the last 30 years.

with the lack of understanding and quality put into prdeluxe, I can only thank the bootleggers for what they have and continue to provide. They will be the keepers of his true legacy. Thinking WB will do anything other than milk the teet of a few scraps they have laying around would be foolish.

And anyone who bitches about bootleggers stealing money from prince ... well ... not only do they put out better product, provide shit prince nor wb would, and take more care in packaging .. but wb has stolen more from prince than any small run bootlegger ever will ...

The reality is that the ESTATE should have full rights to everything upon his death due to the 30 year law that reverts ownership to prince. Anything to the contrary is lawyers and loophole efforts. I hope the ESTATE sticks to their guns and wins agains WB. WB is just another money grubbing corporation that cares littel for the product or the consumers. Yay 'merica!

WB has an exclusive distribution deal with the P estate for another 4 years. There's no war between WB and the estate. The estate is making money from the PR remaster and will likely use those funds to cut Universal a $30,000,000 check for the botched deal (thanks Londell?).

Ownership of the WB era masters reverted to Prince when he signed the distribution deal with WB back in 2014. Now that P is gone, it's in the estate's best interest to work with WB and grant them access to the music if they want to continue making money from this deal.

And they'd better do it quickly.

[Edited 6/28/17 9:25am]

I dont blame LLondell 100% on this. He didnt write the 2014 WB contract (right?). If we give him the benefit of the doubt (and that he did not try to committ fraud), seems like there is considerable ambuiguity (to WB favor) in that agreement and that he did not accurately explain that to Uni and due to confidentiality contrstraints they could not show the actual agreement to Uni.

Poor judgment on Uni's party to bid such a high amount without looking at the contract. Also, given the confidentiality constraints, Londell had a bit of a professional obligation to explain better what rights were actually availiable for UNI to bid on.

But utlimately seems that Prince did not cut a very good deal with WB yet again. ARE GOOD LAWYERS THAT HARD TO FIND? JFC I'm sure BEYONCE HAS A GOOD ONE.

blacknote said:

TrevorAyer said:

So did WB win the prince war?

Y'all act like since prince is dead WB can just put out whatever the fuck they want. WB would certainly like you all to believe they won.

So WTF was prince waiting for all those years? Didn't he regain full ownership after 30 years due to some law that WB hates? So how does that give WB full rights to do whatever the fuck they want with his work tapes they have lying around.

When prince was alive they had ZERO rights to release ANYTHING. Which is why they could not release PRremastered with the outtakes.

I believe since prince died, the ownership reverts to the heirs or estate. End of story. Ultimately the estate could decide when and how to release anything recorded ever, due to the 30 year limit. And even if the 30 years is bunk (i don't think it is), WB would need permission from the estate to release outtakes.

Clearly the estate worked on this presumption when doing the deal with Universal. And that presumption may still be accurate. All we know is that WB is making claims that they own it all now and is ignoring the 30 year issue that prince waited and fought for, for many many decades. The general public does not know why prince was waiting so long. Maybe the estate does not have a full grasp of the issue either. This feels like a big corporation trying to bully the estate with precedent (pr deluxe) and lots of lawyers and suing. Maaan they hated prince railing against their slave ship mentality for decades, and they certainly aren't going to hand over his "work for hire" (as they would put it) with out a huge expensive fight.

anyone who would continue to pass on misinformation that WB has the right to release anything at this point besides the wretched remaster of the PR disk alone, is literally going against EVERYTHING prince fought for the last 30 years.

with the lack of understanding and quality put into prdeluxe, I can only thank the bootleggers for what they have and continue to provide. They will be the keepers of his true legacy. Thinking WB will do anything other than milk the teet of a few scraps they have laying around would be foolish.

And anyone who bitches about bootleggers stealing money from prince ... well ... not only do they put out better product, provide shit prince nor wb would, and take more care in packaging .. but wb has stolen more from prince than any small run bootlegger ever will ...

The reality is that the ESTATE should have full rights to everything upon his death due to the 30 year law that reverts ownership to prince. Anything to the contrary is lawyers and loophole efforts. I hope the ESTATE sticks to their guns and wins agains WB. WB is just another money grubbing corporation that cares littel for the product or the consumers. Yay 'merica!

WB has an exclusive distribution deal with the P estate for another 4 years. There's no war between WB and the estate. The estate is making money from the PR remaster and will likely use those funds to cut Universal a $30,000,000 check for the botched deal (thanks Londell?).

Ownership of the WB era masters reverted to Prince when he signed the distribution deal with WB back in 2014. Now that P is gone, it's in the estate's best interest to work with WB and grant them access to the music if they want to continue making money from this deal.

And they'd better do it quickly.

[Edited 6/28/17 9:25am]

IstenSzek said:

i'll tell you this though, if universal 'bought' the rights to publish all his material, or at
least thought they did, for 30 mil. then how much is the less desirable chunk of that
going to be worth to any company after this deal has been recinded and the kind of
press the estate and it's advisers have gotten because of it?

like 10 mil for the rights to release that stuff?

if the amount is getting that freakin low i do hope jay z will just buy it and set up a
tidal subpage with any and everything from the vault since 1996

Maybe if it gets cheap enough Questlove will buy it. That would be better than Jay-Z since Quest is a fan.