After reading the press conference, I am a bit confused as to who actually owns Prince's Master Tapes now....

wouldn't be universal, because this current deal he's under is a one-shot.

I believe that Warner Brothers owns the back catalogue, however Prince has final say as to whether a song can be used, reused, put into movie soundtracks, rerecorded, etc.
Kevin Smith has a great part about getting Prince's permission to use a song in a movie on his "An evening with Kevin Smith". Point was Prince gave Kevin permission to use a Time song, but not a Prince song

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

There is another current deal to where he just renewed for the publishing rights under Universal. It's said to include his back catalog.

So did Universal buy it from WB? or did Universal buy a big chunk of WB?

The publishing rights to Prince's recordings are "owned" by Prince. Technically, it is most likely that he has assigned those rights to Universal for a limited period - Universal announced that they renewed the deal this week. Under such a deal, Universal collect monies owed to Prince generated by such things as radio airplay of all of his catalogue. Universal probably keep a cut under the deal and pay the balance to Prince's publishing company.

SEPARATE TO THIS, the rights to the master recordings of Prince are probably currently held variously:

Most likely, Warners continue to retain rights to most if not all of his Warners output.

More recently, it is quite possible that Prince struck deals with recording companies so that he either retained the rights to his later master recordings or they reverted back to him after a much shorter period than the period agreed with Warners.

So, Universal this week ALSO announced that they had struck what was described as a 'recording' deal with Prince. However, Prince appears to be indicating that this was not a typical deal where there is an advance to the artist recouped from album sales by the company, together with an assignment of the master recording rights to the company. Rather he has suggested that he ahs struck a one album deal for Universal to distribute and market the album over which he quite possibly retains master recording rights.

There's no evidence reported of any payment by anyone in return for WB transferring rights to the back catalogue master recordings they secured.

Read this recent thread to gain more information:


http://www.prince.org/msg/7/170664

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[Edited 12/15/05 14:44pm]

ok, god-forbid, but if prince died, who would own his stuff? who'd own the rights to his stuff? what does prince own, anyway?
[Edited 12/15/05 18:36pm]

chunky said:

Where Prince has assigned the rights under agreement, the rights would normally revert back to Prince on the agreement termination date. If Prince were no longer alive on that date, the rights would normally revert back to his estate, to be managed by the estate administrator in accordance with any directions that Prince had issued e.g. under a will.

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WOW You Know Thats A Very Valid Point.

What is going to happen to the Catalog and the VAULT when the old man goes under?

With the rumors of everything prince, who do you think is in the will that would have control?

lazycrockett said:

Knowing Prince, by his past actions. He probably has already destroyed his old recordings. Especially if god forbid, there explicit lyrics or cursing.

He always says that he does not like looking backwards or repeating himself, so you never know.....

chookalana said:

I try not to repeat myself. It's the hardest thing in the world to do --- there are only so many notes one human being can master-prince

chookalana said:

Actually, if previous reports are true... there may not be much left to destroy given the fact that it has been stated many of the original recordings have degraded to such a degree they need 'baking' in the hopes of retrieving the audio.

If P has the right to say "yes" or "no" then why does he complain when Little Red Corvette showed up in a commercial? I think he said, "this song wasn't intended for a commercial." I'm not saying anyone is wrong, just trying to figure it out myself remember rumors about 3-5 years ago that P and Universal was working on a deal that would include Universal purchasing the masters from WB. Does anyone else remember this? If the rumor was true why wouldn't he do this.... get his masters back and sign a 3-5 album deal.
[Edited 12/16/05 20:00pm]