If they keep releasing compilations; why can't they release some remastered albums? They own the master tapes don;t they?

Does anyone know?

Simple answer: No.

They don't "keep" releasing compilations. It's not like they're chugging out one cheapo compilation after another without Prince's consent. 2001's The Very Best Of was part of the original deal.... 'Ultimate Prince' had Prince's input.

They may own the master tapes, but Prince owns all the seperate tapes and sounds that make up the master tapes and would be needed for a proper full-on remaster.

All Ultimate did was enhance the older tracks digitally.

At the end of the day, as shown by Ultimate, it really is practically a loss-making exercise for Warners unless they can get Prince to advertise and push whatever albums they put-out.

metalorange said:

that makes no sense. if he owns the seperate tapes and such, then he owns the music. right?

Milty said:

Warners own the rights to publish music from those master tapes. In other words Prince can't release his own versions that are identical as he has sold the rights to do so. But he could re-do the music and re-do new master tapes from those, as he was threatening to do a few years back and as he did with 1999: the New Master. It is said he did actually re-record his back-catalogue, but of course these new recordings have not seen the light of day.

Just cuz WB 'own' a lot of Prince's master tapes doesn't mean they can do
what they like with them.

WB can only keep manufacturing Prince's back-catalogue in the form that they've
already been released. They cannot add bonus tracks, remaster or otherwise
alter these releases without Prince's permission.

metalorange said:

But if Prince can't seem 2 promote his own releases, why would his backing on WB release help?

npgmaverick said:

Prince did a good job of promoting Musicology, with tv appearances mentioning the album and the US tour, and it sold rather well even without the concert giveaway. His promotion of 3121 has been erratic to say the least, no interviews of any note and tv performances of album tracks rather than current singles, and it has faired less well. I think Prince knows full well how to promote an album but chose, for whatever reasons, to not follow the usual path with 3121.

Ultimate suffered from lack of exposure even more so than 3121, when you don't have the actual artist promoting it there's very little more you can do after a certain point. And I think the same would be true of any remastered album releases. You really need the artist on tv going "Hey, buy my remastered album collection, it's great."

It should be noted that WB DOES NOT OWN his masters. They have an ASSIGNMENT of his masters, which expires 35 years from the date of the assignment.

Isn't the 35 years up yet or soon?

wlcm2thdwn said:

First album For You in 1978.

That's another 7 years.

wlcm2thdwn said:

'For You' released 7 April 1978

Rights to the master recordings revert to Prince 35 years later: 7 April 2013

'Prince' released 19 October 1979

Rights to master recordings revert to Prince 35 years later: 19 October 2014

... and so on ...

.

Damn, what a mess!

langebleu said:

Can't this be changed with a little or lot money?

Why didn't p ask for his masters before he signed his last WB contract?

mikek1 said:

Well, pretty much the whole of his battle during the 90s with Warners was about him regaining or retaining his masters. He wanted to give them Prince albums they could sell while at the same time releasing albums for which he could retain the masters, one of the reasons why people think he still owns the masters to The Gold Experience (I do not know whether he does or doesn't but I don't believe there was a seperate deal for the album). Of course, Warners didn't go for this because they didn't want him keeping the best material for himself. And they were not going to hand over the masters to him because for them that is the goose that lays the golden eggs, publishing and selling the albums over the years was where they earn their big money. To buy them all back in one go may well be beyond even Prince's wealth, and from his point of view why should he have to when he thinks they are his anyway?

There's no doubt that he made a mistake with his last Warners contract, which was just after the huge success of Diamonds & Pearls. He clearly regretted it not long after. The deal was reportedly for $100 million, but in reality he got something like $10 million in advance payment for each album, but that dropped each subsequent album if it sold less than 5 million world-wide, which the albums after D&P did. To a certain extent, it was in Warners interest for him to sell short of 5 million and perhaps he felt they were deliberately not putting full effort into his projects. Whatever, they fell out and now Prince does not go out of his way to help Warners with his back-catalogue, I mean he did not even appear on the re-mastered Purple Rain DVD. Ultimate was the first time he appeared to have any involvement with them for a long time, and even then he surely must have been behind the initial block of its release.

The fact is that record companies have historically taken ownership of the masters as part of the contracts with artists as a matter of fact. Prince certainly drew attention to that fact, I for one had never heard of all this until he started making a fuss, and I think as a result a lot of artists question the fine details of their contracts a lot more, and are even finding that releasing material independently and retaining the masters is the way to go.

the best thing to do, if u want a better copy of any prince albums is do this ;

the thing i do is, i have a regular cd burner, home stero one. i record the
older album using a higer recording levels. and they sound better.

There is also another very worrying potential problem that I read about some time back...

All of Prince's albums up until Graffiti Bridge (I think) were recorded on analogue equipment. That means the master tapes are exactly that - TAPES! Tape, even the high grade professional stuff, deteriorates over time. Eventually the sound recorded onto the tape (using magnetics) is lost FOREVER!

Now I would have hoped that Prince and his engineers have already done this but unless all of Prince's master tapes (and the component multi track original recordings) are transferred to digital recordings, the music will be lost! The problem is that to do this is very expensive. Apparently the original analogue recordings can be "baked" to help preserve them but even then it only extends their life rather than protecting them forever!

Perhaps that is what Prince has been doing using the huge paycheck from the Musicology Tour?
[Edited 10/12/06 2:23am]

btw...prince most likely has the masters. he only granted them the right to the copyright of the songs for 35 years.....this does not give WB a "tangible" right.

See 17 US Code § 202 which states:
Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied.Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object.

And as far as termination, yes, Prince could have negotiated (and probably tried) a shorter term, but only the powers that be know the answer to that one. If the contract has the standard termination dates, it would be as follows:

17 USCS Sects. 203(a)(3) Termination of the grant may be effected at any time during a period of five years beginning at the end of thirty-five years from the date of execution of the grant; or, if the grant covers the right of publication of the work, the period begins at the end of thirty-five years from the date of publication of the work under the grant or at the end of forty years from the date of execution of the grant, whichever term ends earlier.

jaypotton said:

I'm sorry 2 tell U that it doesn't appear that neither the digitizing nor the baking has been done, from what I know. Please don't ask me 4 my source(s). All I can tell U is that Paisley Park is fine, and has been heavily "updated", but the tape reels in the vault still sit there. It hurts, but U must remember how much Prince lives in the Now, and NOT in the past.

Giovanni777 said:

Aw man I feared as much. Prince is crazy! I know on the one hand that he lives for the now BUT why then go on so much about owning his masters because they are like his children! You gotta look after your children to ensure they carry on living!!!

metalorange said:

I think a few have...I think this is where we got Starfish and Coffee and the PopLife remixes. I think he was testing them out on his fans at the time. They did surface around the time of the new master.