I must admit, this just popped into my head five seconds ago and could've originated purely from my consuming too much chinese medicine, but is it true Prince once said something about re-recording all of his WB's-owned albums in order to own the rights, starting in 2013?



Thank u.

In 2013, does his WB catalog start going back 2 him or up 4 bidding or whatever? I mean how'd MJ get the Beatles catalog, shouldn't it have gone back 2 Paul? Also, how much $ do u think it would take 2 buy back Prince's catalog from WB?

How old will he be in 2013? In his mid 50s right? I hope he's still going strong then. I don't see why not.

In 2013, does his WB catalog start going back 2 him or up 4 bidding or whatever? I mean how'd MJ get the Beatles catalog, shouldn't it have gone back 2 Paul? Also, how much $ do u think it would take 2 buy back Prince's catalog from WB?

Prince owns the master recordings of all his post-WB work including 'Emancipation', 'Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic', and his current 'The Rainbow Children'.

He does not (as we well know) own his master recordings, but under the terms of his original WB contract, ownership of master will revert one by one to him beginning with 'For You' in the year 2013(and roughly annually thereafter taking into account that there were a few years during his WB contract years when he didn't deliver a master recording, i.e. 1983).

No part of the Prince catalog will go up for bids the way McCatrney's did.

Prince has said publicly that he simply "asked" WB for his masters back. According to him their response was, "you couldn't have them if you gave us a billion dollars." So I guess that answers your ? regarding how much it would take to buy the masters of Prince's album!

-SWANG'souttabreath

SWANG said:

I am not saying I know all the facts, so please don't see my statements as statements of fact.
What I would like to say is that Prince should own the rights of all these recordings that you mentioned, but you may be in for a suprise, especially with Rave un2 the joy fantastic... ever wondered why "Rave IN2 the joy fantastic" carried the message of "this is not a work for hire" ??... maybe it is because Arista/BMG sees it like that...
better think about that one.



This is basically true, but not what you said that ownership will revert to Prince, under the terms of his contract. It is not the contracts stating that, it is US copyright law that provides for this possibility.
And it most probably will not be as easy as you say it will be. Why not?

Because Warner Brothers records sees itself as "the author" of all the recordings Prince made for them under their "work for hire" contracts. Under these contracts WB is the "employer" and Prince is their "employee". His WB albums are all registered with the US copyright office as being works made for hire: this is an indication, not hard evidence that his contracts all stated that his albums were considered to be "works made for hire" and Prince himself the employee of WB.

The employer, in the work made for hire doctrine, is considered by law, to be the author of the work, instead of the person(s) who really created the work. This then means that if WB can be considered to have been Prince's employer that they own all the copyrights and Prince never owned any. If Prince never owned any rights then no copyright transfer has ever taken place. The termination of copyright transfer, 35 years after the initial transfer, which the US Copyright Act provides for, does not apply then... (according to WB of course).

Prince contends that his albums never were and never could be considered "works made for hire". Here he has a good point, because alltho' the contracts will state that the albums are works made for hire, the law sets a complicated list of additonal factors and requirements in order to determine whether a work is legally, really made for hire or not. WB will probably lose that case under current copyright laws and jurisprudence...
That is why the RIAA tried to lobby an amendment to the work for hire doctrine through US Congress a few years ago, to put the word "sound recording" into the list of works that are always considered to be "made for hire". ... That attempt to legally steal all artists rights for life fortunately failed.

Nevertheless, even if WB can not considered to be the author of these recordings, they still own all the rights, because they have been assigned to them anyway, by also using a "normal" clause of copyright transfer, standard in every recording contract, as is the work for hire provision.
This kind of transfer can indeed be reversed under current law 35 years after the initial transfer by the author, thus making it possible for Prince to start owning his masters after 2013, starting with For you.



His masters can go up for bids, unless Prince has a clause in his contracts preventing WB from doing that. He most likely didn't negotiate such a clause because it would make WB's ownership a lot less (financially) interesting, a complete no-no for a company like WB. This does not have an effect upon Prince's right to terminate transfer after 35 years. Moreover WB will be cautious when trying to sell them, ..



Any sources on those words from prince? A billion sopunds alittle too much eh?
Anyway I think WB will be willing to negotiate if Prince doesn't make a comeback. If he does make a comeback they will try to re-release his old stuff again and cash in on it. So far it has been reported, NOT confirmed, that Universal has shown interest in buying back his masters and making a remaster deal with Prince. (which will give another mulitinational company the oppurtunity to cash in on Prince's music).

None of this information should be taken as legal advice.


-
[This message was edited Tue Sep 3 8:52:33 PDT 2002 by Abrazo]

Also Prince has already stated that he has already re-recorded his entire back catologue. The final track to be re-recorded was completed over a year ago. Whether he will actually release any of it is another matter.

http://www.publaw.com/electronic.html

© Copyright 1997 Lloyd L. Rich

Who Controls Electronic Rights - The Publisher or the Writer?

[..]

The constantly changing and broadening definition of e-rights has in some instances exacerbated the conflict between publishers and writers over the exploitation of rights. Publishers, to ensure their ability to commercialize literary properties to their full extent, and because they cannot predict the future, should incorporate a future technology clause in their publishing contract.

On the other hand writers will frequently object to the inclusion of the all encompassing future technology clause. Courts do not however all interpret the future technology clause uniformly. Different interpretations of this clause may occur, especially if there is a great difference in bargaining power between the parties. Therefore, the publisher should not rely entirely on the future technology clause as the sole basis for the writer's grant of e-rights to the publisher.
On many occasions a court will look beyond the future technology clause and evaluate the entire contract to determine the intent of the parties. This makes it imperative for the publisher to include within the grant of rights clause a detailed description of the specific rights granted by the writer. The detailed grant of rights clause is also helpful in that it provides both the publisher and writer with a clearer understanding of their e-rights obligations. Therefore, it is recommended that the grant of rights clause should enumerate the specific e-rights as explicitly as possible and, at least from the publisher's standpoint be reinforced with a future technology clause. It should also be remembered that it is a general rule of law that any ambiguity in a contract is usually construed against the party that prepared the contract, which in the case of publishing contracts is normally the publisher, and that it is the responsibility of the licensee to specify the medium to which a license extends, even if such medium has not as yet been developed.

The Bartsch and Cohen decisions appear to indicate that if a publishing contract contained an ambiguous clause, but if the technology had been invented at the time the contract was written, that a court would hold that the new technology and new use should be recognized as being included in the original grant of rights. Conversely, if the technology had not been invented at the time a contract was written, the technology and new use would not be recognized as having been included in the original grant of rights.

However, the above generalization does not always hold true. For example, in Rey v. Lafferty, the court decided in favor of the author that videocassette rights for the Curious George books were not included within the grant of television rights even though videocassettes and VCRs existed at the time the contract was executed. The court based its decision on the fact that "television viewing" and "videocassette viewing" are not "coextensive terms"; the "general tenor" of the contract, which to the court indicated that the author did not intend to give away the videocassette rights; the fact that the licensee who prepared the contract was a professional investment firm accustomed to licensing agreements; and that the author was an "unsophisticated" party - an elderly woman who did not participate in preparing the contract.

In conclusion, there is no way to predict with certainty how a court will determine a future technology or new use case. Therefore, the best way to protect e-rights in the publishing contract, whether as the publisher or writer, is to explicitly enumerate them in the grant of rights clause and backup this protection by the inclusion of a future technology clause.

BorisFishpaw said:

I'm pretty sure that he never said this. He talked about doing it, but I NEVER heard him say that he had completed the project. Do you have any proof?

While I understand the U.S. Copyright Law regarding work made for hire, I'm also positive that it does not effect the agreements most artists of Prince's stature make regarding eventual revertion of ownership.

Most these agreements (or at least the ones I have had experience in) essentially state if artist delivers sound recording to company, company has a specified length of time to decide whether or not to retain the rights to it. If the sound recording is refused by the company, the artist retains all rights to the recording.Artist with less bargaining power (or crappier attorneys) usually maintain contracts which state that everything they record, the record company owns, including demos and in many cases publishing rights.

This explains why Prince was able to release the song 'Crystal Ball' which was delivered to WB but removed from the sound recording at their request (when Prince edited the album down by a disc, removing that recording) without WB's consent, but they were able to release the Black Album without his.

WB owns the master recordings. Prince may have physical possesion of them, but if WB plans to remaster them, and Prince refuses to cooperate and turn them over, WB has two choices: remaster from copies, or get a court order. In other words, Prince has no choice.

My question to Abrazo is this: if WB were to sell Prince's masters to another distributor before 2013, would the new distributor need a license from the adminstrator of Prince's copyright in order to re-release them? Or would the terms of the orignal WB licenses be included in the deal?

Strange how the US Copyright law makes it clear that one party can be the author of a said work (not made for hire) and the recording of the same work is authored by another party simply by virtue of the fact that party # 2 owns the recording. The law is flawed, and is in dire need of further clarification.

Arazo asked:

Any sources on those words from prince?

At the name change press conference in 2000, Prince said that his proposal that WB simply give him his masters back was met with a collective 'Hell, no!' As if they would say, "Sure! Got a box?"

Concerning remasters: Whether or not it was stipulated in Prince's original contracts is most likely irrelevant. WB owns them, thus they own the right to remaster/re-release them.

If anyone's interested (and at this point, I'm sure there are FEW that are ), I have a theory regarding the so-called "publishing contract" Prince says he maintained with WB after his recording contract was terminated. See the tread: Prince Publishing and WB.

I did read it, and I do get it. And I do not dispute what you or the article are saying. I'm just saying that there is no legal precedent set for this. Certain recordings may be blocked from reissuance in enhanced format(s). But that certainly does not negate or nullify the fact that the master recordings are NOT owned by those who merely posess them physically.

For example, Sly Stone was in posession of his original master tapes. When Epic records asked him for them, he claimed they had been erased, and that he had no copies. Epic DID have copies, and and used them as masters for release in digital format...then they sued Sly. I'm not sure what the outcome was, but 2 things I am sure of are:

1) most of Sly's orginal Epic albums are still in print on CD

2) there was, I'm sure, NO future technology clause in Sly's contract.

I did find the article informative though...thanks for posting. And thanks for sharing your knowledge of the business with me/us. After being in it for so long, it's amazing what I still don't understand about it. That's what happens when lawyers run everything.

-SWANGhatesthemusicbiz