Hi, I was reading a thread about the vault and who own's the songs and stuff. Can anyone tell me though, how did all those songs get onto The Work CDs?? Did someone steal them, did Prince leak them?

How did songs like Witness for the Prosecution, Teacher, Teacher etc not get onto an album?? WOW, some really fantastic stuff there.

The Vault:Old Friends for Sale, does anyone know who decided for these songs to be there, were they given by Prince to Warner Bros to release or did Warner Bros already own them?
Cheers

Smillan said:

Its difficult to say exactly how songs are leaked from the studio. It is likely that Prince had a hand in most of them, but it could also be down to recording engineers, or anyone in Paisley within earshot.

I'm sure there are even more fantastic songs than those mentioned that have yet to see the light of day.

Warners do not and cannot own anything Prince did not give to them to use and, yes, that means that Prince selected and gave Warners the songs to release on the Vault.

Good Question.

There have been several generations of Boots. You got the old boots that were either on Vinyl or Cassette. They were mostly traded on Cassette and you would then have muli generations of boots floating around. I heard that Bobby Z or Dez leaked some of the older material.

Around the mid-late 90's a newer generation of boots started coming out. These were better quality and were on CD. Many came out with nice artwork and cleaner versions of the old boots started to emerge. I have heard things like someone took the orig recordings and cleaned them up. At the same time a lot of unheard material started popping up too. This was during the time P was without a label and people were coming and going from Paisley Park all the time. He also had fans as employees and started to trust a smallish group of people with his business dealings. I think a lot of material leaked from them. I also think Prince put out his own boots as well. If someone told me he was behind both thunderball and moonraker, I would not be surprised in the slightest. Remember this was a time where he was trying to figure out what he was going to do without a label and what he was going to do with his back catalog. At some point too...all bootleggage was put to a stop. Either He did, or he got rid of whomever was doing it, but boots of unreleased material have pretty much stopped. That or there is no material to circulate.

The Work, I believe is culled from the best of what exists and also features alt versions of music that's been floating around. I am pretty sure P had no hand in this collection. It seems to be a purist release by and large.

From what I gather, anything P gave WB, whether it was released or not, belongs to them BUT they need his permission to release such material. When the Vault was proposed in '99, I am sure Prince chose mediocre material save a few tracks. When Prince released Crystal Ball in '98 some of the material had been given to the WB, those tracks he had to do something different to them so that he could release them with out WB involvement. This is why certain material was left off and a lot of newer material was put on.

I haven't come across anything that suggests that Prince has been behind deliberate leakage of recordings for the purposes of releasing material unofficially, other than speculation.

Unlike Superspaceboy, my understanding is that Moonraker and Thunderball (as well as all other bootleg labels) had nothing to do with Prince. Indeed, 'The Work volumes 1-5' - the original releases - were issued by Thunderball, largely collecting the unrleased studio material that had been amassed through various sources and released by Thunderball and Moonraker over the years (and also including pirated NPGMC downloads). The subsequent volumes and reissues of The Work were not pressed CDs issued by the label, but further reissues largely as better quality takes emerged and were copied on CD-R.

There are accounts of people who had connections with Paisley Park describing how the chain of control regarding recordings was less than watertight at the studio at times. Consequently, it was perfectly possible for copies of recordings to have been made as they were either worked on, or making their way towards possible release (albeit they never made it to official release) beyond the confines of the studio.

Similarly, there are tales of Prince sharing material with people for personal use (e.g. tapes for friends) which subsequently might have emerged on bootlegs, perhaps having been shared and shared again.

As regards rights to use of 'unreleased WB material', I've never come across anything categoric which states that Prince was legally obliged to change unreleased material (which was originally slated for possible release through Warners, but ultimately was rejected or withdrawn by Prince), in order that Prince be allowed to release it.

For clarity, I think it would be prudent to add that, notwithstanding rumour above, I've never encountered any evidence to support the suggestion made above that either Bobby Z or Dez D have ever been involved in leaking any Prince material.

langebleu said:

Thanks for clarifying that for me.I did hear about the leaks at the Park and am pretty convinced that's where a lot of it came from esp in late 90's.

I did see one released boot that questioned Princes involvement. I want to say it's the Dreams boot. In it there are pictures of Prince with...I forget if it was W&L or Shelia and Cat out at the beach. The photos weren't anything special except for 2 things. He's smiling and the photos also weren't just photos, they seemed to be originals with the photo serial number included on the side. Other than to prove they were original, I can't think of why they would have been included. Maybe it was an FU to Prince saying "see I have original photos too" or something like that. Or it could be an indicator that Prince had some hand in it's creation.

As to the Crystal Ball material...why did he change certain songs. I always thought it was because they needed to be a bit different than the original. Another question would then be...how was he able to release older material when the WB would have owned those recordings?

My interjections regarding Bobby or Dez, I gleamed from the fine "in the know folks" here. I did hear/see dez has sold a lot of his stuff that normally one wouldn't sell, like his awards and things. I assumed the worst, I guess.

superspaceboy said:

I wasn't suggesting Prince had anything to do with the bootleg labels - that much is obvious. But tracks leaked from his own, private studio suggests that he either had a hand with some of the leakage or, as you suggest, security around his recordings was so lax, that almost any employee in Paisley could leak them.

Changing songs has nothing to do with them having to differ from the original in order to be released - that is just Prince deciding that he wants this or that version out there, its an artistic decision more than anything.

With regard to the "how does he release older material" question - Warner do not own everything Prince recorded whilst he was signed to them. Prince would deliver tracks that he wanted released and Warner then decide if they want to release it or not. Unless Prince gives them the master, Warner do not own it. Hence, there will be hundres of records that Prince has recorded that are owned solely by Prince and are entirely up to him what he does with them. The only songs WB have the rights to are the catalogue they released on his behalf. Furthermore, Prince owns all the publishing rights to his tracks outright.

Mindflux said:

I think the WB's own more than just the catalog. I think anything slated for release or intended for release is theirs i.e. All my dreams. Otherwise why hasn't this material seen the light of day?

superspaceboy said:

See the highlighted comment and there are too many reasons to list as to why some material never gets released - but always Prince and WB (with material they have the rights to) will be the deciding factor there.

superspaceboy said:

I don't think WB do have any rights to any material unreleased.


I don't think it was answered above already (sorry if it was), but The Vault was compiled along with Chaos & Disorder, and handed to WB as is, packaging, tracklist, as a take it or leave it situation by Prince. So WB had no input in the contents of either of these albums. C&D was released in '96 of course, and The Vault was theirs to release at a date in the future, which ended up being in '99.

Mindflux said:

My understanding is that if WB paid for the studio time, they own the recordings or at least own the right of first refusal.

Since he built Paisley Park after Purple Rain, anything recorded before that would probably belong to WB. I'm not sure how much unreleased stuff there is from that era ... but referencing my copy of The Work, it doesn't seem like that much.

Se7en said:

There's a lot of material pre-Purple Rain material (or pre-Paisley Park, which became operational in 1986). Especially the 1982/3 periods.



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[Edited 10/15/07 14:03pm]

Mindflux said:

Without wishing to be overly pedantic, even if Prince handed over a master recording to Warners, and even if they still hold it today, they still don't necessarily own it. What seems far more likely is that they have contractual rights to use of those master recordings for a set period (as laid down in the contract). Ultimate legal title of ownership might still lie with Prince, but the rights to use have been assigned until they revert back to Prince.

Similarly, I'm sure you are right in stating that Prince owns the publishing rights to his catalogue, but he might have had to make some form of assignment in relation to those rights under the agreement with Universal, if only to enable them to administer those rights on his behalf for the duration of the agreement he has entered into with them.

As with all of this discussion, however, the contracts would tell (almost) all, and without that information, this can be nothing but educated guesswork at best.
[Edited 10/15/07 15:46pm]