KCOOLMUZIQ said:

No need with the "Shoulda Woulda Coulda"...Devine intervention came in & Prince's masters are already coming back to him....No need to rehash this tired argument over & over again...

the point is...there is a logical,peaceful way to negotiate things like this.Going to "war" with a major record company is a costly,time-consuming mission that doesn't always pay off.Metallica chose to go the sensible route.

Stevie Wonder peacefully negotiated with Motown to get his masters post-1971 in his ownership... it CAN happen.

Yall arent really giving credit to bands today negotiating for their masters after having 20 years of information regarding masters ownership?

Yall are some of the biggest Monday morning quarterback mutherfuckers ......

.

[Edited 12/8/12 17:44pm]

rdhull said:

Yall arent really giving credit to bands today negotiating for their masters after having 20 years of information regarding masters ownership?

I just gave Stevie credit.

Timmy84 said:

rdhull said:

Yall arent really giving credit to bands today negotiating for their masters after having 20 years of information regarding masters ownership?

I just gave Stevie credit.

so...yall make it sound like back then it was an everyday negotiation as ot is today..and it wasnt..some of yall never even heard of or considered masters before Prince did what he did.

rdhull said:

Timmy84 said:

I just gave Stevie credit.

so...yall make it sound like back then it was an everyday negotiation as ot is today..and it wasnt..some of yall never even heard of or considered masters before Prince did what he did.

Prince had every opportunity in the past to ask to renegotiate his contract. I don't see no defense for Prince.

Timmy84 said:

rdhull said:

so...yall make it sound like back then it was an everyday negotiation as ot is today..and it wasnt..some of yall never even heard of or considered masters before Prince did what he did.

Prince had every opportunity in the past to ask to renegotiate his contract. I don't see no defense for Prince.

I know you dont.

rdhull said:

Timmy84 said:

Prince had every opportunity in the past to ask to renegotiate his contract. I don't see no defense for Prince.

I know you dont.

rdhull said:

so...yall make it sound like back then it was an everyday negotiation as ot is today..and it wasnt..some of yall never even heard of or considered masters before Prince did what he did.

((Metallica on tour bus 1994, James reading Rolling Stone magazine))

James: Why is Prince acting crazy?

Lars: He doesn't like his deal. You know that stuff about masters..the lawyers told us. The masters for 35 years or something.

James: Fuck. He is onto something. What should we do?

Lars: I don't know I'm just the drummer. I always thought that record companies treated us great and looked out for artists but I think what's happening with Prince proves otherwise.

James: Well, We better think it through cuz Prince sure is pist. Look at that picture (points to magazine)

Lars: Yeah, do you think we should go talk to the label?

James: Fuck Yeah..We willl talk to the label!!

Fonkyman said:

millwall said:

just a London word bruv. No harm ment like u would get the banta if I called u an I.c.f c-nt. but I won't.. Sometimes it's good 2 stir up people's emotions & c what happens. Trouble is every 1 is 2 serious on this site. 2 b honest I couldn't give a fuck what happens not like prince worries about me..

ETA: Metallica are shit. So, so, shit.

[Edited 12/8/12 12:16pm

If you called me an ICF c-unt I'd batter ya. Mind you, I'd batter ya for laughs cos you're Millwall.

Since you didn't, I wouldn't. Prince does worry about you though. He told me he worries about Millwall all the time but who can blame him.

Maybe he should round up the old ICF and the Millwall boys, join forces and go and see Warner Bros. "Give him back his masters, la la la la, la la la la"...

steakfinger said:

Unlike Metallica, Prince's masters have the potential of continuing to sell quite a few copies.

Uh... you seem to have no clue as to what Metallica sells and has the potential to sell...

At least Prince never uttered the words "Jason is the future" on camera.

NDRU said:

At least Prince never uttered the words "Jason is the future" on camera.

Well, therefore we have the utter nonsense called TRC.

If mr Prince would have had a decent manager in 1994 maybe the contract dispute would have ended differently.

It appears that mr controlfreak lost control due to what happened when compared to other outcomes fro other artists' cases.

PurpleMedley122 said:

Actually, when you think of it, Prince got a RIDICULOUS amount of freedom while at Warner. In the first few years of his career, Warner:

-Let him produce his first album, which is pratically unheard of these days

-First album was a flop, but unlike other record companies, Warner didn't drop him from the label immediately

-Didn't have any sort of sucess until his FIFTH album, which Warner let him release as a double album

-Let him and his producers borrow 7 MILLION to make a movie

And to think, with this amount of freedom he got that early in his career, Warner would be able to put some sort of quality control on him (reducing Crystal Ball to Sign, preventing oversaturation of the market, etc), but Prince would cry foul and paint SLAVE on his face, whining about "lack of freedom". Had Prince not had gone to war with his record label, Warner may have been more open to negtioation with him and maybe he could've left the label with something instad of nothing.

[Edited 12/2/12 16:03pm]

[Edited 12/2/12 16:13pm]

Not to mention his first album went way over budget, they let him release what is essentially a set of demos (Dirty Mind, awesome demos anyway), they let him release two double albums in one decade, they let him release that godawful Graffiti Bridge movie even after Under The Cherry Moon flopped, Prince had tons of freedom at Warner.

And I think that any control they had over his work was beneficial because his work with Warner is 100x better than his work when he left. Sure they didn't let him be as prolific as he wanted with Crystal Ball and such, but it is a business and they knew that wouldn't sell well. At least he could've waited a few years to release that magnum opus but either way Sign o' the Times is incredible and the outtakes could have been released later on.

Some of you have such a problem with what Bart posts, but all he's done here is report facts. Prince was coddled and spoiled throughout the 80's and often invested in more than he should've been considering he never came close to duplicating the commercial success of Purple Rain, and both of his movies after that were bombs of comedic proportions.

He freely signed the contract that was presented to him and his lawyers. To then write "Slave" on his face, as if his situation as a rich elite was analogous at all to actual slaves, remains the most repulsive thing he ever did.

Undoubtedly, record companies are exploitative. Undoubtedly. music has been corporatized along with everything else in society. Prince was right to point this out at least.

[Edited 12/11/12 1:20am]

PurpleKnight said:

Some of you have such a problem with what Bart posts, but all he's done here is report facts. Prince was coddled and spoiled throughout the 80's and often invested in more than he should've been considering he never came close to duplicating the commercial success of Purple Rain, and both of his movies after that were bombs of comedic proportions.

He freely signed the contract that was presented to him and his lawyers. To then write "Slave" on his face, as if his situation as a rich elite was analogous at all to actual slaves, remains the most repulsive thing he ever did.

Undoubtedly, record companies are exploitative. Undoubtedly. music has been corporatized along with everything else in society. Prince was right to point this out at least.

[Edited 12/11/12 1:20am]

Stop acting like there is nothing wrong with being a negative Nelly for 20 years straight. Only posting negative things as if everything Prince has ever breathed since 1990 has been bad.

Yall act like Bart brings up things never considered when its only bringing to light the obvious things we ALREADY KNOW and have discussed ad nauseum for decades already.

Damn, yall are simple.

BartVanHemelen said:

Guess what? If you don't behave like a spoilt brat and actually renegociate your contract instead of just signing whatever paper that's put in front of you with lots of big numbers that would make your deal bigger than Michael's and Madonna's, you end up with actual control of your back catalogue one day:

What's that personal attack on Prince good for? None of us really knows what really went down between Prince and WB, neither do you. But we all know how low you think of Prince, you don't have to shove it down our throats.

As for the true topic, which I suppose is about controlling your masters: well done Metallica, they should be proud. And agreed that this proves that renegotiating ownership of copyrights is actually possible. However for whom and at what price. This is not something any and all artists can get whenever they want and it still took the guys from Metallica 28 years of being under control of WB and then probably lots of money too. I don't think it's a reasonable assumption to make that such a deal ever was a likely option for Prince, nor WB, at the time. Their relationship was very different and much more strained. Their contracts possibly too, so I don't think it's a really fair assesment you are making up there.

[Edited 12/11/12 9:25am]

PurpleKnight said:

Some of you have such a problem with what Bart posts, but all he's done here is report facts.

Saying that Prince "behaves like a spoilt brat" is not just someone "reporting facts". Regardless of whether or not that's a fair description of his behaviour during that time it's certainly not a fact.

This topic doesn't even have much to do with this specific forum, since it's really just about Metallica and had already been posted on the Music: non-Prince forum. Most of us should be aware of the reasons why the OP has posted this item here.

udo said:

novabrkr said:

It's not really debt. It's an investment by the company itself in the product they are themselves selling.

If it were an investment by the company it would be their risk.

It is not their risk.

The artist has to pay stuff back because it is their risk.

So the company is not investing, just lending a hand by giving a service.

Deals like this are very rare, and not many artists are stupid enough to sign that.

The regular modern-day pop-singer deal is a one album 360 deal. The label invests and if they don't make a significant profit from your album (let alone if they don't recoup what they invested in you) they'll simply let you go and you can start from scratch.

Thanks Dave. I didn't want to continue that stupid argument myself.

novabrkr said:

PurpleKnight said:

Some of you have such a problem with what Bart posts, but all he's done here is report facts.

Saying that Prince "behaves like a spoilt brat" is not just someone "reporting facts". Regardless of whether or not that's a fair description of his behaviour during that time it's certainly not a fact.

This topic doesn't even have much to do with this specific forum, since it's really just about Metallica and had already been posted on the Music: non-Prince forum. Most of us should be aware of the reasons why the OP has posted this item here.

Perhaps I should have specified. Bart does indeed seem to offer quite a lot of views on Prince, but at least many of his claims are supported by empirical facts. His arguments are always cogent imo.

If I report a fact about someone that they got drunk and broke a beer bottle over their head, it's true that I'm no longer merely reporting facts when I make the claim that this person behaved like a miscreant, fool, drunk idiot, etc. Nonetheless, based on the facts I've reported, it's a fair argument.

PurpleKnight said:

novabrkr said:

Saying that Prince "behaves like a spoilt brat" is not just someone "reporting facts". Regardless of whether or not that's a fair description of his behaviour during that time it's certainly not a fact.

This topic doesn't even have much to do with this specific forum, since it's really just about Metallica and had already been posted on the Music: non-Prince forum. Most of us should be aware of the reasons why the OP has posted this item here.

Perhaps I should have specified. Bart does indeed seem to offer quite a lot of views on Prince, but at least many of his claims are supported by empirical facts. His arguments are always cogent imo.

If I report a fact about someone that they got drunk and broke a beer bottle over their head, it's true that I'm no longer merely reporting facts when I make the claim that this person behaved like a miscreant, fool, drunk idiot, etc. Nonetheless, based on the facts I've reported, it's a fair argument.

That might be true as long as there there is even the slightest variation to the commentary. But when facts--even relevant and interesting facts--are presented simply to support the preformed negative opinion, it all gets so tiresome.

NDRU said:

PurpleKnight said:

Perhaps I should have specified. Bart does indeed seem to offer quite a lot of views on Prince, but at least many of his claims are supported by empirical facts. His arguments are always cogent imo.

If I report a fact about someone that they got drunk and broke a beer bottle over their head, it's true that I'm no longer merely reporting facts when I make the claim that this person behaved like a miscreant, fool, drunk idiot, etc. Nonetheless, based on the facts I've reported, it's a fair argument.

That might be true as long as there there is even the slightest variation to the commentary. But when facts--even relevant and interesting facts--are presented simply to support the preformed negative opinion, it all gets so tiresome.

And Bart has been anti-Prince forever.