Kares said:

Sampling is quite a different subject to covering, hence I didn't want to get into that.
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Record labels don't own publishing rights, record labels are not in the publishing business. (Every major label has a parent company that also owns a publishing company, but they are separate companies regardless.) Prince always had publishing deals as almost every writer/composers does and that was and still is unrelated to his record deals.
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Certainly separate deals but if Prince agreed to something the same time he agreed to the deal over his masters with WB, then they're somewhat related to our detective work figuring out the kind of deal struck.

Not entirely correct about labels having separate companies for publishing. There was a time when songs were written by comittee, etc. so it's not about a rights managed situation, it's that the label owns the publishing.

Kares said:

I suspect '1999TNM' was already violating his WB-contract.

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That's not the only thing it violated.

massing said:

Kares said:

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That's not the only thing it violated.

Ultimately I dig Michael Howe's mindset and approach to this deluxe set as well as 1999 deluxe. I know that as hardcore P fans on this forum there is always gonna be something someone wants differently but I think it is a comprehensive and logical approach to representing this golden era of Prince

Kares said:

love2thenines2003 said:

jaypotton said:

Kares said:

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Record companies owning ALL recordings made during the term (of the agreement) is a standard part of nearly every record deal signed with the majors – regardless of who actually financed the recording session. Major label deals are almost always exclusive, majors view their artists as brands they've built up and all products created during the term are their assets that they have at least 'first refusal' rights for.
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I'm sure there were many occasions when P pissed Warners off by releasing 1978–1996 period material independently, probably without their knowledge, let alone permission.

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And rerecording and releasing the song '1999' was another thing that must've pissed them off as most major label contracts prohibit the rerecording of any material made during the term for at least 5 or so years after the termination of the contract.
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Yes, the vault (and its tapes, HDDs, etc) were Prince's personal property, but that doesn't mean that he owned the RIGHTS to every recording on those tapes.
A lot of people keep forgetting that owning a reel of tape and owning the rights to the recording on that tape are two entirely different things!
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[Edited 7/1/20 0:01am]

[Edited 7/1/20 1:14am]

Kares you clearly know your stuff so let me ask/clarify... You say "Record companies owning ALL recordings made during the term (of the agreement)" and that is the point I have been making earlier in the thead - i.e. How can the rights to the released music revert to Prince (the estate) after 35 years (as was the case and what prompted he 2014 deal as marked 35 years from release of For You) but the rights to unreleased music (as asserted by some on this thread) be owned by WB in perpetuity? The ONLY thing I can think of is that the 2014 deal returning masters/rights of released music to Prince and then being licences BACK to WB until 2021 must have included a weird clause with a different deal on the unreleased music recorded between 78-95. But why would Prince (or anyone) treat the music differently (they would know the future desire to include vault material in remasters etc). OR The estate has negotiated some weird deal with WB separating released from unreleased? [Edited 7/4/20 3:12am]

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Legally, record companies are not obliged to release anything regardless of what contract you signed with them. They can "pay or play" as they see fit. They can refuse to release your stuff for all sorts of reasons, including reasons that have nothing to do with the artist or their work. Yet, according to the contract, anything you create during the term is deemed 'work-for-hire', therefore immediately owned by the record company. They can hold onto it as long as they want to, and as long it is unreleased/unpublished, the 35-year rule doesn't apply to it – it is just an asset for the company just like the stapler on the director's desk. The label can chose to release it 40 years after it was recorded, and only from the date of that release the aforementioned 35-year period will start.
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So unfortunately this doesn't even require any special agreements. This is how it works.
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And people wonder why Prince wrote 'slave' on his cheek. Yes, it was exaggeration, yes, it was theatrical – and yes, Prince was still in one of the most privileged positions within the pop music business as an artist. But it wasn't just about him. He was speaking out for all musicians and creators of art. I absolutely respect him for having the boldness of doing that, taking all the ridiculing and laughs. It was a bold and powerful artistic statement that said "don't make the same mistakes I made". And it continues to have an effect not just on the old record industry, but in the minds of brilliant young enterpreneurs who have started thinking entirely differently about how art could reach people in new ways. This process wasn't started by Prince of course, but his speaking out against the unfairness of the old ways did play a part.
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[Edited 7/4/20 6:04am]

Kares said:

jaypotton said:

Kares said: Kares you clearly know your stuff so let me ask/clarify... You say "Record companies owning ALL recordings made during the term (of the agreement)" and that is the point I have been making earlier in the thead - i.e. How can the rights to the released music revert to Prince (the estate) after 35 years (as was the case and what prompted he 2014 deal as marked 35 years from release of For You) but the rights to unreleased music (as asserted by some on this thread) be owned by WB in perpetuity? The ONLY thing I can think of is that the 2014 deal returning masters/rights of released music to Prince and then being licences BACK to WB until 2021 must have included a weird clause with a different deal on the unreleased music recorded between 78-95. But why would Prince (or anyone) treat the music differently (they would know the future desire to include vault material in remasters etc). OR The estate has negotiated some weird deal with WB separating released from unreleased? [Edited 7/4/20 3:12am]

.
Legally, record companies are not obliged to release anything regardless of what contract you signed with them. They can "pay or play" as they see fit. They can refuse to release your stuff for all sorts of reasons, including reasons that have nothing to do with the artist or their work. Yet, according to the contract, anything you create during the term is deemed 'work-for-hire', therefore immediately owned by the record company. They can hold onto it as long as they want to, and as long it is unreleased/unpublished, the 35-year rule doesn't apply to it – it is just an asset for the company just like the stapler on the director's desk. The label can chose to release it 40 years after it was recorded, and only from the date of that release the aforementioned 35-year period will start.
So unfortunately this doesn't even require any special agreements. This is how it works.

Well said....so that's it ! PS> WBR will maintain their rights to publish the future projects (Remasters&Deluxes) for entire world except for USA....Sony can't acces to unreleased WBR / PRINCE Era 78/94 without agreement of WBR or cooperation !!!

^ Yeah I'm kinda shocked myself by what has been revealed, I always assumed the 35 years thing included unreleased recordings as well.

.

I've just checked, however, what the indicia says on PR and 1999 Deluxe, Originals and P&AM83: it is systematically "(p) and (c) NPG Records, under exclusive licence to Warner (Bros.) Records". "(p)" indicates ownership of the sound recording, meaning the masters belong to the estate, not WB (I guess we'll keep calling them WB, not WR, despite the company's name change).

.

Indicias don't lie, so it is very possible that WB maintains the exclusive right to distribute previously unreleased material from 1977-1996, as with the OST's it appears, but whatever was negociated in 2014, it appears they definitely do not own the masters anymore.

.

This seems to be corroborated by "for the entire world except for USA" anyway (either you own the masters or you just own distribution rights, but if you own the masters you can't possibly not own the distribution rights), but I'm somewhat confused by what this means in the digital age (i.e. what about digital files and streaming? Is this considered USA or world?).

jaypotton said:

love2thenines2003 said:

Anyway with all these talkings about Prince & the management of his back catalogue.....what we know for sure is : we don't have a single comma what are the details of the agreement & contract signed by Prince with WBR in 2014 , except that Prince has recuperated his Masters & the release of his last album by WBR (AOA).....but from the rliable info i got (sorry i can't give u...his name...phone number...adress & so on) who works in the musical industry/close from WBR management...the info is .....WBR keeps their rights 4ever on the unreleased stuff recorded by Prince when Prince was under contract with WBR = 78-94.

We will C next year if this is pure bullshit or not!

2All...Have a nice day

Not saying you are wrong. How would I know - I have no inside track or contacts that do know or have been party to any of the contracts Prince signed! I wasn't challenging YOU per se but rather the weird logic this represents. As you say we will see BUT from a fans POV I would argue this is worrying because: Other than the OSTs it would surely mean that we won't get ANY super deluxe editions of the other Warner era albums. Sony will be releasing the actual albums from 2021 but unless they get some deal with Warners then no vault tracks will be included. That means the only way for Warners to release the vault tracks is in specific vault albums and I just cannot see them being viable so they won't bother?

This "no market for Prince products" myth invented by a few bullshitters on the org has to stop.

Like, really. I know you're saying this in good faith, but you've been fooled by a bunch of frustrated orgers with an agenda, whose sole obsession has been year after year to convince everyone that Prince was over and done.

Nevertheless, I'm tired of explaining and explaining over and over again why this is nonsense.

Look at the market as it is: reissues of obscure albums by obscure artists keep happening all the time, new records by obscure indie artists are released by the dozen every week... There are many niche markets in the music industry that exist and remain profitable, yet are 100 times more niche than Prince "I'm the 30th best selling artist of all times" Nelson will ever be (https://chartmasters.org/...streaming/). If there is no market for new Prince products then it means there is only a market left for the 29 artists above him on that list and there is no point in ever releasing any other record by any other artist. Absurd. Not to mention that, since Prince's material is already recorded, production costs are much lower than those of a new album by any artist.

It's also interesting to know that, contrarily to what these same orgers claimed, Prince was in the middle of a bidding war between Sony and Warner as late as 2014 (which led him to dump Kobalt, a third label that was more than happy to welcome him) (this was recounted by one of his collaborators, can't remember his name right now, London something I believe, in one of the police interview that leaked online). So much for the "no market" argument...

So please, let us put an end to this ridiculous narrative once and for all. It simply isn't true.

databank said:

^ Yeah I'm kinda shocked myself by what has been revealed, I always assumed the 35 years thing included unreleased recordings as well.

.

I've just checked, however, what the indicia says on PR and 1999 Deluxe, Originals and P&AM83: it is systematically "(p) and (c) NPG Records, under exclusive licence to Warner (Bros.) Records". "(p)" indicates ownership of the sound recording, meaning the masters belong to the estate, not WB (I guess we'll keep calling them WB, not WR, despite the company's name change).

.

Indicias don't lie, so it is very possible that WB maintains the exclusive right to distribute previously unreleased material from 1977-1996, as with the OST's it appears, but whatever was negociated in 2014, it appears they definitely do not own the masters anymore.

.

This seems to be corroborated by "for the entire world except for USA" anyway (either you own the masters or you just own distribution rights, but if you own the masters you can't possibly not own the distribution rights), but I'm somewhat confused by what this means in the digital age (i.e. what about digital files and streaming? Is this considered USA or world?).

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What I wrote above are the general terms of major label record contracts. I don't know the details of Prince's 2014 agreement, of course. It is possible that Warners agreed to return the rights of unreleased recordings to Prince on the condition that Prince can only license them to Warners for release. Perhaps they are only returning the ones that are getting a release. But this is just speculation.
Anyway, there could be many possible scenarios but the one I find least probable is that Warners simply agreed to return the rights of ALL unreleased material to Prince in one go. If that turns out to be the case though, then in my humble opinion the Estate's overal value was seriuously underestimated by that $300 million ballpark-figure in 2016.

Kares said:

databank said:

^ Yeah I'm kinda shocked myself by what has been revealed, I always assumed the 35 years thing included unreleased recordings as well.

.

I've just checked, however, what the indicia says on PR and 1999 Deluxe, Originals and P&AM83: it is systematically "(p) and (c) NPG Records, under exclusive licence to Warner (Bros.) Records". "(p)" indicates ownership of the sound recording, meaning the masters belong to the estate, not WB (I guess we'll keep calling them WB, not WR, despite the company's name change).

.

Indicias don't lie, so it is very possible that WB maintains the exclusive right to distribute previously unreleased material from 1977-1996, as with the OST's it appears, but whatever was negociated in 2014, it appears they definitely do not own the masters anymore.

.

This seems to be corroborated by "for the entire world except for USA" anyway (either you own the masters or you just own distribution rights, but if you own the masters you can't possibly not own the distribution rights), but I'm somewhat confused by what this means in the digital age (i.e. what about digital files and streaming? Is this considered USA or world?).

.
What I wrote above are the general terms of major label record contracts. I don't know the details of Prince's 2014 agreement, of course. It is possible that Warners agreed to return the rights of unreleased recordings to Prince on the condition that Prince can only license them to Warners for release. Perhaps they are only returning the ones that are getting a release. But this is just speculation.
Anyway, there could be many possible scenarios but the one I find least probable is that Warners simply agreed to return the rights of ALL unreleased material to Prince in one go. If that turns out to be the case though, then in my humble opinion the Estate's overal value was seriuously underestimated by that $300 million ballpark-figure in 2016.

I really wish someone would leak all these deals P signed with WB throughout the years

But I guess we'll see what happens. I'm quite curious to see the developments next year. It might get... complicated

[Edited 7/4/20 15:04pm]

databank said:

jaypotton said:

databank said:

This "no market for Prince products" myth invented by a few bullshitters on the org has to stop.

Like, really. I know you're saying this in good faith, but you've been fooled by a bunch of frustrated orgers with an agenda, whose sole obsession has been year after year to convince everyone that Prince was over and done.

Nevertheless, I'm tired of explaining and explaining over and over again why this is nonsense.

Look at the market as it is: reissues of obscure albums by obscure artists keep happening all the time, new records by obscure indie artists are released by the dozen every week... There are many niche markets in the music industry that exist and remain profitable, yet are 100 times more niche than Prince "I'm the 30th best selling artist of all times" Nelson will ever be (https://chartmasters.org/...streaming/). If there is no market for new Prince products then it means there is only a market left for the 29 artists above him on that list and there is no point in ever releasing any other record by any other artist. Absurd. Not to mention that, since Prince's material is already recorded, production costs are much lower than those of a new album by any artist.

It's also interesting to know that, contrarily to what these same orgers claimed, Prince was in the middle of a bidding war between Sony and Warner as late as 2014 (which led him to dump Kobalt, a third label that was more than happy to welcome him) (this was recounted by one of his collaborators, can't remember his name right now, London something I believe, in one of the police interview that leaked online). So much for the "no market" argument...

So please, let us put an end to this ridiculous narrative once and for all. It simply isn't true.

Ha I can literally feel your frustration. I haven't been on here for 8 months. The news about SOTT SD brought me back. When P was alive I was here most days but since 2016 I just can't do it unless we have something "new" cos the ORG never changes (still seeing the video vs film and high definition arguments lol) You make a totally fair point and I guess even a big fan like me forgets that overall Prince was of one the biggest (didn't realise 30th biggest seller though) though that is in big part to the sheer volume of output rather than consistently shipping lots of units of each album. To qualify my statement - I am certain there is a market for Super Deluxe editions packed with Vault material. 1999 selling out proves that. SOTT will sell out too. But in terms of sales, how well did P&aM do? How well did Originals do (I could look it up and find they did ok but not stellar sales). So if vault tracks in future only went into "vault albums" as opposed to SDs then my concern is these will sell less well and eventually the effort vs reward may reach a point when they stop being viable. It is just a concern that is hopefully totally unfounded. I have no idea on the cost involved in putting together these albums post Prince's death but ultimately money is king and I think SDs and deluxe editions are more likely to sell. I have also been on this particular block long enough (was a member of the precursor to this current Org) to not be influenced by the same folks you reference. Also most of us hardcore Prince fans are old timers these days and not getting any younger! [Edited 7/5/20 1:09am]

I read ya

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I'd say that as long as music is profitable, Prince music will be profitable. It would be quite irrational to believe the opposite. Of course, with the drop of sales, I've heard that majors tend to focus more on few big stars and neglect to diversify their catalogue. Not sure if true but very possible. However it must not be forgotten that the vault's content is the property of the estate, not WB (regardless of distribution rights), and the estate certainly cannot legally be denied the right to generate profits from its asset (which are not as diversified as WB's), so I'm pretty sure that if WB isn't interested in releasing the products anymore, the estate will be entitled to find someone who does (and they will, be assured of this, because once again production costs are cheaper than recording new material, yet small labels release new material every day, not to mention that Iron Mountain is a costly place to rent, so why spend money on preserving the material if it's to sit on it?).

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In the end, your fears may be unrelated to the propaganda campaigns that happened on the org the last few years, but they translate a very curious state of mind that is very much present in Prince's fandom (and possibly in Prince's fandom only), some sort of irrational insecurity that would be very intersting to study, as if many a fan had been psychologically shattered by Prince's decline in his superstar status in the mid 90's (regained since, though), the decline in sales that went along with it (not regained but record sales have nothing to do with what they were in 1994) and Prince's (supposed, extremely debatable IMHO) artistic decline.

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For years I've sometimes had the feeling that I was observing a crowd of orphaned children, who have been cruelly betrayed, then abandonned by their beloved father. Some fans have gone as far as to develop a true hate for Prince, leading campaigns to bash him and his new records, making ridiculously absurd claims such as "Prince needs to take drumming lessons" and so on

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Others, like you, appear to entertain this very irrational fear that Prince, despite his massive sales and the fact that he has, before and even more since his death, been universally praised as one of the greatest and most influential talents of his generation, will one day, not in 200 years but very soon, be deemed so irrelevant and so forgotten that his music will fade away from both record stores and the internet, never to be made available again, and that the vault's tapes will be thown in a dumpster because they'll be deemed a valueless asset by their owners. I'm not saying your position is that extreme, obviously you're more reasonable than that, but you're a little worried yourself.

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The question this raises is what did Prince do to his fans in the 80's that they developped such a passionate relationship to him, that would later express itself in such harsh feelings of loss, abandonment, betrayal, anger and fear?? Does this also happens with other artists?

I would really love to read, one day, a sociological and psychological study of Prince's fans.

Kares said:

JorisE73 said:

1999 The New Master was probably more Prince's frustration about him just knowing that WB would try to cash in on the track so he'd try to one-up them. The result was garbage tho
Do you know what the deal is with live recordings? Because you would think WB would then own the soundtrack to the SOTT movie et al.
I always wondered who had to give permission and benefitted the most with artists covering a song; the record company or the people who wrote the track?
Thanks for your always helpful explanations man!

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Live recordings made during the term of the agreement are also owned by the record label. (Obviously labels don't want their hit record material being released as a live album by another label.)
As for the SOTT movie: first, Warners had do give Prince permission to use the recordings for a film production by another studio and distributor, and then Prince, as the composer had to agree for his compositions to be used in a film. (Movie and TV usage rights are part of the so-called 'synch rights' and those always require permission by the composers or whoever owns their publishing.) As Warner let the SOTT recordings to be used in the film, they don't own the original sound recordings used in the film anymore.
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Simply covering a song does not require the permission of the composers – altering a song (eg. changing its lyrics) does. Sometimes though artists do ask permission to cover someone else's song but that is not a legal requirement, only courtesy.
If your song is covered by someone on another label (or performed by someone else live), you, as composer and/or lyricist will receive income as the owner of the copyright IN THE COMPOSITION and LYRICS. Your label, who owns the rights to the recording won't receive a penny as that recording is not being used, only your composition is. (The label of the other artist who puts out the cover is getting money from the sale of that record though, of course.)
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In general, the label who puts out a record makes the most money from the record sales, and composers/writers make less (but still more than what non-writing band members make). However, if you're a writer/composer, you can make a lot of money if your composition is used in a hit movie or on a big TV show, and these deals don't involve your record label. Radioplay can also bring in quite a bit, and even if your record that's being played on the radio is long out of print, you're still getting paid as the composer, so in the end you can potentially make more than what your label did.
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[Edited 7/2/20 11:54am]

That makes sense, thanks for breaking that down

jaypotton said:

I was embarrassed by the whole "Slave" thing at the time (as a Prince fan). I kind of got where he was coming from BUT it was clearly worse than we knew. I was one of those who said Warners treated Prince pretty well all in all BUT the owning unreleased material into perpetuity really sucks.

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He could have renegociated. Instead he behaved like a petulant child and sabotaged his career.

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Oh, and at the same time he was holding Margie Cox to her contract with PPR.

BartVanHemelen said:

BartVanHemelen said:

jaypotton said:

I was embarrassed by the whole "Slave" thing at the time (as a Prince fan). I kind of got where he was coming from BUT it was clearly worse than we knew. I was one of those who said Warners treated Prince pretty well all in all BUT the owning unreleased material into perpetuity really sucks.

.

He could have renegociated. Instead he behaved like a petulant child and sabotaged his career.

.

Oh, and at the same time he was holding Margie Cox to her contract with PPR.

I didn't remember Margie but he did it as well with Jill Jones... Prince and his paradoxes...

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I don't think, however, than a private renegociation would have had more effect than the public feud he started (which went, anyway, with many much less public negociations). He wasn't getting his masters no matter what. Not in 1993-96.

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Certainly, people have different feelings about this whole affair. Being 16 when it all began and 19 when it ended, I certainly had fun witnessing all this, and I was (somewhat naively) much excited by P's war against the corporate music industry. To this day, I still think the whole thing, name change included, was incredibly cool.

.

I don't really understand why any fan would have been embarrassed by it anyway, since Prince was already ridiculed by idiots long before this whole affair began. Being a Prince fan was always a risky affair if one aimed at being accepted by ordinary people as being one of them. U2 was a much safer choice

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But Prince was also a risky choice with certain "alternative" crowds as well, because he was also ridiculed by punk, rap and "anything that wanted badly to be underground" fans as being too commercial.

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In the end and once the PR fad was over, being a Prince fan probably was the most subversive attitude a teenager could have in the late 80's and early 90's: you were the true freak, the true artistocrat, and the most daring kid you could be. So honestly, after several years of being given shit by everyone and their cousin about Prince's eccentricities or lack of eccentricities (depending who spoke), having some retards making fun of the name change or the slave tatoo left me quite indifferent. P was my man, he was cool, he did what others didn't, and I was proud of being purple

[Edited 7/8/20 14:10pm]

BartVanHemelen said:

jaypotton said:

I was embarrassed by the whole "Slave" thing at the time (as a Prince fan). I kind of got where he was coming from BUT it was clearly worse than we knew. I was one of those who said Warners treated Prince pretty well all in all BUT the owning unreleased material into perpetuity really sucks.

.

He could have renegociated. Instead he behaved like a petulant child and sabotaged his career.

.

Oh, and at the same time he was holding Margie Cox to her contract with PPR.

[Bait snip- luv4u]

massing said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

He could have renegociated. Instead he behaved like a petulant child and sabotaged his career.

.

Oh, and at the same time he was holding Margie Cox to her contract with PPR.

[Bait snip- luv4u]

jaypotton said:

True he could have but then he would not have generated a tonne of publicity that, while ridiculing him, raised the profile of the contractual issues prevalent in the music industry. George Michael did it with more class but got less publicity.

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GM's case was all over the news. It also made his contract public, and when other industry folks read it they laughed their asses of at how bad it was.

databank said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

He could have renegociated. Instead he behaved like a petulant child and sabotaged his career.

.

Oh, and at the same time he was holding Margie Cox to her contract with PPR.

I didn't remember Margie but he did it as well with Jill Jones... Prince and his paradoxes...

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Zero paradox. Prince cared about Prince and that was all. He never offered any significant support and mocked other artists who signed significant deals. And then after his death we learned from his chef that at one dinner party in the late 2000s he was expressing envy about Madonna's 360 deal and was talking about wanting the biggest deal in the world. The same fucking idiocy that made him sign the 1992 deal.

.

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I don't think, however, than a private renegociation would have had more effect than the public feud he started (which went, anyway, with many much less public negociations). He wasn't getting his masters no matter what. Not in 1993-96.

.

Metallica did. R.E.M. did. Fun fact: both those bands were at WEA labels, just like Prince.

.

BartVanHemelen said:

massing said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

He could have renegociated. Instead he behaved like a petulant child and sabotaged his career.

.

Oh, and at the same time he was holding Margie Cox to her contract with PPR.

[Bait snip- luv4u]

[Snip- luv4u]

databank said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Metallica did. R.E.M. did. Fun fact: both those bands were at WEA labels, just like Prince.

.

What was the catch? What did these bands have to offer in exchange for their masters?

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Why would there be a catch? Both bands sold tons of records and thus had power. When R.E.M. re-signed with Warners they got a bonus of a couple of million just because the label were so happy they remained.

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This thing about owning the rights to your master recordings is not new. The Stones encountered that in the late 1960s/early 1970s with Allen Klein and ABKCO. https://en.wikipedia.org/...ing_Stones .

massing said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

He could have renegociated. Instead he behaved like a petulant child and sabotaged his career.

.

Oh, and at the same time he was holding Margie Cox to her contract with PPR.

[Bait snip- luv4u]

but to his defense, it's pretty sad when people who's primary (and probably only) langauge is English can't even spell correctly in their own language and then arrogantly correct people for who English is probably their second, third, fourth or even fifth language. (We Europeans roll like that )
There;s a bunch of these clowns on this site.

databank said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Metallica did. R.E.M. did. Fun fact: both those bands were at WEA labels, just like Prince.

.

What was the catch? What did these bands have to offer in exchange for their masters?

I'm sure it had to do with the fact that both Metallica and R.E.M. continually sold albums.

Prince didn't.

BartVanHemelen said:

databank said:

BartVanHemelen said: What was the catch? What did these bands have to offer in exchange for their masters?

.

Why would there be a catch? Both bands sold tons of records and thus had power. When R.E.M. re-signed with Warners they got a bonus of a couple of million just because the label were so happy they remained.

.

This thing about owning the rights to your master recordings is not new. The Stones encountered that in the late 1960s/early 1970s with Allen Klein and ABKCO. https://en.wikipedia.org/...ing_Stones .

You mean quietly wait until it was time to renegociate/renew the 1992 contract in 1999, focus on recording commercial music in order to make sell a shitload of records until that point in order to have leverage?

That's not our Prince

.

Seriously, one can see both sides of the situation. Certainly Prince was unfair and delusional when he blamed WB for failing to sell over 5M copies of and turn Carmen Electrobullshit into a hit album. The very idea of selling 5M copies of a new album every year was delisional.

On the other hand, there was something naively touching and very inspiring in his struggle for freedom and all the melodrama that went along with it.

It must also be noted that many execs and artists left WB in the next few years, when the change of management made the label more business-focused and less artist-friendly, so WB probably wouldn't have remained the "safe place" it used to be for Prince anyway.

BartVanHemelen said: