Careful, Londell & Casey are now BFFs on X so we'll soon be banned from any criticism of the Estate alongside the Mods

happyshopper said:

jungleshot1 said:

happyshopper said:

jungleshot1 said:

It’s interesting that Warner Brothers made that offer for piano and microphone because I was under the impression that Sony has the rights to all non-soundtrack music. something doesn’t add up. Seems like that would be easy money for Sony.

From what I understand, Warner have the distribution rights to the old Warner albums, and Sony have the later albums. Or Sony have rights to US and Warner are the rest of the world. It’s confusing!! Something like P&M doesn’t come under either, so the estate can do a deal with whoever on its release. (I might be totally wrong!😃) [Edited 4/28/26 20:12pm]

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It's not that confusing.

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WB: rights to Warner-era albums worldwide except the USA; only rights to soundtrack albums in the USA.

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Sony: USA rights to all existing albums except the soundtracks. Worldwide rights to all existing post-Warners albums.

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Some exceptions: TGE seems to have been lost to Warners after 1995, perhaps in some kind of special deal. Also the Warner albums from 2014 and on are now not anymore under a Warners deal.

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Note that the deals I mentioned are distribution deals.

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More complicated: outtakes and live recordings from the Warner era. Those are most likely in some exclusive deal with Warners. Now I know what you're gonna say: what about the D&P SDE: well, that was a "joint release" between WB and Sony, and most likely there was some legal deal where Sony paid Warners a percentage of that release's profits from the SDE (not the Remaster or the Deluxe, all those tracks are part of the Sony USA deal).

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HOWEVER: With This Tear is credited to Legacy/Sony, and that is definitely part of the Warners-era outtakes. But this is a new mix, so perhaps that how this is possible.

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Post-Warners outtakes and live recordings: it's up to the estate to license these, and in recent years that has been Sony (e.g. W2A).

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If the reports of a Deluxe Parade and a Deluxe 3121 are true (or Musicology instead of 3121) it means each company will get a worldwide release this year. Presumably they would not want to compete with each other, so perhaps we'll get one in June/July and the other in October/November, but a June release seems unlikely since such a release would have to be announced around now. Considering what was reported from the Londell meeting a week ago it looks like they're still in negotiations with the labels. And then there is also the "announced" new album with unreleased music (and its accompanying singles) which also seems to be "planned" for this year (which is almost certainly a Sony/Legacy release).

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If this estate was competent it would have released an album of new music to accompany the tenth anniversary, or at least announced a firm release date. That they waste the first six months of each year is just ridiculous (except for W2A which they announced a ridiculous four months in advance, so by the time that got released it was too late to have another release in the Fall).

The only thing, the one single announcement I want to see at this point is that they have reflected on their failures and have brought in a better team to help run the estate right and get Prince's music OUT while the dwindling number people who still care are still breathing.

I could do without the white-washing of Prince's reputation quite honestly, it's been 10 years now so let's take a more nuanced approach to his legacy, and let true documentarians do their thing. Stop chasing stupid stuff like the Apollonia name dispute, and the awful Broadway musical etc. Focus on the music first and foremost.

As for the challenges faced by Londell, Spicer - I'm happy to accept there must be details I'm not privy to which have made things difficult with limited resources etc, but... do better. There must be a queue of highly competent people who would love to help.
Simply improving comms, with no other material improvement would feel like major progress. If this was a new era, holding off-the-record AMAs is not in the right spirit at all.

As for Funkatopia, it's certainly disappointing but not surprising that yet another independent fan voice is lured by promises of access and insider scoops etc and therefore lose sight of their original critical remit and what their listenership expects from them. But sure, if they want to be a mouthpiece for the official PR that's fine, will bear that in mind going forward. I mainly tune in for Michael B, but the other host has openly said that he wants to be a voice for the estate, so I think it is clear that Funkatopia's credibility in the toilet. Really glad he talked for an hour about parking tickets while MB sat in silence lol.

[Edited 4/29/26 10:37am]

nxx said:

So last night, Funkatopia compared his positive discussion with Londell to Bill Maher having a positive conversation with Donald Trump and then getting piled on afterwards for saying nice things about their meeting... this dude has zero self-awareness and zero credibility whatsoever.

"Sure, the people in charge are wrecking everything around them, but they were nice to me in person so they actually aren't that bad, and everyone else criticizing them is just an unreasonable hater!!! "

https://www.reddit.com/r/...y/oiul6vz/

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just caught this post while i’m half-watching funkatopia wasting 30+ minutes babbling like a moron and saying nothing while dragging out his BIG REVEAL of the “truth summit” held by the estate last week. you can tell michael bland is beyond fed up with this bullshit. absolute fucking clownery all around. hot air recycling more hot air.

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