From StarBulletin :

His legal hassles with his former major record label have been well-documented, but they evidently haven't soured him from working with The Big Boys again. Prince has chosen as his new administrator Universal Music Publishing Group, and while that company will take care of distributing past, present and future releases and reissues , most importantly he will retain the all-important publishing rights.


Love2ALL

love2thenines2003 said:

So is this official then, he has a deal of sorts with Universal and they've bought his masters for him.

I wonder if this is the reason behind a far-reaching world tour and playing all the songs the general public know.

Whatever, I'm just looking forward to said "re-issues" and new music, couldn't give a stuff if he owns the masters or not.

Star Bulletin? How credible is that?

Thanks a million love2thenines2003!!!

I've been waiting for clarity on your part!

This is shaping up to become something big! If this is all true, Prince's work will finally be reintroduced to the present-day masses and his future work will also get the full treatment it deserves.

Fingers crossed!!!

now what's up with November?...

MartyMcFly said:

...as...credible...as ...u !

love2thenines2003 said:

That's enough for me!

MartyMcFly said:

>>Follow the link!

http://starbulletin.com/2...tory4.html

love2thenines2003 said:

Thanks love!

Now what's up with November?

If this is true, what must Prince do for Universal in return for the purchase of his masters? I hope that it's a straight deal because I would hate to see Prince go through another battle with a large label after what seems like a good partnership.

Sounds like a legit news item to me,but how come it hasn't been reported elsewhere (MTV news,Rolling Stone,etc)? I really wanna get excited,but I'm gonna wait for an official confirmation.

So,is it safe to assume that "Musicology" is the first single from a new album?

love2thenines2003 said:

1: this article is from august 2003.
2 : they only talk about publishing rights
3 : this deal covers only the era "after WB"

DavidEye said:

I've been doing a Google search every now and again for things like musicology, universal, Prince masters, etc but nothing (apart from org threads!) has come up yet.

I guess like love2thenines2003 says, November might be the month...

http://enews.umpg.com/newpromo/

If this ad is real, then the story's real.
But I don't think it means they own the masters, it just means they deal with the publishing rights to the songs and make sure Prince is paid when a song is used.

1. "Prince has chosen as his new administrator Universal Music Publishing Group"

He struck the deal with the Universal Music Group to deal with his publishing several years ago, when his publishing deal with Warner Brothers ended. The deal was reasonably well-publicised annd reported here on prince.org.

A simple search at ASCAP has shown that Universal has been registered to administer his publishing rights for several years.

He has clearly struck a further deal with the Group (or subsidiaries thereof) that covers some distribution and possibly some associated marketing. Hence the publicity on the websites for the DVD, for example.

The fact that Universal chooses to promote past material recorded by Prince on its website(s), should not of itself be treated as an indication that Prince or Universal has in any way acquired rights over the master recordings previously owned by Warner Brothers. Their promotion of that part of Prince's back catalogue is obviously of benefit to them (and their client) through collection of publishing monies, irrespective of who owns the master recordings.


2. "and while that company (Universal Music) will take care of distributing past, present and future releases and reissues"

This is vague enough to be misleading. They are as likely as not (at least) referring to recordings that Prince has recorded post-Warner Brothers. Whilst Warner Brothers still retain the rights to master recordings of earlier works, Prince may well strike a deal for distribution of material he has subsequently recorded where he has always held the right to do so.

3. "most importantly he will retain the all-important publishing rights."

The article suggests that Prince retains his publishing rights. In all likelihood, those rights will have been assigned to UMG so they can administer collection of the publishing monies due to Prince, and as described in the article. This is standard practise because it enables the assignee to operate on behalf of the assignor. Hardly ground-breaking.


All this article therefore tells us is that Universal are doing some distribution work for Prince (in addition to their established relationship with him for publishing administration), hence the distributed release, for example, of the Aladdin DVD via Universal's subsidiary, 'Hip-O'.

james said:

Exactly right james. The publishing deal is well known. This new rumour is about Prince and Universal actually acquiring rights to the WB masters.

That link above doesn't actually hint at this IMHO. It just says Universal might handle distribution of any re-issues in the future. Someone else mught be able to explain distribution a little better but I took it to mean that WB would still need to re-issue any recordings in the first instance.

Romance1600 said:

every artist should own there masters !

danielboon said:

Good for them, I'm just saying I don't care either way - I buy Prince's music that's all, I don't care who owns the originals.

Romance1600 said:

u dont care .. that an artist can write a beautiful song but some1 else owns it ???