Artist promotional obligations
Lesson time: (1min 50sec)
Judge Jules explains the promotion clauses in a record deal: interviews and videos are fair, but watch for open-ended obligations that put you at the label's beck and call.
Course preview
This lesson is part of the course Legals & Deals: The Basics of The Music Industry
Watch a preview of the full course below.
Lesson transcript:
Promoting Records: Understanding Responsibilities in Contracts
Most well-drafted record contracts will tell the artist that they need to do a certain amount of stuff to promote the record, which of itself is quite reasonable.
Key Points:
- There's no point as a label signing a record without the obligation for the artist to:
- Go out and do interviews
- Record a video
At the same time, one needs to be quite cautious about what it is that the artist is being asked to do. For example:
- Is it reasonable to ask an artist to:
- Promote a record after its release?
- Conduct interviews far in advance of when the record comes out?
It's really important that you look at what the record contract says about that. Left to their own devices, most record companies will have a very open-ended obligation for the artist to be at the beck and call of the record company.
"I don't want to be too negative about record companies here, but that's normally what's there."
Unless someone with experience, be it a manager or a lawyer, actually narrows those rights, you don't want to be on a first-call obligation to your record label.
Considerations:
- If you have other work-related obligations, you can't be forced to drop everything and go away to do an unlimited number of interviews.
- The same applies to videos.
We haven't really touched upon videos yet, and of course, videos are an interesting topic.
- Videos are sometimes accounted slightly differently in terms of recuperability.
- If a record label pays for a video, there's a negotiation around whether you:
- Recoup the cost of the video just against income from that video
- Recoup it against recording income as well
But most importantly, you must not have an unlimited obligation to do all those otherwise quite important things to market the record.
About the instructor
Jules O'Riordan has over 30 years of experience across the entire spectrum of the music industry. This includes nearly a decade as an A&R for the Universal umbrella of labels, 15 years as a presenter on BBC Radio 1, over 150 record releases and remixes in his own capacity as a recording artist, plus a 30-year career as one of Britain's best-known, globally-travelled DJs (Judge Jules), with over 5000 gigs under his belt, plus extensive experience as an event promoter and artist manager at the highest level. Suffice to say, Jules knows the music industry inside-out, and his clients regard him as a trusted advisor for whom no legal or business affairs challenge or problem is too large or small. Jules has been a lawyer for 10 years. His practice takes in the entire breadth of the music-focused entertainment industry. His legal and deal expertise includes management, recording, publishing, distribution and label services, music-based apps, games and tech projects, production deals, producers, featured artists, endorsements, merchandising, neighbouring rights, TV/film scores, live performance, events and venue agreements, plus copyright and rights infringement and many other disputes. Jules's clients include artists, management companies, record labels, songwriters, event promoters, producers, music tech businesses, production companies, live agents, music publishers and DJs. He has spoken on many panels and seminars including ADE, Brighton Music Conference and AIM events, and has been a guest speaker on legal issues across a number of on and off-line media outlets, including BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Introducing, Financial Times, The Sun, The Times and Mixmag. Jules speaks fluent Spanish. Who better to demystify the contracts and deals every musician eventually faces? In his course, Jules turns three decades of hard-won industry knowledge into plain-English guidance, so you can understand the business side of music and protect your work long before you sign on the dotted line. read more