What are the most important areas of a contract for a new artist?
Lesson time: (2min 11sec)
Judge Jules boils music law down to the three things a new artist should watch in any contract: the money, the rights, and the handcuffs.
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:
Key Categories of Music Law: Money, Rights, and Handcuffs
I think if I was to boil what I do as a music lawyer into three chunks, three categories, it would be:
- Follow the Money
- Follow the Rights
- Follow the Handcuffs
Follow the Money
The money bit sounds really obvious. You know, look at how your money gets to you and how it's being calculated. Unfortunately, that is one of a few areas that unless you're very experienced, you won't necessarily understand the language.
Important Points:
- Be aware of how third parties can take a bite out of your financial cake when you thought you were getting the whole cake.
Follow the Rights
Following the rights is a slightly easier one to grasp and an easier one for me to explain. Most deals in copyrights will either:
- Take the copyright for good in perpetuity
- Take it for a more limited time (a license period)
General Principle:
- If you're an artist, you want them to have it for a shorter period of time, the license period.
Important Advice:
- If you ever see an assignment of rights in perpetuity (that is forever), try to push back and narrow it to a shorter period of time.
As someone who had hit records a while ago and has now got the rights back, I can assure you it's a valuable commodity to have because it keeps generating income.
Follow the Handcuffs
The third category is following the handcuffs. This can sometimes be drafted in contracts in quite a complicated way.
What Do the Handcuffs Represent?
- The metaphorical handcuffs in a contract can indicate whether the contract is exclusive to the person signing on the other side.
- They may stipulate that you cannot supply particular services to anyone else.
Factors to Consider:
- Whether or not that exclusivity is reasonable is very much dependent on the facts.
- If someone is giving you a lot of money for an exclusive record contract, it may be reasonable for them to expect you won't release records elsewhere.
- Conversely, if the deal isn't very valuable and they include language that unnecessarily restricts you, that would be hugely unreasonable.
Conclusion
These are the three things to at least think about. These are the questions to ask, even if you find the legal language a bit dense and difficult to understand.
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