u/Flashy-Material-4952

First of all let me say i think it's a very positive development that more artist are getting aware that it's possible to not fully give over your rights while still releasing with a label. But i want to discuss this as i'm also getting the feeling that this is getting out of hand. As with anything else in the music industry most newer artist have no clue what the actual meaning of things are, terms like "getting signed" is something new people believe to be positive, but later on you find out that it could mean you're in a 30 singles deal with no advance and bad terms, and only rarely the more positive option: you got a $1 million dollar advance and are the labels favourite artist because you earn them money. But still new artists like to think it mainly means the last thing. And the same with "owning your masters", this whole Taylor Swift and Beyonce thing is giving artist the idea that you can go all the way to the top and still own your masters, because these superstars do. They don't realize that the label would have probably never invested in Taylor Swift if she didn't sign over her masters in the beginning, or that Beyonce only started keeping her rights when she was a superstar that could afford and was able to create her own success worldwide. And without any of those things, both artist would have stayed amateurs forever.
I'm currently working with a rapper. It's a guy i've known for a while, and i think he's talented, but i've seen him fail in executing on the music side for the past years, never releasing anything. So i offered him to help him do his album. I produced everything, layed out marketing strategy, set up photoshoots with friendly favors. And i would do it all in a 50/50 deal and no strings attached passed the project itself. Keeping everything low budget, but my producer cut would also be covered in the label's 50%. I was hoping to launch him to a point where someone else could help him further, and also build his whole artistic profile, so next singles would just be artwork + music and then he'd be ready to release. Kind of a friendly favor to him, but also to justify it for myself a project i'd build betting on the small chance we could make it blow up. And surely i found out why he's so bad at executing, the whole project has taken 3 years to finish... Now the part relating the discussion: We're ready to release and i want to send him a very simple agreement to cover my ass if this happens to blow up, obviously i need my share secured so no other label or manager can try to squeeze me out. And now this is when it becomes clear that the guy has also read about "owning your masters". He don't want to sign the deal... he haven't even heard of licensing deals. He just thinks he can own his masters while my label is also releasing the music. Clearly that's none of my interest, because first of all legally it makes no sense that i should be allowed to release something without attaining the rights. Secondly because this is already a terrible financial project for me, i've probably spent 300 hours unpaid on bringing it to life and would also invest a small amount in marketing. But here we are with the results of a new tendency in the industry where artist thinks a 50/50 deal, is a deal where they keep their masters, gets free work and investment, but can pull their consent anytime. And in reality he dosen't realize how bad of a postion he's in because i can pull his whole project, because i as the producer own the masters equally as much as him, even if he'd go to someone else or try independently. Would suck to have wasted all the time, but the chances of blowing a new artist up from release one, is also incredibly small, so i don't really have a lot to lose. Side note is also that i have a pretty succesfull past in the industry, my productions have more than 100 million streams in total, so it's not an amateur project.
But to the discussion. What do you guys think, hasn't this gone out of hand? I'm very much against brand new artist's getting fucked in these 30 single deals that will bind them for their whole career. But artists also need to realize that signing a deal is also a trade where the label takes some bet on them and needs something in return. And that brand new artists with no proven track record dosen't have a lot of leverage to make sure it's a safe investment for the label. And it's not likely that you can go your whole career while getting investments and effort from others while still keeping all your masters. If you can stay fully independent at do all marketing yourself it's another story.