TYPES OF RECORD DEALS YOU SHOULD KNOW.

In the history of the music industry record label-artist issues have been the most common. One of the recurring factors as to what causes these issues is one party claiming they did not understand the terms of the deal and another claiming that business is business and in that light, they will be taking their pound of flesh.

Sevdaliza, an Iranian-Dutch artist, commented that art is a testimony of the human condition. It encompasses all of our hardships, emotions, questions, decisions, and perceptions. As the saying goes ‘art is life’ and music is art, meaning the music is life. For some, music is not just life, it is their livelihood. A risk, a loss, a moment of happiness, and a story shared. Beyond the thrills and glamour, it presents, the music business is serious business. To this effect, attention should be placed on the business (contracts) aspects of music. A knowledge of what ‘getting signed’ entails and the types of deals that an artist can make is thereby essential.

What is a Record Contract?

A recording contract, commonly known as a record deal is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist creates a record(s) for the label to exploit. To enable the label to exploit this record, they have to enter an agreement with the artiste and this is where the lingo ‘getting signed’ comes up

Getting signed has advantages to an artist who is almost always an ‘underdog’ who wants to be heard and seen. They have mostly toiled on their own and the idea of someone taking that load of them while they go about creating magic is always a welcome development.

However, before doing this is, every artist needs to ask themselves the important questions:

1. What the record deal entails.

2. How will the record deal affect the artist and their career in the short term and long term?

3. Is getting signed the next thing the artiste should focus on or getting better at their craft.

4. Who are the faces behind the record label? What do they do? Can they fund and commission the artiste and their career?

5. Do their values match?

This and many more important questions are questions the artiste needs to answer before executing that agreement that binds them for a period.

While most record deals are exclusive, there are some cases where the record label is willing to have a non-exclusive deal. These types of deals are usually pre-signing an exclusive deal with the label. They are meant to create a relationship between the parties, where the artiste assigns certain records to the label.

Types of Record deals

There are different types of record deals and some often differ as location moves. These deals include but are not limited to

1. Standard record deals (SRDs): This is a deal common with physical record products (tapes). It allows that monies not stated in this agreement can be kept by the artiste. Can be however limiting because companies in this situation will always want to exploit artists who are beneficial to them before doing the same for the other artists in their roaster. 

2. 360 or multi rights deal: This is an agreement that states that the label will be earning a certain percentage from the artiste revenue in all matters about the artiste career in the entertainment industry. 

3. EP deals: These are short-term contracts where the record label would exploit a particular body of work alone for a specified time. In most cases, there is a non-disclosure policy that is you can not disclose your association with that record label. This is done to protect the reputation of the label on the off chance that the artiste’s career is unsuccessful. The success of the artiste means that the label can reward him with another contract. The downside to this deal is that the artiste still has to do the same thing he does pre-contract unless stated otherwise in the agreement. 

4. Licensing deals: simply means that you get paid upfront for your songs whilst still keeping the rights to the songs. The record label is in charge of promoting the artiste. Artistes have access to the majority of the revenue generated. 

5. The single record deal is a fairly simple contract that focuses on a single song. It can also revolve around an album but this is quite rare. The single record deal provides the company with the opportunity to see how well a song performs. This helps to sway their decision as to whether they would be inclined to offer a new deal.

 Before signing that agreement, the questions raised above should be answered and most importantly a qualified entertainment lawyer should be engaged. These lawyers are familiar with negotiating and interpreting the terms of record deals.

Artistes should NEVER execute an agreement in whatever form unless they are sure of its content and what it means to their life and career at the end of the day.

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This was written by Olive Osofowora (@La_sewa) on twitter and a little bit from Lola.

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