In 2016 I released an album of 12 different songs sung by 12 different singers; all different styles, etc. One of the singers has recently blown up in a big way; she sang a song in a major motion picture and is now fielding all sorts of record label offers. I own the masters to my recordings, and I’m wondering what my options are, legally and/or morally?
I’m proud of my song, and the recording quality is excellent. Does she like it? I don’t know, it was a work-for-hire. She did a great job and it sounds fantastic, but she was paid for her time and her opinion of the song isn’t really relevant. I’m a nice guy and wouldn’t want to do anything she didn’t want me to do, but do I have options here?
Can I take the song and shop it around for a major release? Can I send it to film producers and tell them to get it while it’s hot? Or more importantly, SHOULD I do those things? Am I sitting on a gold mine waiting to be cashed in, or should I just remain silent and hope to achieve success someday based on my songwriting abilities alone? I really don’t know what to do, or if there’s anything TO do.
I’ll reach out to a music lawyer as well, but I’m also looking for a moral compass here; am I right to feel guilty even asking this question? That’s the business, isn’t it? Shouldn’t I be glad one of my singers has achieved fame, and milk it for all it’s worth? But still, there’s something that feels not quite right about it…
I don’t mean to be rude, but do you feel it’s necessary to comment on every thread? I know I can call her up and ask her, but I also know asking someone if I can release a 2-year-old recording she made before she got huge will result in a big fat no, hence the question. I’m looking for advice and opinions on the moral obligation the situation warrants, not obvious suggestions that aren’t applicable.
If it’s business (you want to get paid?) then she accepted a business deal that lets you do ANYTHING you want. Period, not being a dick or a money grubber. That deal says she don’t care, IN WRITING.
If it’s artistic morals, you have to decide what your artistic morals are.
Not that you asked, but be aware. If you ask for permission, coming from an “artistic” place they may give you an answer coming from a “business” place. And six weeks later, her and her management are collecting what should have been your lotto ticket. ($$$+industry reputation)
So, you wanna get paid?
Do you feed your kids with this income/industry?
Do you want to respect someone’s art?
As far as I can see your two moral obligations to your former collaborators are a) to give proper credit for work actually done, and b) not to release for public consumption anything that was always intended to remain private.
I fail to see how any amount of cashing in on your part violates either of these precepts. Obviously you’re going to credit her work - that’s the whole point- and the work in question is already released to the public. What possible grounds could she have for objecting to work that’s already been released becoming more widely available? That would be a very dog in the manger sort of attitude to take.
Why would she not want you to re-release/promote the song? It’s free publicity for her (obvious exception would be something like if she’s now trying to do Disney soundtracks but your song was a Death Metal cover of NWA’s *Fuck Tha Police * )
ETA - I think there’s nothing immoral about you selling your own music, regardless of who you paid to sing it. No need to feel guilty.
This is all good, DooWahDiddy. If you know/can confirm full rights, and she was properly compensated and it is your song, you can do whatever you want with it — and should!
Talking with a lawyer, and anybody who knows YouTube and other current distribution channels, and figure out how you can get exposure. This is not nude photos of Madonna or Vanessa Williams sold unscrupulously at all. You can do this with your head held high with a thoughtful approach to getting exposure.
Congrats on this and best of luck. When you figure out what to do, please share a link here.
Have you checked your original contract with her? I presume you had one, or there were at least some Ts & Cs she had, even if you never read them.
Most artists don’t automatically grant you unlimited use of their contribution - there may be a time limit, for example. Just because she did a recording for you some time ago, doesn’t mean you still have rights to sell that recording without negotiating with her to extend any licence she may have granted.
I work in advertising and whilst I haven’t dealt with singers, I have dealt with music writers, photographers etc etc (all different kinds of artists) and there’s always some kind of restriction, such as two years, or within a certain location, for eg. Always worth checking.
Thanks guys, this is all good advice. There are several reasons I could see that she might not want me to re-release/promote the song; she wouldn’t receive further compensation for it (unless I paid her as a gesture of goodwill), she might not like the song, her new record label might not want recordings they don’t own “out there”, etc. Of course, it already is out there, just on a much smaller scale. The iTunes version of the song has sold many more downloads than usual this month, though, without me doing anything, so people are obviously searching her name.
Now it’s time for admitting my own humbling, foolish, frustrating mistake: I didn’t sign a contract with her. I have emails documenting our arrangement (you record my song for a fee, I put it on my album and online), but other than that it was handshake-only. She was a friend of a friend and I was stupid, not much more to say about that.
BUT, should that matter? I still own the master, I still wrote the song, she still got paid for her services. I’ve been trying to break into the songwriting business (I’m not a singer) for 20 years now; this could be my ticket in. But then again, how does that ticket work, aside from some extra iTunes downloads? Is it the golden goose at all? Gah, to a lawyer I go, I suppose…
I would suspect that not having a contract would be more her problem than yours. You own the master and rights to it, so if she wanted to insist that she was owed anything additional then it’s on her to prove why. Which is hard to do without a contract. I’m not a lawyer though.
This isn’t to suggest that you go all “Neener, neener sucks to be you” of course. I’d plan on contacting her to let her know you’re thinking of shopping the song around for a re-release but I’d talk to a lawyer first in case that’s a Bad Idea for reasons I don’t know of.
Out of curiosity, and not because I have anything useful to contribute: You did the songwriting, she did the vocals—who did the rest of the work involved in making the recording (instruments, production, etc.)?
Is there any sort of deal you could offer, any sort of further collaboration you could suggest that might be appealing to her? If so, I’d try to approach her through that–make it something where your promotion of this song with her name attached is something she sees as a benefit to her.
I don’t have an answer, but this situation sounds similar to photographers who take pictures of people long before they are famous. Isn’t it common for an unknown actress to take seductive photos for pocket money and then years later those photos get released once she’s a big star?
The band members were friends of mine (I work on Broadway so most of my friends are musicians), and I rented a studio in midtown Manhattan. Everyone was paid for their time and was considered work-for-hire. Again, I should have had contracts with the musicians, too, but I think they would be less problematic since musicians are routinely sidemen and don’t get royalties.
Yeah, that’s what WordMan mentioned about the nude pictures; this would definitely not be as embarrassing for her, haha. I mean, it’s just a pop song; it’s not like I’m sitting on a recording of her singing “Pop Goes the Weasel” and I’m going to take it to the nearest radio station…
I’d be inclined to skip the morality issues and consult with an attorney and negotiate (all in a very professional and businesslike way) with *her *attorney to hammer out the scope of what you can do with the recording. It may turn out you can publish it pretty freely but cannot use (or are strictly limited in using) her name or likeness in the promotion of the song, which makes her later fame largely useless to you. Asking directly for her opinion of the recording might help you decide how much effort to throw at this - if she likes her performance, that’s a plus, but if she’s embarrassed by it and would like it to disappear, then she’s more likely to block you any way she can, possibly to the point of making publication more trouble than it’s worth.
One potential problem is that you don’t have a contract specifying other uses of the song. If your emails said “record a song and I’ll put it on my album”, that may be the limit of what you can do with the song. If you try to sell the song as a single, you could run into issues since that’s not what she agreed to in the email. If you promote the song individually (or do something like sell it for a commercial), it might be argued that you don’t have the rights to do that.
I’m curious, why is her answer going to be a big fat ‘no’ necessarily? Is it way outside of the genre she’s now aiming at? Just kicking around an idea but is it possible you could work a deal to get it on her next record? I mean it’s likely she’ll have other songs on it written by other people anyway - it might add some legitimacy to your song rther than just being something she was hired to do. Let everybody wet their beaks and you have major record deal song out there.
I mean, you’re thinking of shopping it around for a major release anyways. Why not start with her?
Frankly, I’m kind of curious what kind of other deals you think you’ll get. It’s either going to be some kind of k-tel “before they were famous” album, a one-off single track on i-tunes or some other artist would re-record it (in which case it has nothig to do with blowing up artist).
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