Kanye West has been on a crusade to remake the music business, get his masters back and terminate his contracts with Universal and Sony. Following a series of meetings with lawyers and label higher-ups, Kanye laid out how he imagines future artist contracts to look in a Twitter rant Sunday (September 20).
Kanye put forth what he believes to be the five pillars of music being: recording, publishing, touring, merchandise, name and likeness.
There are 5 main pillars in a professional musicians business Recording Publishing Touring Merchandise & Name and likeness
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020
He divided the contract into eight guidelines with the first being artists owning their recordings and leasing them on a year-by-year basis to labels and the second being an “80/20” split between the artists and publisher.
1. The artist owns the copyright in the recordings and songs and leases them to the record label / publisher for a limited term. 1 year deals
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020
2. The record label / publisher is a service provider that receives a share of the income for a limited term. The split can be 80/20 in the artists favor
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020
The rest dive into dependents and lawyers’ involvement in deals, which he feels should be to make things more profitable for the artist and not more complex.
Kanye sees equity and licensing making up the majority of an artist’s income, but also explains his feelings on royalties, portals, and how loans to artists as they’re currently constructed as advancements should be no more.
3. DEPENDANTS
Artists must be dependent on no one but themselves to manage their catalog. You should need NO ONE else to understand the business you’re in.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020
4. LAWYERS
the first thing that changes about Record Deals is actually lawyers.
We need Plain English contracts. A Lawyers role is to IMPROVE deals…. not charge for contracts we cannot understand or track. Re-write deals to be understandable from FIRST READ.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020
5. EQUITY & BLANKET LICENSES ARE THE MAJORITY OF FUTURE NEW INCOME.
If you’re with a major you have invested your ‘songs’ as shares in their power to get equity and deals. Almost ALL new deals now are based on ALL songs going to a store or app. The equity is the Artists
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020
5. ADVANCES ARE JUST LOANS!!
On Artists re-signing these stop. Advances are Loans with 75% interest rates (or worse). NO other business in the world takes a look at the business, buys shares, starts to profit when it profits. Record Companies have to buy into you, not loan you.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020
6. ROYALTIES
Again back to dependents. You need a business manager to read how you did? So you pay to see your money!!! NO MORE.
Royalty portals need to show (and do not now)
Every song you delivered
Every store you are in
How many streams per song
Income per song
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020
7. PORTALS
Are not just for royalties. They are for your entire business. Every audio file, every asset, every deal stored WITH the money. Money and Music must stay together. When your term ends, download it all. Leave.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020
Kanye finished off his tirade by promising that he would be able to get his masters back but is calling for all artists to unify with him so they can also be treated fairly.
This is a call for all artist to unify … I will get my masters , I got the most powerful lawyer in music and I can afford them but every artist must be freed and treated fairly
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020