Kanye’s Contracts (Full PDF)
Law Insider compiled Kanye West’s contract tweetstorm into complete, downloadable contracts.
- The artist owns the copyright in the recordings and songs and leases them to the record label/publisher for a limited term. 1-year deal.
- 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 artist’s favor.
- Dependents. 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.
- Lawyers. The first thing that changes about Record Deals is actually lawyers. We need plain English contracts. A Lawyer’s role is to IMPROVE deals…. not charge for contracts we cannot understand or track. Rewrite deals to be understandable from FIRST READ.
- 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.
- Advances. Advances are just loans!! Artists re-signing these stops. 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.
- 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.
- 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.
