more of fripp on copyrights...

[acroyear]

Fripp:

From the Guitar Craft diary of William Frederick for Tuesday 15th. February… W

< Last autumn, ____ Records re-released CDs on which I have performance and writing credits. On the 6th of Feb, I was told that the publishing rights of these CDs has been stolen, including what is assumed to be advance money. Efforts by my legitimate publisher to discover the details of these goings-on have been met with stalling and stonewalling. Litigation isn't far behind… One would think that something so profoundly illegal and criminally intended couldn't actually get this far…

The music industry is fundamentally corrupt. Whether other industries are as corrupt, I'm not able to say. Probably, where the service-suppliers are vulnerable & unlikely/unwilling to take action against transgressors, then abuse & exploitation are just as likely. In my own affairs, undertaking legal action over a six-year period (1991-97) is a clear declaration of willingness to resort to litigation to obtain what is owed, when the shortfall is intentional and/or unintentionally-intentional. This clear willingness-to-act is most likely the reason why Virgin Records & BMG Publishing settled huge amounts of underpayment 2 years ago.

No artist in their right mind would undertake litigation: it is a form of artist-destruct. This is why management, record & publishing companies are able to exploit their artists & then play hardball: a high likelihood of getting away with (at least a significant percentage worth of) mis-appropriation. The position is even better for a chartered accountant who sets up in artist management: nominal claims to professional standards, effective control over artist money supply, days spent working in the office with a bag full of accounting tricks & a head-start on controlling the information supply.

If the artist decides to get out from under the arrangement & begin again, they might be presented with a Settlement Agreement which includes a gagging order, a clean bill of health for any possible past transgressions (whether discovered or not) by the manager and give up whatever money is nominally left in the artist's account.

A decent, honest member of the music-loving public would not believe what is common practice in this industry. Much of the common practice is understood, although not overly discussed. But, with increasing attention paid to ethical standards & transparency in business (largely a result of large public scandals over the past 15-20 years), and the widespread dissemination of information possible via the net, there are some actions that today ring bells which fourteen years ago would have stayed quiet.

For example, the two key elements in the Endless Grief dispute of 1991 were:

1. Sale of copyrights by EG;
2. Non-accounting of royalty income.

EG had documents with artist signatures (late 1974 & early 1975) assigning copyrights to management. The issue in 1991 was whether the assignments were freely given, and/or subject to an oral collateral warranty, and/or subject to undue influence.

In 1991 the onus was on the artist, who had given away their copyrights for nothing, to prove that the assignment was tainted & unsound and made without due consideration in return. The diligence undertaken by BMG, for example, was not convinced that the consideration for KC assignments was sufficient to validate them. BMG went ahead anyway, knowing the unlikely odds of an artist taking action against them.

In 2005, any manager who asks for their artist's copyrights triggers a large neon sign declaring I am a fuck-face bastard! The onus, today, is on the manager to explain why that are not what the neon sign proclaims them to be.