I am the co-director of 5 titles on the next album of [a French artist] that is to be released in october. The artistic director has a contract with the le producer (the major) for arranging, orchestrating, and artistically direct and supervise an artist's recordings for a determined amount of titles, as seen in the contract. Accordingly to the contrat, the client (the major) gives money to the producers as a fee on every CD sold. About that project, as paying online music dowload sites such as the iTMS had appeared, I dared asking [the major] how much I'd get for those titles from this album sold on such a site. The enclosed mail answered quite frankly : NO FEE for me on donwloads. Which simply means [the major] will perceive the rights paid by Apple yet refuses to give any part of those to the artists, directors and other rights owners. Which is perfectly illegal. [Major] states that the contracts between us talk of a "support" such as a CD, cassette, vynil etc., yet for downloads, there is no support, so no reason we are given anything. [Translator's note : I guess my HD is not a support, so why did I pay a tax on it ?] Yet, [the major] is negociating with Apple about how much fee they'll perceive on any download made of the works we've created for them. My opinion is, and many artists and directors agree, this is a widescale and more insidious piracy than any other. [Victim's name] (PS: I've been doing that job for over 40 years and as a mixer or a director I took part in over 40,000,000 sold disks, yet I do not even own my flat.) |
Here's the aforementioned mail.
From: ******* Date: july 2004 1st 12:25:41 GMT+02:00 To: ****** Object: RE : RE : Contract of co direction for ******* Dear ******, Dear ******, Acknowledging your last e-mail. I confirm what ****** also stated you (Cf : album [French artist] contract) we won't give you any fee corresponding to the donwloads...... |
As "the victim" said, the majors who complained so much against piracy and the loss of rights they faced, do not behave differently from what they condemn.
You may imagine what the future may be. Downloading sites will sign directly with the artists distribution contracts that won't require the help of the majors. Hence we'll see terrible struggles of influence iw which the artists will be both the stick and the shield.
