The Permanence of Digital Sales
While music sales shift from physical media to digital, the experience artists and labels are having is not as smooth as you might suspect. Puddlegum spoke with a highly-respected artist about an issue he has faced. For his sake, his name will not be disclosed.
Several years ago this artist signed a contract with a record label with the agreement that after several years he would retain the rights to his recordings. This type of agreement is easy to honor when you’re dealing with physical records, since you’re dealing with a finite supply. When the label is out of CDs or vinyl they print more until the contract has been fulfilled. “Those agreements are supposed to have finite terms, but the digital thing is quasi-permanent,” the artist shared.
“My album was put on digital sales sites without my knowledge, towards the very end of my label agreement. The rights to the recording are supposed to revert to me. But now, the distributor for my label has the control of the digital version of my record, receives all the iTunes payments and I have not been able to get it taken out of circulation so I can re-gain control of the recording, even past the terms of my original agreement.”
“The distributor has requested iTunes and Snocap, etc to remove it repeatedly, but it hasn’t gone anywhere. So once a record is out there digitally for sale, it’s kind of permanent, and that is kind of unacceptable from an artist’s perspective unless he has control of it.”
As if to taunt him, a Snocap store appeared on his Myspace page. He didn’t request it, nor can he remove it. He has never seen a statement from Snocap or received any money from the album sales. “From talking to friends of mine, this type of thing is not isolated.”
How can this situation be prevented in the future? One answer that would not be considered by most labels is to have artists pay royalties to the record label, and handle the digital distribution themselves. “I would recommend the artist putting the release into digital stores himself, and paying the label a royalty over the period of the terms of the agreement.”
What are your thoughts?