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Hey, this is Matthew Ricks, and today on the Music
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Business newsletter, we have a celebration maybe of an artist
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getting an offer from a record label quote unquote. But
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we'll dive into that email in a second. If you
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like this video, make sure you subscribe, leave me a
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comment if you agree or disagree. If you have a
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question on the music industry that you want me to answer,
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it's absolutely free. Don't need you to become a member,
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don't need you to buy a book or join a
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Patreon or buy a T shirt. Just go to Matthewicks
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dot com click submit your question, give me as many
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details as possible, and I'll answer it here. But now
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for the email. Sun's email. Come in and we'll see
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what everybody thinks, because I think it's the one that
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we can all yes, we can all just yes. Says
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Hey Matthew. I cannot believe I'm even typing this right now.
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My band's been together for seventeen years. Seventeen years in
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a band? Is it the same members? Have we lost
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some guys or are we just all been rocking out
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together for seventeen years? But congratulations for longevity and sticking
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out with it. The email says, We've played every dive bar, club,
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regional county festival that would have us. We've done it
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all independently, never been signed, and honestly kind of stopped
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expecting that call after seventeen years playing clubs. I guess
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booking yourselves. Yeah, I want to be expecting the phone
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to ring, because it kind of almost in some ways
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sounds like you guys are self sufficient. You don't get
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me any details on how many dates you guys are doing,
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or what your Spotify numbers are or anything like that.
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But seventeen years and you guys are still playing festivals
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and dive bars and clubs and stuff like that is
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a testament to your stamina. So congratulations on that. The
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email continues, But last month a record label actually reached
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out and now they want to sign us. Congratulations, he says,
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I'm fired up about it. But there's some hesitation in
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the band, mainly from our bass player. That's always the
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bass players every band that I signed or tried to sign,
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the bass player was always the problem. He was always
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the skeptic. Sometimes it is a problem, sometimes it's not.
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In this case, it's he's probably the smartest one in
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the band. But yeah, anytime a hair of a band
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having problems, if it's like an ego driven thing, it's
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usually like guitar player, singer, scam police guy. That's usually
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a bass player, and then drummer. You know, he's just
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hoping he gets enough for him to set up his kid.
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That's usually how it goes. Usually in the bands I
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worked with, I always loved the drummer and bass player always.
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I thought they were always just like really cool hangs.
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But they yes, bass players are always the skeptics. It's
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just in their DNA, he says. Our bass player thinks
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the deal isn't a good one, and he's pumping the
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brakes hard on us signing. I would love to get
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your opinion, so you can tell us if this is
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a good deal or not. Okay, Well, first and foremost,
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I'm not a lawyer, Okay, So I don't see anywhere
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in the email where you talk about that you consulted
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an attorney, an entertainment lawyer, and police. For the love
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of God, if you get a lawyer involved, make sure
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they know entertainment law. When I was in an R,
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do you know how many artists had their buddy who
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was a real estate lawyer look over the contract, and
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they would just ask for the dopious things, and it
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actually sometimes derailed the contract for the artists because they
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don't understand entertainment law. They understand real estate law or
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banking law. You know, it's just get an entertainment lawyer.
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It's worth the money to pay. But I don't think
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these guys have one, because that's why they're asking me
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for my opinion. So let's see if I can help
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them out and end the stalemate within the band. He said,
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here's what's on the table, straight from the contract. They
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want to re release our entire back catalog seven albums,
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and they would re release everything under their label. Are
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they paying you for that or you just handing it
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over here? You go, here's our entire catalog. That's an
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interesting that's an interesting one. They are offering a fifty
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to fifty split on both albums sales and publishing. Fifty
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to fifty split on album sales and publishing, fifty to
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fifty publishing split. Yeah, that's industry standard. Fifty to fifty
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split on albums. So if you're making three tenths of
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a penny per stream on Spotify, you're taking half of
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that from okay, he says they're only providing minimal funding
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for marketing and publicity. Well, what's minimum funding? Are we
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talking five grand? Are we talking fifty grand? Are we
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talking fifty bucks? Publicity? They're going to send out a
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press release in twenty twenty five? About a band? Who's
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going to pick up that press release? I I see
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on Instagram often that there's people who advertise like, you
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can get your press release in Billboard or you can, No,
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you can't. You're gonna be on like you know, some
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regional music magazine that nobody reads. But they did services,
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they did honor their agreement. I don't know why somebody
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would be flexing about providing minimal funding for publicity, but
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we continue in this contract and in the email, he says,
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we'd pay for all future studio time ourself, and they'd
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still take fifty percent in exchange. They say we'd have
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industry protection. What is industry protection? Is just a mob?
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So you gotta pay to make your next album. They're
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gonna take fifty percent, but you get industry protection. What
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does that? What does that mean? Industry protection? That'd be
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a shame if don't know your practice room burned down.
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Give us fifty percent, we'll save it. It says what
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industry protection means is meaning they'd help with legal matters,
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copyright and keeping our music safe in the marketplace. Legal matters,
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so they're gonna be your lawyer as well. And copyright,
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I mean yeah, if you give them all your masters,
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they own the copyright. So if you give them your
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back catalog, they own the copyrights to it. If you
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just like, here, you go take our life's work and
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keeping our music safe in the marketplace. I don't understand
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what that means either, and I guarantee you they don't.
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If that's in the contract, they're gonna say, like, yeah,
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we'll make sure your music stays up on Spotify. You don't, okay,
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just make sure you pay your bill every year to
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distro Kate her tune cor and your music will stay up.
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Don't hire scam the boost your plays, and your music
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should be safe in the marketplace. Joikes, this is this
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is Uh well, I'll just say this is an interesting
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contract offer, says uh. I'll be honest, I'm excited. After
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all these years of doing it alone. Part of me
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just wants to finally have a team behind us. Well,
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you haven't been doing it alone. You've got a band,
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you've got a bass player who seems to be pretty
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smart too. But I know it's it's more dramatic to
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say you've been doing it alone. I get it. It
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says a team behind us to feel like all the
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work we've put in is being noticed. Yeah, it's being
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noticed by You've given everything away, but don't worry. You're
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getting music industry protection. It's like it's a it's like
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it's like LifeLock for something. But he says, my bass player,
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we'll call him Bob, keeps saying if it sounds too
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good to be true, it probably is. This doesn't sound
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too good to be true. This is a terrible deal.
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There's nothing good about this. I mean, that's where your
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bass player is wrong. If it sounds too good to
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be true, it probably is. You mentioned nothing about a
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signing bonus, so I don't know. I mean, you gotta
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pay for everything. They're gonna take half of everything, and
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then they're gonna give you, you know, fifty bucks for
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a publicist to write a press release that no one's
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gonna read or nobody's gonna pick up when they service it.
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If they service it. So, yeah, I don't believe this
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is too good to be true. I think this is
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actually garbage. But let's continue. He says, I know you've
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seen hundreds of deals like this. Yeah, actually I have.
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That's the sad part is I have seen hundreds of
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deals like this, and the problem is is there was
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one artist. This had to be twenty ten. I was
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regard the major in an R and an artist was
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wrapped up in a deal like this. It was we
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didn't sign them because, surprisingly enough, as bad as this is,
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the contracts are usually pretty good and it would take
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so much money to get them out of the deal.
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Because this this label here owns the band. They own them,
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even if it's a bad deal, even if they're giving
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them fifty percent of everything away to them, the label
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owns them. So then when you come around to try
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to sign this artist, the labels like, okay, yeah, one
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hundred thousand dollars. It's like, no, they they've been running
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the they've been running this. I'm not saying this label
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is a scam, but what the other labels I worked
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with in the past, when we try to get these
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artists off these deals, they're running a scam. And these
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artists sign everything away and this is looks like it's
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no different. So the email says, I love your take.
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Is this the opportunit we've been waiting for? Or are
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we about to give away seventeen years of hard work
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for nothing. You're about to give away seventeen years of
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hard work for nothing, well, not for nothing. They're going
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to give you industry security protection from the bad people,
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which you know, it's kind of like if you were
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a bank robber and he takes a bunch of hostages
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in the bank and he says, hey, if you sign
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up with me to be a bank robber, I will
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protect you from other bad, scary people. Like that's just
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what this is. But yeah, you're going to give away
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seventeen years of hard work, not for nothing. You're going
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to get a press release, minimal support, and industry of
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three D encryption, industry protection. I have no clue what
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that means. I have never I have never seen recording
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contract in twenty five years of doing this, working for majors,
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working for indies, I have never seen in twenty five
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plus years in this industry the term music industry protection
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in a contract. So see, I'm I'm like if I
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could sign this contract for one day, I would just
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so I could learn what the industry protection is. Like
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I just and they're gonna keep your music safe, like
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they're the ones ripping your music off, apparently maybe possibly
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probably appreciate any insight you can give. Uh, this is
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not what you're looking for, This is not what you
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were hoping for. This is actually if you typed out
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the wording properly, this might be one of the goofiest
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contracts I've ever seen. And I would advise you to
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go to an entertainment lawyer and just video it and
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send it to me when the industry lawyer, entertainment lawyers
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reading music industry protection, when you sign this contract, just
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please for me. I need that in my life right now.
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It's you know, it's like winter in Nashville. It's like
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fifty five degrees, it's overcast, it's miserable. I need that
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in my life right now. I would say thanks, but
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no thanks to them. And I would advise anybody if look, listen,
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anybody wants to sign you to a record deal and
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they want to take fifty percent and they're not doing
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anything besides offering you industry protection and minimal funding for
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marketing and publicity run anyway. I don't care. I don't
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care if they're going to offer you the moon, if
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they want fifty percent of your music, that's not how
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deals work. That's not an industry standard deal. That's a
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terrible deal. Publishing that is standard, but fifty to fifty.
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So you're going to give them fifty percent of your
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back catalog when they haven't given you any money. So
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at the bottom of the Spotify page, you can mention
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this label's name and you can feel good about yourselves
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that you've been struggling for seventeen years. This is what
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you want to you know, this is the pinnacle of
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seventeen years of your career. Is for industry protection and
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a fifty to fifty deal come on your bass player's
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right to pump the brakes. But it's not because it's
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too good to be true. It's because this is absolute
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garbage and this contract would probably destroy your band. Because
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here's the thing. This, this type of label can stay
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in business forever because they don't putting money up like
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they don't like what what this is like? Paying for
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a manager every month? Like what skin do they have
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in the game? You know, if you do twenty million
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streams or you do twenty streams, they're still making their
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fifty percent without putting up a dime. I mean, I
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don't know how much music industry protection costs, though, like
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that might be worth its weight in gold if it
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was actually a thing. But sorry to disappoints you, but
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I would not sign that if I was you. And
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if you have a question on the music industry that
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you want me to answer, just go to Matthewricks dot
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com click submit your question. I will answer it here.
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Make sure to like and subscribe, follow, leave a comment
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if you agree, disagree, and until next time, I will
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talk to you later.
