Oct. 28, 2025

Should You Sign a 50/50 Record Deal? | Music Industry Breakdown

Show Notes
Transcript

In this episode of the Music Business Newsletter with Matthew Rix, I respond to an email from an artist. He is the lead singer of a band that has been grinding it out for 17 years without a record deal until now.
After nearly two decades of shows, albums, and DIY hustle, a label finally reached out with a contract… but there’s a catch. Actually, there are a few.

Here’s what the label is offering:
Take full ownership of their entire back catalog
50/50 split on both album sales and publishing
Minimal funding for marketing and publicity
The band pays for their own studio time, and the label still takes 50%
“Industry protection” (No clue what that means)

He is excited and ready to sign but his bass player says it’s a bad deal. So in this episode, I break down the offer, explain what each clause really means, and talk about when a record deal is worth it (and when to walk away).

If you’ve ever dreamed about getting signed, this one’s a must watch before you put your name on any contract.

Got a question about the music industry or a deal you want me to review?
Head over to MatthewRix.com and send in your question might be featured in a future Music Business newsletter.

#MusicIndustry #RecordDeal #MusicContracts #IndependentArtist #MusicBusinessTips #MattrixMinute #MatthewRix #ArtistAdvice #MusicLabel #SigningADeal #MusicIndustrySecrets #BandLife #RecordLabelScam

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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.