oakey
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Post by oakey on Mar 30, 2015 13:58:30 GMT -5
I also do not expect a new GH release. Greatest is already the perfect GH package; all the hits on one CD. After 1998 there were no more hits, apart from Sunrise for which Warner does not own the rights anyway. For the rest everyone can make their own GH album digitally nowadays. What I do expect though is one of those budget box set releases, like all Sire Madonna albums in one box in paper sleeves for $24,95. "Original Album Series" and what have you. These boxes also exist for artists like a-ha, Sisters of Mercy (also on Warner), Jesus and Mary Chain, Chic, Jacksons, Smiths, ABBA, Roxy Music (the latter 2 a bit more upmarket but hardly more expensive, bought the ABBA one for 15 UKP and Roxy for €40). These could include DD 1st album until Pop Trash and maybe even AYNIN. Boxes like these typically exclude live albums, but the fancy ones add a rarities disc (Roxy, ABBA).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 9:15:33 GMT -5
The copyright info on Astronaut says Duran Duran new partnership... Does that mean Duran Duran actually owns Astronaut and RCM?
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oakey
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Post by oakey on Mar 31, 2015 11:20:48 GMT -5
The copyright info on Astronaut says Duran Duran new partnership... Does that mean Duran Duran actually owns Astronaut and RCM? Well, I believe they own the copyrights for all their stuff, but not the publishing rights.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 11:44:25 GMT -5
The copyright info on Astronaut says Duran Duran new partnership... Does that mean Duran Duran actually owns Astronaut and RCM? Well, I believe they own the copyrights for all their stuff, but not the publishing rights. I don't think that's accurate. On the older stuff it all says copyright EMI records or Parlophone etcetera. I admit, I'm just an IT noob that didn't pay much attention in school lol... but it makes me wonder... Katy...?
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oakey
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Post by oakey on Mar 31, 2015 15:06:54 GMT -5
Well, I believe they own the copyrights for all their stuff, but not the publishing rights. I don't think that's accurate. On the older stuff it all says copyright EMI records or Parlophone etcetera. I admit, I'm just an IT noob that didn't pay much attention in school lol... but it makes me wonder... Katy...? Hm, maybe your're correct. I assumed that every artists owns their copyrights if they wrote the songs, but maybe that's just to the music and lyrics (ie the song) but not the actual recording, hence the flood of re-recordings you see by many artists.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 17:13:50 GMT -5
(this should just about cover it - &, unless there's any typos, it should be correct)
As a general rule, there's 2 parts to the copyright -
1. The author's rights, publisher's rights or mechanical rights - which is about the copyright for the overall composition.
2. & the performance or phonographic rights.
So, taking the Thank You album as an example, with the exception of Drive By (although the publishing rights 'may' be more complicated than normal because it's partly using The Chauffeur), all of 1 stayed with whoever owns the publishing rights for the original writers of the songs - whilst whatever deal was struck by Duran with EMi will determine who owns 2.
* * * * *
With 1, then most commercial composers/artists use a music publisher for the composition rights (& the publisher owns <>50% of that), & they promote the use of whatever they own for use in films & adverts & whatnot - though in many cases this ends up being the record company, & it's obviously possible for all of the composition rights to either be sold or owned as 'work for hire'.
in Duran's case though, for example, the publisher was initially Tritec (aka the Berrows) & then Skin Trade Music Ltd & then... ...so the composition rights were generally kept, to a larger extent than many successful artists, in house - though exactly what deals were stuck with the Berrows or how exactly they set up things with STM Ltd or whatever i wouldn't hazard to guess.
(this is what esp Nick's been referring to in the past about the initial deal with EMi & rights & ownership & whatnot)
Along with most of TY, ttbomk, an exception here would be DYBiS? where, because it (inadvertently - as the court case found that it wasn't deliberate) ripped off Suzie Q, so there's shared composition rights on that with the writers of that. Whilst both session artists &, for example, initially Warren & to some extent Dom, are typically treated as 'work for hire' - getting paid based on whatever private contract exists/ed rather than sharing any element of the copyright.
This isn't a hard rule though - so, with Dom, then looking at the info on the RCM sleeve it appears that he was solely work-for-hire... ...however on AYNiN, although he plays on all of the tracks, he's only appears to shares the composition copyright on some of them - so partly co-composing & partly work-for-hire...
...whilst Ronson has co-writing credits on x amount of AYNiN, rather than solely being a work-for-hire producer.
For 2, depending on the terms of the contract, the record company usually buys the rights of the copyright of the specific sound recording - with the artist then getting whatever advance & %age of sale once the advance is paid back & whatnot.
That's a general rule though, not the specifics of any specific deal that Duran made - so they own the full performance copyright on the sound recordings for both Medazzaland (gifted from EMi) & Pop Trash (as it was a primarily a distribution deal from recollection) atm...
...whilst clearly, as an example, at least some %age of rights to the sound recordings for the first 10 albums (subject to whatever the contracts were on advances & %ages & whatnot) were owned by EMi (Parlophone being part of EMi), in that they became assets that could be sold when EMi when under... ...with (again) Duran getting the copyright back for Medazzaland & Warner now owning EMi's performance copyright to the first 9 albums.
Additionally to all of that, you then have the copyright on the sleeves & whatnot - where it will depend on the exact contracts as to who owns what parts of the copyright to them...
...& again it'll either be work-for-hire - where both parts of the copyright may be owned outright by Duran &/or the record company...
...or it'll effectively be a similar split between 1 & 2.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 21:00:57 GMT -5
Ah thanks pocketdemon for clearing that up! So in the case of RCM and Astronaut that the rights are basically controlled by Duran Duran?
So now, with the move to Warner Duran Duran are now rejoined with the initial rights to the first 9 albums and we can safely say that the whole back catalogue is now available for future releases, which potentially is interesting news for us.. fans!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 22:25:08 GMT -5
Ah thanks pocketdemon for clearing that up! So in the case of RCM and Astronaut that the rights are basically controlled by Duran Duran? So now, with the move to Warner Duran Duran are now rejoined with the initial rights to the first 9 albums and we can safely say that the whole back catalogue is now available for future releases, which potentially is interesting news for us.. fans! i think you've misread Astronaut & RCM's details.
On both, the ℗/(P) (the proper symbol looks shonky on here for some reason) demarcation is used for the performance rights, & on the Astronaut CD it says "(P) 2004 Duran Duran New Partnership / Epic"...
...whilst on RCM it says "(P) 2007 Skin Divers / Epic".
This is the US format for indicating the difference between who owns the two parts of the copyright, & as it's expressing legal copyright ownership then, unless something's changed that i've not heard of since the original deal(s), there's a co-ownership of the performance rights between whomever was in the two partnerships (i assume the five for the former & sans Andy for the latter - but they 'could' have added other people into either partnership for services rendered) & Epic.
As far as i can see (without the contract leaking), the main advantage for Duran of being reunited with most of the catalogue will be that there's more of a rationale for Warner to heavily promote the new album - as they also stand to make on people buying the back catalogue having heard the new one...
...but potentially (& this is purely theoretical) they 'could' have renegotiated the original EMi contracts for the earlier albums to get more control &/or a better %age as part of their new deal with Warner... ...or, indeed, they could have renegotiated a worse deal for the older albums (at least their share of them - as obviously Andy's, Sterling's, Warren's, etc cuts aren't theirs to give away anything of) in order to get the new deal.
Now i'm really not suggesting that Duran would have sold their souls to get the Warner deal, but as any new Duran album will be a gamble commercially (well, AYNiN was a vastly better album than Astronaut but didn't sell anywhere near as well, so there's really no knowing) then if i were Warner then i'd either have wanted a bigger piece of the back catalogue or a %age on the tour profits (& potentially given a bit of the back catalogue control/%age as a sweetener) in order to secure a decent return on an investment in promoting & distributing the new album.
To be clear, i'm in no way stating that any of this is what's actually happened with the deal & i really hope that DD14's a huge success & whatnot - so it's just solely a theoretical thought based on having some realism that the new album may not sell huge amounts, but the more promotion the better, & that Warner obviously aren't a charity.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2015 3:52:56 GMT -5
Hi pocketdemon, Thanks again for your extensive feedback. Now regarding the fact that DD did or did not sell their souls in favor for the contract, I think that indeed Warner wants to ensure that they can offer the complete back catalogue in the slipstream of the new release and hence the renewed exposure of the band to the masses.
The fact that S-Curve has also been sold to Warner and Duran Duran has as good as complete control over the Astronaut and RCM releases, at least - that's how I interpret this - makes it clear what the intentions are regarding Warner.
You pointed out that sales of All you need is now were less than Astronaut, but you cannot know that. Apple does not share any sales figures about that, and the deal with Apple was that the exclusive sales for the first 3 months were fro the iTunes store. And that's exactly the reason why Duran Duran only released a 9 track album for that and released a couple of EP's along with it.
The fans - at that point in time unaware of this deal - criticized the band for this move, while commercially this was a very clever move. Because that way, Duran Duran as a "company" was able to finance the release of the physical album themselves without having to face financial risks.
The profits of that release then were 100% granted to Duran Duran and their business associates and co-writers. And I can assure you, that's a hell of a lot more than Astronaut...
The only thing about this that they didn't really thought through very well was that they should have taken a bit more time promoting the singles and tour after the promo period instead in the middle of it, and release Girl Panic as the first single instead of All you need is now. But given the fact that the iTunes album and the physical one did extremely well in the charts points out that after all this album may even did a lot better than Astronaut.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2015 14:04:01 GMT -5
As starting point, it was simply supposed to be a thought about what potentially might have happened with the new deal - so just thinking laterally & saying that Warner having a major copyright interest in the earlier albums *could* have been part of negotiating the contract...
...whereas, obviously, with Epic, it couldn't.
it actually doesn't matter to me what the contract is, providing the band are happy with it & it both gets them what they need & Warner have enough incentive to play a really active role in promoting the thing.
Then, where do you have you found any info that Duran effectively has control over Astronaut & RCM? Well, unless Epic sell or give away their interest then it's simply not going to be the case.
Obviously if you have this info & i've missed it then i'll clearly concede the point entirely, but...
Now, looking at sales, as an example, from February 2005 in the UK then digital sales of albums counted towards the certification of silver/gold/platinum awards in the UK... ...&, i believe it was mid-2004 in the US... ...& the charts moved to include downloads slightly later from recollection.
(it's only adding 'sales' for people streaming using spotify & youtube & whatnot that happened far more recently)
This means that, whilst the US sales included downloads for Astronaut, most/all relevant markets would have a more favourable position, both for certification & chart positions for RCM & AYNiN (& for their singles) than Astronaut, as clearly not all markets were counting iTunes sales when it was first released...
This means that the chart positions & sales figures for Astronaut for most countries are going to be significantly under counted vs the latter two...
(according to the BPi, Astronaut hit gold/100,000 sales in the UK 4 days after release, on the 15th of October 2004, so clearly it's certification did not include any iTunes purchases at all)
...&, similarly, the new single(s)/album will gain 'sales' & chart positions from people streaming them that weren't counted for any of those previous 3 albums when there was the main initial buzz & peak interest in them.
So, album-wise, whilst you're quite correct to say that chart positions 'may' have been lower d.t. the iTunes & physical release of AYNiN being split, conversely certification levels did include both iTunes & the physical releases for AYNiN - &, as one of the main markets for Duran album sales, whilst Astronaut went gold in the UK, AYNiN didn't even go silver &, again, iTunes sales counted for the latter, & not for the former.
(this is totally different to how much money Duran themselves made from the respective albums as it was a completely different deal - mainly/solely distribution from recollection as opposed to a full contract)
Then, just because there weren't physical singles (beyond promos & the Record Store Day release), this wouldn't necessarily impact d.t. the adding in of iTunes to the charts being for all of the AYNiN singles.
That said, obviously the iTunes AYNiN single, as the first track released, downloads were discounted in at least the US, as it was free for a bit - so, at least in the US, its chart position as a single won't reflect the actual number of downloads... & i fully accept that...
...but as, generally, the majority of singles sales for chart positions & sales had become downloads by that time, GP! didn't do anywhere as near as well in terms of chart position as even WHT did - & GP! that had far more buzz online d.t. the video.
Now, clearly i'm a longstanding fan & i have no interest in putting the band down whatsoever - but, as said, there's got to be some realism that it'd be a real gamble for any record company to throw stupid amounts of money at as these days, as how great or not it happens to be doesn't reflect directly onto sales...
(again, ANYiN was a much better album & got much better reviews than Astronaut)
...& as the majority of money that Duran now make from new music is going to be from touring & merchandise & corporate gigs & whatnot - which sorts the band out financially but not the record company 'if' a contract were solely tied to sales for the new single(s)/album.
Anyway, as i tried to make clear in the original post, it was just me thinking laterally as to another *potential* advantage when it came to negotiating the new deal by having most of the back catalogue (again just the 4 current members shares) to play with - not saying that it actually played any part at all.
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