Kanye West Shares His Ideas for ‘Recording and Publishing Deal Guidelines’ Online

For the past week, Kanye West has been tweeting his thoughts about the recording contracts of all artists. After calling out Universal Music Group and more, Ye took to Twitter to detail what he thinks are the “NEW RECORDING AND PUBLISHING DEAL GUIDELINES” should be.

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“1. The artist owns the copyright in the recordings and songs and leases them to the record label / publisher for a limited term,” Kanye began before listing the rest.

NEW RECORDING AND PUBLISHING DEAL GUIDELINES
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

1. The artist owns the copyright in the recordings and songs and leases them to the record label / publisher for a limited term. 1 year deals
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

2. The record label / publisher is a service provider that receives a share of the income for a limited term. The split can be 80/20 in the artists favor
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

3. DEPENDANTS

Artists must be dependent on no one but themselves to manage their catalog. You should need NO ONE else to understand the business you’re in.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

4. LAWYERS

the first thing that changes about Record Deals is actually lawyers.

We need Plain English contracts. A Lawyers role is to IMPROVE deals…. not charge for contracts we cannot understand or track. Re-write deals to be understandable from FIRST READ.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

5. EQUITY & BLANKET LICENSES ARE THE MAJORITY OF FUTURE NEW INCOME.

If you’re with a major you have invested your ‘songs’ as shares in their power to get equity and deals. Almost ALL new deals now are based on ALL songs going to a store or app. The equity is the Artists
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

NO MORE blanket licenses. It should be clear from day one… what shares you get NOW and when you leave. If your song helps a deal over the line you invested in that store / app same as they did.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

UMG now has a 2.2 billion share holding stake in Spotify. This is the artists. The system as to how we get share balances on our royalty statement needs to be created and a system on when Artists can cash in.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

5. ADVANCES ARE JUST LOANS!!

On Artists re-signing these stop. Advances are Loans with 75% interest rates (or worse). NO other business in the world takes a look at the business, buys shares, starts to profit when it profits. Record Companies have to buy into you, not loan you.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

6. ROYALTIES

Again back to dependents. You need a business manager to read how you did? So you pay to see your money!!! NO MORE.

Royalty portals need to show (and do not now)

Every song you delivered

Every store you are in

How many streams per song

Income per song
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

It sounds basic and logical but t does NOT exist. They focus on top earners and ZERO look at the 440 stores…. Only the top few. Artists are global. That’s why their contract territory says GLOBAL

Royalty department in EVERY label. No more separating finance teams from the music
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020

7. PORTALS

Are not just for royalties. They are for your entire business. Every audio file, every asset, every deal stored WITH the money. Money and Music must stay together. When your term ends, download it all. Leave.
— ye (@kanyewest) September 20, 2020