Corporate rock sucks #11: United Musicians

Aimee Mann
photo by Elston

Hazel and I had been discussing the sacrifice of integrity and artistic control that signing to a major label, or publishing company always seems to involve and she mentioned that Aimee Mann had managed to distance herself from the evils of the record industry. She was instrumental in setting up United Musicians which maybe has the right idea...

UNITED MUSICIANS is founded on the principle that every artist should be able to retain copyright ownership of the work he or she has created and that this ownership is the basis for artistic strength and true independence.

I could never understand why any musician needed to sign away any of their rights in order to be successful. Why sign licensing and publishing deals - if someone wants to use or publish your music why can’t they negotiate with you rather than with a third party who take a hefty chunk for the trouble. How can McCartney not own all those songs he's written? When Northern Songs was set up Lennon and McCartney got 15% each - they wrote 50% and got 15% how crap is that?

I guess that there are a lot of artists who are willing to sacrifice some control as a downpayment on success but it seems so short-sighted.

Off course it seems to be a little weak using the richest man in the country as an example of being ripped of by the industry, particularly as his MPL owns the rights of a lot of music that McCartney didn't write...

Ho-hum...