MJ's SOny BMG contract (new-album related)

[144000]

Man listen the whole thing with Michael and Sony is one of the weirdest things I ever come across. I would think if Michael's truly out of Sony and he agreed to do this to boost more of MJ's music or to bring Sony back more profit - the label's actually not doing so hot, it's the third biggest company in the world behind Universal and EMI with Warner at the bottom of the totem pole. The merging with BMG Recordings is actually keeping them afloat but apart from that, Sony as a record company has ceased to exist since 2004. "Thriller 25" is leading people with many assumptions that either MJ will continue to release music with SONY or that Michael is actually allowing SONY to do this so he can get the money or that if it does well, it will help out when he get the full masters if he don't have 'em already.

exactly. the reality is..i don't think any of us really knows what's going on.

like everything else that is MJ..it's sorta....unprecedented...perhaps...as far as we can see..

 

[144000]

exactly. the reality is..i don't think any of us really knows what's going on.

like everything else that is MJ..it's sorta....unprecedented...perhaps...as far as we can see..

did i just say..'whats going on' to you, troubleman?

sry..that was NOT intended.

boy subliminal things are a trip...

 

[troubleman84]

did i just say..'whats going on' to you, troubleman?

sry..that was NOT intended.

boy subliminal things are a trip...

Oh don't even worry about that. It's alright with me. "Gotta give it up", ya know?

 

[DenisRS]

especially when mj will get the masters back very soon

To be fair, as Michael was producer of his music always, in technical term he always owned and will always own "masters".

As rights term, however, under Jackson's contract with Epic Records/SME (now Sony-BMG) complete copyrights for all published music were exclusively sold to the recording company.

And there is no information that the copyright is only sold up to this or the following year. Many implied that it will end "next year" three years ago already, but for example "Bad" album about which people talked here is still belongs to ER/Sony-BMG -- You can check it on their site.

Even more: copyrights' end at whatever contractual term is highly unlikable and most unheard phenomenon. This means that most probably all albums released under Epic Records will "always" belong to that music label, meaning that copyrights were sold "forever". It is just with other artists and groups -- whenever they find new musical label their previous albums never go transferred to that new label from the previous one.

So I am not sure why people talk of "masters back". No matter how it will turn out of possible new albums, Sony-BMG/ER/LR will continue to sell all Michael's material released under the label; it can be decades.