Employment and Contracts

 

Employment – e.g. by a major record company

 

Self-Employment/Entrepreneur – e.g. independent label

 

Freelance – e.g. plugger, P.R officer, session musician

 

Session musician would normally have a contract determined by the Musicians Union e.g. rate per hour, minimum no of hours per booking.

 

Pluggers would normally have a contract based on performance e.g. a basic fee then bonuses for radio plays and/or chart positions

 

Act - Venue contract stating what the act provides and receives e.g. the act will perform for 4 hours and will receive 15% of door take plus £20 drinks budget.

 

Record Company contracts – normally for a minimum no of albums but the record company has the option to terminate early if not satisfied with sales, etc. The artist has no such option. Most terms are open to negotiation but unless you are in great demand the record company may not be too flexible in their terms. Record companies are only paid on record sales (i.e. no entitlement to copyright royalties, merchandising etc.) and if they do not make back what they spent on the artist the artist is not obliged to pay back any such debts.

 

Artist - Manager contracts – normally covers all areas of an acts career and entitles the manager to 20% of the acts royalties (including those from merchandising, touring, product endorsements, etc.). If the manager does not perform well enough there may well be conditions within the contract to allow the act to terminate it.

 

Publishing contracts – assign total copyright ownership to the publisher in return for the publisher’s services and a percentage (typically 60%) of all profits the publisher receives from writer’s material.