Who owns what?

With all that is going on with the Imperials, a friend of mine brought something to my attention that is indeed an interesting observation: when it comes to product, who owns what, and who gets paid?

While shopping the local Christian bookstore, my friend came across an Imperials compilation released by New Haven Records entitled Classic Hits. It is part of the Gospel Legacy series that New Haven started a short while back. From the looks of it, NH has been spending money on these projects; they have leased tracks from Word to appear on this compilation. The result is a package that seems to cover a decent timespan of their most popular years both on Heartwarming/Benson/Impact and the beginning of their tenure on Word. The cover photo features Armond Morales, Terry Blackwood, Jim Murray, Sherman Andrus, and Joe Moscheo.

Another package was on the shelf, Legacy, a two-disc set chronicling the Imperials from 1978-1989. This group had a number of different members, including Russ Taff, Paul Smith, David Will, Jim Murray, and many others. To take each member and divy up the royalties would make releasing the disc almost pointless.

So, the question remains....who gets paid? Does each member get a royalty based on their recording? Does all the money go to the group owner, who then has a deal with each former member to distribute royalties (or does it all go in the owner's pocket with the former members SOL)? Not only that, but who has the final say on what is released? Obviously, the record company has at least SOME say, as they're the ones sinking the money into the project, but does the artist retain an executive decision?

I know that some artists had a "lease pickup" deal, which means that they paid for the product up front and leased the final master to the record company, who would then release, distribute, promote, and market the title for a set time frame, but ultimately, ownership of those masters were owned by the group. This is the ideal setup for a group who expects quite a bit of longevity, and should they sign with a new label down the road, they have the potential to re-release this material without having to buy the album back.

Other groups, however, sign deals that leave everything they do with the record company. This is for the group who cannot afford to front the payment for an album. The record company sets the budget, usually has a fair amount of creative input (for better or worse), and when the project is done, they get the money, with the artist getting a royalty share. At the end of the day, the album is the property of that record company, and if the artist wants to use it, they have to negotiate with the label to get permission.

Each group negotiates different terms in a record contract. Some say that, regardless of whether they stay with that label, they have the final say on product being released (The Oak Ridge Boys do this, and when MCA released a compilation last year, not only did they have the final say on what cuts were used, but they also participated in the extensive liner notes). That way, while the artist doesn't own the masters, they still have control over what is released with their name and/or likeness.

There are still "budget" albums that are released as "unauthorized" products. There are a ton of Oaks albums on shelves today that consist of material from the mid-60's, yet feature the current group (or an artistic interpretation of such) on the covers. Legally, these CD's cannot be released without their authorization, but considering the price (and low amount of sales) of these discs, they simply chose not to waste their time and energy trying to fight every low-budget distributor who does this.

In the Imperials case, however, one has to wonder who it is that gets the check. Is it Armond, whose voice is on the recordings (and who owned the group at the time), or is it the current members that Armond sold the group to? Since the whole legal issue is over who officially owns (and who can use) the name Imperials, not who is the rightful owner of the Imperials as a business, I would assume that the current group is entitled to the income, who would then issue Armond a check (although given their current feud, the odds of Armond getting anything but a summons at this point are pretty slim!).

It's times like this I'm glad I'm not an accountant!!