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Author Topic: Who gets the "tapes"?  (Read 2044 times)

spankenstein

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Who gets the "tapes"?
« on: July 08, 2005, 11:24:28 PM »

Not really tapes but here's a little drama I'm in the middle of...

There's a band I recorded a couple years ago. They didn't have a singer but recorded songs and looked for a singer. The found one, brought him in and did his vocals. They had a falling out and found another one. Same deal, he redid his vocals on the songs... and another falling out.

So now singer #2 is going to a recording school and wanted my Pro Tools files to play with (I use SONAR). So I check with the other guys in that band.

I get a yes.

Then the next day I get the following:

"He can only have his vocal tracks, no instruments"

"He can only have the tracks with singer #1 because that was the real band"

"He can have them, but he can't change any of the instruments"

WTF?

After I had the yes answer I emailed the dude back and told him I could get them but there would be a charge for pulling them off of backup and burning a new DVD and quoted my hourly rate if he wanted them as zeroed out wav files so he could import them into PT.

So who do you relase stuff to? Would you give singer #2 the stuff?
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wwittman

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Re: Who gets the "tapes"?
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2005, 03:24:25 AM »

The "tapes" (or drives or audio files) BELONG to whomever PAID for them.
and this applies at any 'level' of the business.

so who ever OWNS them (by dint of having paid for them) gets to decide who gets copies.

You get to sit back and say "Hey, Nigel (who paid for them) said you can't have a copy, sorry"

OR

you get to charge Nigel to make more copies to give to his girlfriend, who sings.
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William Wittman
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TheViking

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Re: Who gets the "tapes"?
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2005, 10:08:18 AM »

This situation gets really fun when there's a record label involved.   Been there many times before.

I kinda agree with wwittman - the politics of it sucks and I'm sure the band is making a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be - but the final say belongs with 'the money man'.

Good luck!

The Viking
www.vikingrecording.com
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j.hall

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Re: Who gets the "tapes"?
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2005, 01:39:06 PM »

tell singer #2 to call the guys in the band and work it out with them and have one of the band members call you with the decision......

singer #2 can't be trusted to give you the answer of the band.....even if he's a trustable guy, always have the owner of the masters direct you.
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spankenstein

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Re: Who gets the "tapes"?
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2005, 11:27:34 AM »

That's the direction I'm heading... I do however know that they all fronted the money. So far after telling singer #2 the rates for retreival he has lost interest. So for now... problem solved.

Followup, should I keep masters/projects after completion and delivery. Right now I back up projects to DVD after each day of work. At the completion of the jobs should these go with the band and out of my hair? While it would be nice (and easy at this point) for me to keep them it seems like I would be opening myself up to some liability/drama where If I was like, "Here's your stuff... don't lose it." It might seem un-nice.
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j.hall

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Re: Who gets the "tapes"?
« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2005, 02:39:42 PM »

i have a whole shelving unit full of 2" 24 track tapes in my basement.  i unloaded a bunch of tapes when i built my room and ended up with less storage space then i had before.....but i still have about 10 projects worth of tapes.

as for digital media......it takes up much less room, i'm happy to give the band a copy of their masters (or the label) and keep one filed away just in case theirs is lost or damaged.  redundant copies is not a bad idea when it comes to digital storage.

for larger projects i sometimes just get a firewire drive, i just do all my mixes and send the drive back.
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Rob Darling

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Re: Who gets the "tapes"?
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2005, 08:44:27 AM »

As soon as they pay you and it's done, get it out of your world.  You don't want responsibility.

Now, on the flip side, given the ease of digital backup, keeping copies is a good way to put some extra bread in your pocket every once in a while when someone calls and says, "Please tell me you still have a copy- we lost what we had."  I had this happen recently when a project I only spent a day mixing one song for lost an album's worth of stuff.  I had the whole project on my drive and made more than I was paid to mix it "retrieving" it- I told them I'd deleted it but that the drive hadn't been used since and that I might be able to get it back.  They were more than happy to pay for what would have been the loss of a month of recording.

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Fibes

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Re: Who gets the "tapes"?
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2005, 09:23:14 AM »

Been there, hate it. This is between the band and the ex-singer. Ordinarily once a member leaves a group they lose all say so unless the band is cool with it. If they are you need to get them to sign a masters release; all of them.

FWIW I give the band the option of leaving with their own Firewire drive and 2 DVDs, if they don't want to pay they sign a waiver; i keep a DVD and a FW backup of all projects regardless; as stated earlier it's good business to pull that shit out of your ass and save the day. Digging out shit like that is worth about one EMI TG2 per year; don't deny yourself that pleasure.
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Fibes
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j.hall

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Re: Who gets the "tapes"?
« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2005, 10:31:29 AM »

robdarling@mail.com wrote on Tue, 12 July 2005 07:44


Now, on the flip side, given the ease of digital backup, keeping copies is a good way to put some extra bread in your pocket every once in a while when someone calls and says, "Please tell me you still have a copy- we lost what we had."  I had this happen recently when a project I only spent a day mixing one song for lost an album's worth of stuff.  I had the whole project on my drive and made more than I was paid to mix it "retrieving" it- I told them I'd deleted it but that the drive hadn't been used since and that I might be able to get it back.  They were more than happy to pay for what would have been the loss of a month of recording.




that seems a little slimy to me......
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spankenstein

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Re: Who gets the "tapes"?
« Reply #9 on: July 12, 2005, 10:58:00 AM »

j.hall wrote on Tue, 12 July 2005 09:31

[email

robdarling@mail.com[/email] wrote on Tue, 12 July 2005 07:44]
Now, on the flip side, given the ease of digital backup, keeping copies is a good way to put some extra bread in your pocket every once in a while when someone calls and says, "Please tell me you still have a copy- we lost what we had."  I had this happen recently when a project I only spent a day mixing one song for lost an album's worth of stuff.  I had the whole project on my drive and made more than I was paid to mix it "retrieving" it- I told them I'd deleted it but that the drive hadn't been used since and that I might be able to get it back.  They were more than happy to pay for what would have been the loss of a month of recording.




that seems a little slimy to me......


I agree here. I don't want to rip anyone off! I asked the guy for a few bucks to cover the time and the media. Not like... a massive amount of money. I currently just have lots of DVDs on a shelf and don't mind keeping them.
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Fibes

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Re: Who gets the "tapes"?
« Reply #10 on: July 12, 2005, 11:47:26 AM »

I understood what you meant.

I have a FW drive with all of my artists mixes and "Jam" files so if they ever need something burned again it's right there. It's burned for a cost of a reference cd. Typically i'll have three to four calls a month on old projects which adds up pretty quick. BTW what are reference cds going for nowadays?

The other full projects are elsewhere and remixes and other stuff are all done hourly or on a project basis.

I have been fortunate to only have to say "sorry" once for a master that could not be located. It wasn't my project, it was my partners but unfortunately they were MY friends. I still think the tape (ADAT) was handed over to them and they don't remember, but I still feel very bad to this day, regardless of the fact that I wasn't involved. That day, things changed in our backup procedures.
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Fibes
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