Understanding Music Ownership and Legal Agreements

Music ownership and music rights have spawned a number of pop culture debates. The difference between ‘bop’ and ‘bumpin’ uglies,’ debates on who should’ve won rap’s top artists awards, and even the impact of a bunch of kids teaching the world the meaning of “swag.” Now, I’m not going to rehash a bunch of episodes of a podcast I heard on those debates, but what stuck out to me is the intense scrutiny of music ownership and how that connects to contracts and legal agreements.

I’m sure Pop ‘stache readers have not heard this yet, but there is a phenomenon where a company called “DOOM” takes ownership over an artist’s album without having any prior relationship with the artist. This debacle becomes public as DVDs get hacked and leaked and somehow the contract ends up on websites for anyone with internet access to see. You have journalists crunching numbers and debating the contract like they are forensic accountants and lawyers. You have artists commenting on their dismay on social media. You have YouTube video exposés on those artists who choose to bicker publicly about their contracts and how unfair those agreements are.

It is fascinating for us outsiders to see. It highlights some of the flaws in how the music industry works and how limited some artists are in getting ahead.

This also brings to mind the concept of a comprehensive lessor lessee agreement. It is a “legal agreement wherein the lessor conveys to the lessee the right to use a property for how long and for what price.” (That’s the legalese definition by the way.) Let’s break that down. Historically speaking, this has been applied to residential and commercial rentals. A ‘lessee’ is essentially a tenant and a ‘lessor’ is a landlord. One pays to use and the other charges a fee for that use.

But what if we were to apply this to the music industry? What if, as an artist ‘lessee,’ you signed an agreement saying you (as the ‘lessee’) have the right to use DOOM’s ‘property’ (aka, their beats) for an agreed upon time period and at an agreed upon price? I mean isn’t this what music rights are? Aren’t artists and a label essentially taking out a lease or taking out an ownership loan on music rights? You may say no, you may say yes, but I think that the concept radiates from a more deep-rooted industry issue.

A lot of musicians aren’t really owners of the music that they produce. It’s odd because music still works under a purchase framework where the consumer has ownership over the music that they buy. (For example, if you were to buy a CD, you technically own the music in that CD, since the purchase was the exchange of money for the right to use the music – much like a lessor lessee agreement.)

But the problem is that the musicians and artists rarely have the right to own the music that they produce. And that’s the leech that the DOOM deal is exposing. Under this framework musicians are essentially borrowing the right to use the music from music producers and promoters. The artists are even borrowing the money to finance the production of materials. In fact, most artists don’t want to “borrow” the rights to use of their music. They really want to own it, but they don’t have enough capital or enough music hits under their belts to persuade potential business partners that they can be trusted to honor the agreement.

So, that begs the question of what the future holds for music contracts. Is DOOM ahead of their time? Are they leading a new trend on how to acquire the rights to an album? Could ‘leasing’ music be a new way for artists to ensure that their creators get credit and payment for their work? Perhaps. I mean leasing has worked for millions of customers who have leased homes and even leased stadiums, why wouldn’t it make sense to lease music?

There are plenty of examples of how ‘leasing’ music worked in the past. Music producers and dj’s have ‘leased’ studio time to famous hip-hop artists on mixtapes which lead to contracts between record labels and artists. The issue of artists ‘leasing’ studio time is a whole other conversation that may be covered on another episode of our fictitious podcast, but one thing remains clear. The history and idea of ‘leasing’ carries a lot of weight in an artist’s career even though the artist would never frame it as ‘leasing.’ As you go about critiquing the validity of DOOM or any of the other famous music contract disputes, try to keep in mind how the concept of leasing can be applied to understand those contracts. The key takeaway is to explore ideas outside the box and analyze if there is common ground in the concept that may shed light on the issues.