Reimagining the Music Industry: In Search of a More Perfect Union
Loren E. Mulraine | 27 Vand. J. Ent. & Tech. L. 279 (2025)
This Article challenges the long-standing accepted business model of the music industry, including recording contract terms, ownership of masters, artist recoupment, and copyright terminations. It explores the negative implications of failing to revise these methods and neglecting to create a more equitable relationship between artists and recording companies. Indeed, the music industry is an outlier from almost every commercial industry in its financing structure. As such, this Article suggests that the future industry model should include equity ownership of master recordings. It then reviews the need to revise contract terms and eliminate the unilateral options and the unduly burdensome clauses such as the controlled composition clause. The industry’s heavy-handed practice of calculating recoupment on the artists’ fraction of the income that is reflected in their royalty rate, as opposed to a more equitable method of using net receipts requires creative adjustments to contracts that provide for artists to gain an ownership interest in their master recordings. Finally, this Article concludes that the current statutory language of the Copyright Act of 1976, as it relates to copyright terminations, is poorly conceived and falls far short of the stated Congressional intent of providing creators with a fair opportunity to recapture their copyrights after a specified period of time. The past two decades have brought technological and informational advances that have allowed artists to thrive without the assistance of deep pocketed recording companies. Major labels must adapt to these changes by making their relationships with artists more equitable. If they do not evolve, they will become a relic of the past.