Yesterday, the 21st of June 2023 was world music day. 21st of June every year has been a date that is reserved exclusively to celebrate music and by extension celebrate the creators of music; the musicians. The primary purpose of celebrating world music day is to encourage aspiring musicians to share their crafts, gain more visibility and create a forum for artists to demonstrate their abilities.
The major problem encountered by aspiring musicians is visibility. Getting to “blow” and becoming famous so that a large number of people will listen to their music and appreciate their talents and from that generate revenues for themselves. Out of that desperation “to blow”, budding artistes have yoked themselves with some throat-cutting record label deals only to regret why they signed the deal later on.
I recently got a brief from an artiste who was complaining hard that he signed out of desperation an eight-year record deal with a record label and he is expected to release 400 songs for the label for the period of the eight years. One of the clauses stated that if the artistes wish to leave the label without dropping 400 songs for the period of the 8 years term, the artiste is to pay the label a certain huge amount of money as compensation.
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The legal truth is, no matter how brutal a record label deal like this may seem, it is a contract and every party in a contract is expected to fulfill his or her own obligation in the contract or he will be held for breach of the contract unless the contract was made under fraud, facts were misrepresented or a party signed the contract under coercion or undue influence.
When an artiste signs a record deal contract, it is presumed that the artiste thoroughly read, reviewed the contract, and understood its contents before he appended his signature and he signed it knowing fully what he is signing and it, therefore, becomes a binding contract which the artiste must fulfill his own obligation, anything other than that amounts to breach of contract.
Although, there are some exceptions to an artiste leaving a label without fulfilling his obligation and it won’t be held to be a breach of the record label contract; this includes when a record label deals or the contract expects you as an artiste to do what is literally impossible.
Like if a record label expects you to record and release a new song every minute of the day, this is literally impossible and a court of equity will hold that there has not been a breach if the artist fails to fulfill this obligation. Also, If the record label that signed the artist fails to fulfill its own obligation or hold up to its own side of the bargain then an artist can exit the label and he won’t be held to have breached the contract.
For instance, if the clause in the record label contract states that the record label will pay the artiste a certain amount as an advance fee for the contract but the label fails to do that, then they have failed to hold up their own end of the bargain and the artiste is entitled to exit. Also if the label fails to regularly invest in the music and promote the music of the artiste as the contract stated, then the artiste is entitled to exit the label anytime and he won’t be foreclosed for breach of contract.
It is always advised that despite your desperation to blow, endeavour to consult a lawyer who will interpret the contents of the contract to you in layman’s terms, and renegotiate some clauses of the contract before you sign it.
