Latest / Clone Wars: The Spinoff / JR Writer’s Royalty Fight and the Power of Catalog Audits

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JR Writer’s Royalty Fight and the Power of Catalog Audits · Clone Wars: The Spinoff

• 0:00
  Welcome to the show, everybody!
• 0:01
  I'm Dangerous Zygos, here with DJ Universe, Calvin Blingwell,
• 0:05
  and Dandy Market.
• 0:06
  And DJ Universe, I need to start with a year that was pure lightning: 2003.
• 0:11
  Picture Cam'ron in that iconic pink mink coat, Juelz Santana with the bandana,
• 0:17
  and Dipset releasing Diplomatic Immunity.
• 0:20
  It was a creative gold rush, but behind all that heat, the paperwork was trailing
• 0:24
  way, way behind the music.
• 0:27
  Oh, I remember those days vividly.
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  We were blasting "Diplomatic Immunity" out of every car trunk in Ohio.
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  But look, that brings us straight to the headline making waves right now: JR Writer
• 0:38
  is suing Universal Music Group over unpaid master royalties from that exact
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  Roc-A-Fella era.
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  It's that classic, painful hip-hop pattern where an artist looks back twenty years
• 0:49
  later and realizes the bag was never actually zipped shut.
• 0:54
  Man, as a rising artist in Calabasas now, this hits home.
• 0:58
  You get in the room, the vibe is crazy, the beats are hitting,
• 1:02
  and you just want to lay down the verse.
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  But being a monster on the mic doesn't mean a thing if you aren't protected on
• 1:08
  paper.
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  We build the legacy in the vocal booth, but the ownership?
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  That's defended in the contract, and too many cats find that out when the streaming
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  checks are going to someone else's account.
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  You gotta stay lit to survive, but you also gotta stay smart.
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  The crazy thing to me isn't even just that someone didn't get paid.
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  It's that a catalog from 2004 can sit there like a dormant gold mine for two
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  decades.
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  UMG has been sitting on those masters, collecting off digital streams,
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  ringtones back in the day, licensing, while the creator is basically locked out
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  because nobody was tracking the chain of title.
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  And that's the thing!
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  Those specific soul-sample beats, those high-pitched vocal chops that Heatmakerz and
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  Just Blaze were doing--that sonic identity defined a whole generation.
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  It still has massive licensing value today for syncs, docs,
• 2:02
  and playlists.
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  That's why old masters keep earning.
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  If the music didn't have legs, we wouldn't be talking about a lawsuit in 2024.
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  Exactly, the value compounds.
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  But if you don't have the administrative discipline as a CEO of your own brand,
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  you're just handing free money to the majors.
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  Let's break down exactly how much gets lost when you let a catalog sleep.
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  See, this is the shift we need.
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  A lot of artists treat a song like a quick paycheck--get the advance,
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  buy the chain, move to the next single.
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  But a catalog is a portfolio.
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  Think about twenty years of missed compound value.
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  You aren't just losing the initial master royalty; you're losing out on neighboring
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  rights, international publishing, and sync placements because the song wasn't
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  registered properly.
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  And let's be real about the indie grind.
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  Touring and selling t-shirts is how you keep the lights on month-to-month.
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  But what happens when you get hurt, or when the road gets tired?
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  Your catalog is the passive income that stabilizes your business between runs.
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  But it only works if you actually audit it.
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  If you don't inspect your monthly statements, you're basically leaving cash on the
• 3:14
  table for the distributor to pocket.
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  And don't even get me started on the producers.
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  Producers get absolutely hammered in these situations.
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  They get caught in "work-for-hire" deals or verbal handshakes about "we'll split it
• 3:28
  fifty-fifty when the clearance comes through."
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  Years later, that beat is a hit, and the producer is still waiting on their producer
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  points.
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  If you're a producer, you need a catalog audit just as bad as the rapper does.
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  This is really about knowledge of self.
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  In hip-hop, we talk about knowing your history, knowing your craft,
• 3:48
  and studying the legends.
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  But if you can memorize five thousand bars of your favorite rapper,
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  you can learn how to read a split sheet.
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  You can learn what the Mechanical Licensing Collective is, how to navigate your PRO
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  like ASCAP or BMI, and how to look at a royalty statement.
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  If you don't know your numbers, you don't know your business.
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  So what's the play?
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  If you're listening to this right now and you have music on Spotify,
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  what do you do tomorrow morning?
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  First thing: make sure your works are registered with ASCAP or BMI for performance
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  royalties, and register with the MLC--that's the Mechanical Licensing Collective--to
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  get your digital mechanical streaming royalties.
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  If you have older catalog on a label, get an entertainment lawyer to pull those old
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  contracts, draft an official audit letter, and demand a full accounting.
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  Set a recurring calendar reminder every six months to check your portal receipts
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  before they go stale.
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  Do not let twenty years pass before you ask where your money went.
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  The industry will gladly keep your change if you don't ask for it.
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  That's the bottom line.
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  Own your masters, but more importantly, manage them.
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  That's it for today's episode.
• 5:01
  I'm Dangerous Zygos, with DJ Universe, Calvin Blingwell, and Dandy Market.
• 5:05
  Keep your music loud, but keep your paperwork tighter.
• 5:08
  Peace.