What A Real Major Label Contract Looks Like – Breaking Benjamin Court Documents
(UPDATED) Ever wish you could sneak a peak at real major label record contract? You can, thanks to Benjamin Burnley, frontman of hard rockers Breaking Benjamin. He's fired the band guitarist and bassist, Aaron Fincke and Mark Klepaski, and filed launched a lawsuit against them. Burnley claims they have making decisions on behalf of the band, like releasing a greatest hits and remixing some tracks, without his authorization. They've countersued, but the real winners are the musicians who get to look at this major label contract between the band an Disney's Hollywood Records.
The entire court filing is available thanks to Tunelab. The actual record contract starts on page 25 here. (FYI – It takes a long time to load….) My favorite clause comes near the beginning…
Territory: The Universe
aargggh can’t view it ?!?
Same for me. Seems majors still have some king of power somewhere….
This is the link: http://tunelab.com/2011/08/03/breaking-benjamin-court-docs/
It has a long load time, but it is there.
I just got this Bruce, “Sorry, we are unable to retrieve the document for viewing or you don’t have permission to view the document” I reloaded and got the same. Either Disney’s Hollywood Records, as Adijayjay has previously stated, “still have some king of power somewhere” or Tunelab (nice site) has restricted the link in some way. Shame. I would certainly like to view a contract like this. “Universe” Yeah right, which one?
I’ve been uploading for around 30 minutes now to no avail… can anyone upload elsewhere for easy access?
I still can read it… Sorry everyone.. Working on it now. Stay tuned….
It may require that you have a Google account. Try this link: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B7nV9CduOaTtOThlNGYwNjYtNzY0Yy00ZDA5LTkyZTgtYzU0OWJhNWI0MzI4&hl=en_US
Has any reader been able to view the document?
Yes I saw it! The territory clause is hilarious.
I was able to view it. I opened it in Chrome if that makes a difference. It took maybe 15 seconds to load but worked fine…
It’s a 10MB (98 page) PDF, so it’ll take a second. I also added links to directly download the PDF from Google Docs, Amazon, and Dropbox, so there shouldn’t be anymore issues seeing it.
Thanks TuneLab. I see the links near the top of your post.
I’m looking at it right now using Firefox.
There are so many grammatical errors in the posting.. For a site that aggregates such great material, a real shame.
The google docs link works
I was actually able to send a copy of the entire document as a PDF via e-mail.
Making the territory the Universe is actually in nearly every deal, major label and otherwise. Some say “world” but then that leaves ambiguity regarding satellite transmissions.
If you really want a shocker, check out the royalty provisions in a major label deal – and Hollywood isn’t anywhere near the worst.
Loaded fine on the original link for me. Love the “$1″… typical. Yep the “universe” territory clause is common as well as “all forms of media existing or to be created” hahaha… nobody should let that one slide. Anyway, this is a mess.
Your correct. Buy the way if you are going to call yourself “really” shouldn’t you be useing a capitial ” R ” 🙂
The Document loaded fine, no issues.
Use chrome it works fine….contract starts on page 25.
The territory clause for “The Universe” is standard in all music contracts these days. It is a safeguard against future technologies.
The Universe? Does that mean I can’t sell downloads to the Klingons or the Jedi unless my label gets a cut?
That’s correct unless you use the force 🙂
Unfortunately this deal is almost ten years old, having been signed in 2002. It would be interesting to take a current Major Label 360 deal, and compare them to see how much has changed.
My favorite part of the contract, is that if through a change in the law, Hollywood records can no longer own the copyright, then the band agrees to immediately license the masters at the same rate as their royalty. I had never seen that in a contract before. However unlikely the scenario of mandated copyright reversion is, this clause to work around its slim possibility is both brilliant and despicable.