As of today, October 17th 2024, I am officially out of my pub deal.
After 5 years stuck in a less-then-ideal co-publishing agreement, I am now free. This document is an Option Warning Letter that my lawyer sent to my publishing company, giving them the allotted 20 business days to trigger their remaining option. Today marks the end of those 20 business days, so I am now finally out of the deal. :)
This agreement came to me at a time when I did truly needed it. I signed a record deal and publishing deal with this same company in 2019. The advance afforded me the runway to live and session in Los Angeles, and release my nearly-finished album at the time “The Mathematics Of Nature”. We wanted to work together mainly on the record deal side, since they were interested in prioritizing me as an Artist project as oppose to a Songwriter. But because my main point person worked on the publishing side of the company, that side of the deal was non-negotiable for them. And so I took it, even though my lawyer advised against it. He was right in a lot of ways, since now I am 5 years into the deal and still owe over 75% of the publishing advance back. That point person of mine also left the company many years back at this point.
Because of the way my deal was structured, I was able to send an Option Warning now. If they didn’t trigger it, I would be out of the deal for all future catalog. They do still have my back catalog up until now, and I hope to one day pay back that advance and start earning royalties off it.
It feels freeing to be out of this deal, knowing than any songs I write from today onward are mine and mine alone. I get to build up a fresh catalog that I can do whatever I like with.
With this, my focus turns more fully to the development of my onchain music catalog.
chaim
After 5 years stuck in a less-then-ideal co-publishing agreement, I am now free. This document is an Option Warning Letter that my lawyer sent to my publishing company, giving them the allotted 20 business days to trigger their remaining option. Today marks the end of those 20 business days, so I am now finally out of the deal. :)
This agreement came to me at a time when I did truly needed it. I signed a record deal and publishing deal with this same company in 2019. The advance afforded me the runway to live and session in Los Angeles, and release my nearly-finished album at the time “The Mathematics Of Nature”. We wanted to work together mainly on the record deal side, since they were interested in prioritizing me as an Artist project as oppose to a Songwriter. But because my main point person worked on the publishing side of the company, that side of the deal was non-negotiable for them. And so I took it, even though my lawyer advised against it. He was right in a lot of ways, since now I am 5 years into the deal and still owe over 75% of the publishing advance back. That point person of mine also left the company many years back at this point.
Because of the way my deal was structured, I was able to send an Option Warning now. If they didn’t trigger it, I would be out of the deal for all future catalog. They do still have my back catalog up until now, and I hope to one day pay back that advance and start earning royalties off it.
It feels freeing to be out of this deal, knowing than any songs I write from today onward are mine and mine alone. I get to build up a fresh catalog that I can do whatever I like with.
With this, my focus turns more fully to the development of my onchain music catalog.
☀️