Motherfuckers on this site really need to do a little bit more thinking before throwing such allegations around, this is a business and it's not right to run someone's name through the mud before you know the facts.
I've actually played before Stuart, Peter & Scott as the SJSS down here. All knowledge i have of them is that they are sound geezers. I'm just curious as to how Mr Dwayne Hughes missed out on being informed even via a courtesy call / email. Irrespective of who owns the license for his songs... it would just would seem like the proper thing to do.
They could've googles for him or go on oshh.com & ask if anyone knows where he is... I'm only specifying him becasue of the albums title.
Take care of business, before business takes care of you.
yeah that;s the key right there... even when labels are on the up and up i can be a bitch to get paid when they are i none country and you're i nanother.. i got a track on a comp last year and i've got to fiel some esoteric royalities / tax waver form before they pay.. problem is they sent me a US one and i can't even find the canadian equiv.. so now the onus is on me to track this down or i aint gettin no $.
The people behind this comp are 100% professional and are not in the business of swindling people out of loot - quite frankly they do not need the loot.
Reminds me of the recent Shirley Bassey stink/episode over Kanye's use of 'Diamonds...' - you haven't heard anything from her as of late pertaining to the issue, likely b/c John Barry's legal associates have informed her that she already was paid for her performance back in '73...
The more obscure the music, the more convoluted and complicated paying the "right" person becomes.
In the case of major label/BMI/ASCAP music it's fairly easy to research and see who should get paid.
When you start talking about small label, independent, private issue stuff it's hard as hell.
In the projects I've been involved with I've had everyone from Managers, Studio Owners, Family of deceased band members and even a Lawyer claim they owned the "rights" to material.
As a label owner you have to use your best judgement and pay who you decide is most deserving.
The way I've always tried to handle it is to pay the band, specifically the "main" band member who usually wrote the songs.
But I'm certain that in a court of law, I've probably not paid the "rightful owner" in every single case.
And I can't afford a lawyer to work on a project that will sell 500 copies in a best case scenario...the Lawyer would cost more than the project itself.
I've also found that the artist is usually more concerned with some sort of artistic control over his art, rather than the minimal profit they may actually realize from these "niche" releases.
My experience is that most legit labels do the best they can in this area but you're always gonna piss somebody off if they don't get paid, whether they really deserve it or not.
Someone told me there was a loophole in the European licensing laws that allowed for someone to put money in a fund (kinda like an escrow account) if they could not track down an artist. It was then up to the artist to find out if they had been used on a compilation and get paid. This has led to abuse in the doo wop/northern soul/funk/jazz compilation market.
I have mixed feelings on this. I do know that my friends Robert Lowe and Leonard King got paid for their stuff. In fact, Leonard said when they called him about the Soul Messengers tracks, he gave them a very high figure saying "You guys ripped me off 35 years ago, you're not going to do it again." They balked at first but eventually called him back and met his price. On the other hand, I also have run into many people who were in soul groups when young and come into our store trying to find out if we have any of their records. They are very surprised when we tell them "oh yeah, it's actually on CD, it's on Rare Soul Nuggets Volume 45" and then tell them it's $16.99 for some shady ass looking comp made in the EU. Most of these people do acknowledge giving up the rights or not knowing who has them. I feel sorry for them.
A funny story though, one day I get this call and it's a young guy asking for new Andre Williams re-issues on vinyl. I say yeah we got some and he says he'll be right in. About an hour later three dudes walk in dressed like Mafia bosses who sideline as street pimps. The two younger dudes in front do all the talking and I notice the older guy in back is wearing his hat cocked forward to disguise his identity. I show the 3 new Andre Williams re-issues and the older guy in back takes them, cocks his hat up with one finger, and reveals himself as Andre Williams. He says "Son, I'm going to sue the shit out of these motherfuckers". I get his autograph, he hits on a few women in the store, he pays for the records (I only charge him cost), and he leaves. A couple of weeks later I find out from my boss that Andre got paid twice. His friend did the comps and the deal with Andre was done in the back of a car with Andre pretty lit, cash up front and a handshake. Dude thinks it's all nice, puts out the comps and Andre hits him again for the same amount! No contract, no record of payment, Andre gets his money twice. Crazy.
Personally, I never buy Soul Jazz comps, too expensive. I also don't trust them, if everything is on the up and up, why does this subject come up so often here?
SONIC
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
I've actually played before Stuart, Peter & Scott as the SJSS down here. All knowledge i have of them is that they are sound geezers. I'm just curious as to how Mr Dwayne Hughes missed out on being informed even via a courtesy call / email. Irrespective of who owns the license for his songs... it would just would seem like the proper thing to do.
They could've googles for him or go on oshh.com & ask if anyone knows where he is... I'm only specifying him becasue of the albums title.
Like I said, the rights owners are probably under no obligation to do that, and if there's no obligation either for SJR (or any other licensee) to inform the artist about it either, why should they? If the licensor warrants that they have the right to license the rights in question, and there's no good reason for the licensee to suspect otherwise, what else can they do? Spyder D needs to go after the people who it would appear are licensing out his shit without the right to do so. As for the title, "Big Apple Rappin'", unless he's trademarked that phrase, he doesn't have a leg to stand on. A song title is a song title.
Dean and Doc are spot on here. These chaps have been around a long while and aren't just ponying up for their Soul Jazz cronies. Licensing is serious work, and anyone who even attempts to do it legitimately should be commended. We get it right 99% of the time, and that other 1% is usually easily taken care of in a single phonecall.
Spyder's beef that he wasn't consulted is a product of not enough research, not treachery. If I contacted Universal tomorrow and said "Hey, let's do the best of Blue Thumb" they'd say "Send the check here:" and it would be done. They own the rights and they're not going to do any more work then they have to. We didn't talk to Dean Francis or Marion Black when we made the Capsoul record, but they knew that Bill Moss owned all the rights and were pleased when we got in touch. That's your best worst-case scenario.
Soul Jazz does some very solid work. It's easy to hate on the big boys, but really your targets should be at places like Goldmine, BBE, or younger upstarts like Escrow. Rob chime in here...
It's really sad to find out that a lot of the labels you were convinced payed royalties don't. Didn't Monty Stark post something about BBEs Funk Spectrum 3 awhile ago too? Think they might have paid him eventually, but come on...
heh..... Peter Adarkwah has been promising to pay me "by the end of the year" for four years now.
of course soul jazz are legit they are one of the most prolific 'reissue' labels in the u.k.not their fault if you don't own the rights to your own music. although i fully understand why somebody would be pissed at not being consulted/informed/paid/etc for the reissue of their music,when we're talking about hiphop i find it quite hard decide who is right and who is wrong.i'm not talking about the specific case here as such.after all most hiphop/rap music for a large period of time relied on uncleared samples and nobody seemed overly bothered about giving the sampled artists their dues.the whole thing was based on cutting up other peoples music in a diy fashion. only reason people started getting paid for the samples was because producers were being taken to court,not because producers were falling over themselves to pay people the artists.
After years of talking with artists and label owners, I think we're actually talking about many different levels of legitimacy here.
There are obviously straight-up bootleggers: You know who they are. Low-rider comps, breaks n' beats, Soul Patrol, Trouble With Funk, etc. It's generally pretty obvious, based on packaging, lack of contact info, etc.
There are people who are difficult to tell, and stay in kind of a grey area of legitimacy. BBE, for instance, clearly licenses very little of the material on their collections. In many cases, I know for a fact they didn't license particular tracks on those collections. Case in point: Sons of the Kingdom "Modernization" and The Pleasure Seekers "Give Up the Funk" are two tracks that the copyright owners of have never heard of BBE and never, before I talked with them, thought for a moment that anyone would give a damn about their music. There are a number of people in this category. There are certainly cases where Tuff City falls into this category. The Chosen Few had a handshake deal with Chuck Sibit to lease the track "We Are The Chosen Few" for release on Mod-Art after their failed release on Few Inc. (their own label). They still hold the copyright and publishing, it did not belong to the Mod-Art heir to sell to Tuff City. I'm sure that Tuff City has indemnified themselves carefully, but it's still, in the end, a questionable grey area. There are other cases in which tracks appearing on their comps are untraceable. Tuff City has a lot of enemies for a variety of shady practices, but they are not outright bootleggers.
There are people with the best intentions who make mistakes somewhere between rarely and often. Jazzman seems to run a tight ship over there, but I know they fucked up with their licensing of a track off the Black Ferry comp. I know this, for one, because I went to high school with (and still hang out with) the son of Tony Llorens, who wrote almost every track on the LP, who still has all the contacts, and is in the BMI system for those songs. Jazzman licensed it from the Better Boys Foundation in Chicago. He called, they said "sure, we'll take your money." Why wouldn't they? But they're not the rights holders, and unfortunately I found this out before it was too late. I think Soul Jazz falls into this category as well. Some of the licensing seems to be based on strong hypothesis as to who owns the rights, rather than the result of a long research process. We know people who are paid by Soul Jazz, so it is clearly not the case that Soul Jazz "never pays artists on their comps." However, I am curious how they licensed that Salt record.
A label I'm still not sure where the fit into this is Escrow Records. They released the Timeless Legend LP and CD without any licensing. Now, I knew several of the songwriters and was able to get in touch with the rights holder for the whole record. With a name like Escrow, it's implied that they have an Escrow set aside to pay the rightful owners. My first suspicion was that there was no way to contact the folks at Escrow Records, and they have no website, no internet presence. With some detective work, I was able to find out who was involved and I contacted him. After significant delay, he said all he needed was a letter from the rights holder (who doesn't have the internet, so all this correspondence went to me (I had to print out the emails from Escrow, put them in the mail to the rights holder, wait for him to call me back, etc.) I pushed the rights holder to send the letter quickly, helped him a little with the wording, and have been waiting months for a response. So, are they grey area, or are they straight bootleg? Or just really slow? I guess the jury's still out. I'm going with bootleg at this exact moment, because I'm frustrated.
Then there are obviously people who painstakingly license everything. For those people, it is clear why these other categories exist: it is a long and painful process to track rights holders and license content, and it takes a lot of the fun out of running a record label. But you still got to do it, because when it comes down to it, distributing copies of copyrighted materials that you don't own and haven't licensed is both immoral and illegal. That's it.
Exactly. But if they pay Salt if they come out of the woodworks and call Soul Jazz up, I'll still say it was a good move to put Hung up on the comp in the first place. Like the man said, so much in this thread indeed.
???Soul Jazz never pays artists on their comps???? Fuck right off.
As someone that's recorded for the label several times and has known Stuart Baker and the boys since the 80???s I can promise you that Soul Jazz go out of their way to do things right by all of the artists that appear on the label, reissues or otherwise. Anyone that says otherwise is just talking uninformed bollocks. Christ I???ve been in the room when they???ve called up artists to license samples for one of our tracks, and that was just for a fairly obscure Ronald Snijders sample for a one-off 12?????? nearly a decade ago.
Do you honestly think they???ve built up their reputation or the label on the back of deliberately shafting artists? Do me a favour. Seriously, posts like these are the reason some of us gave up posting regularly on here a long time ago.
Much has been said to defend Soul Jazz in this forum. I don't really see the need to be so aggressive, but thanks for the anecdote and the Franklin avatar.
I think you'd feel fairly pissed off too if you saw mates of yours being slagged off in a public forum like this for no good reason. And it's not like it's the first time either.
I think you'd feel fairly pissed off too if you saw mates of yours being slagged off in a public forum like this for no good reason. And it's not like it's the first time either.
These labels should be used to this kind of slagging by now....it's called Jealousy!!
A label I'm still not sure where the fit into this is Escrow Records. They released the Timeless Legend LP and CD without any licensing. Now, I knew several of the songwriters and was able to get in touch with the rights holder for the whole record. With a name like Escrow, it's implied that they have an Escrow set aside to pay the rightful owners. My first suspicion was that there was no way to contact the folks at Escrow Records, and they have no website, no internet presence. With some detective work, I was able to find out who was involved and I contacted him. After significant delay, he said all he needed was a letter from the rights holder (who doesn't have the internet, so all this correspondence went to me (I had to print out the emails from Escrow, put them in the mail to the rights holder, wait for him to call me back, etc.) I pushed the rights holder to send the letter quickly, helped him a little with the wording, and have been waiting months for a response. So, are they grey area, or are they straight bootleg? Or just really slow? I guess the jury's still out. I'm going with bootleg at this exact moment, because I'm frustrated.
Thanks for the info...truly fascinating, and a bit disappointing, as I held the releases on the label with very high regard (superb sound quality/artwork, etc...).
I am intrigued by the reissue market, particularly with vinyl. As with CDs, there is a range of reissue operations, from the Luv N Haights of the world, who appear to try to do right with their reissues, to the slightly fuzzy reproductions of the original that bear no marks of their origins. I would love to know who is pulling the strings on the latter bunch of reissues, deciding which records get the bootleg treatment, what the source materials are, the volume of the pressings, etc.
Motherfuckers on this site really need to do a little bit more thinking before throwing such allegations around, this is a business and it's not right to run someone's name through the mud before you know the facts.
the kid who started this ridiculous thread was born in 1990!
I am intrigued by the reissue market, particularly with vinyl. As with CDs, there is a range of reissue operations, from the Luv N Haights of the world, who appear to try to do right with their reissues, to the slightly fuzzy reproductions of the original that bear no marks of their origins. I would love to know who is pulling the strings on the latter bunch of reissues, deciding which records get the bootleg treatment, what the source materials are, the volume of the pressings, etc.
Any clues would be appreciated.
JRoot
I'd be very interested in knowing, too. I have a (probably far-fetched) theory that a lot of these boots have really bad sound quality in order to tease purchasers into shelling out the big bucks for the original artifacts on eBay and the like, sort of like a "try before you REALLY buy" kinda deal. It's worked on me a number of times.
Why else would so many of these 8.99 jawns sound like complete shit?
It's really sad to find out that a lot of the labels you were convinced payed royalties don't. Didn't Monty Stark post something about BBEs Funk Spectrum 3 awhile ago too? Think they might have paid him eventually, but come on...
heh..... Peter Adarkwah has been promising to pay me "by the end of the year" for four years now.
That's a real damn shame, Monty.
Pookey adds himself to the "self-sonnings of 2006" list. Right under the cat who called Otis's life's work "crap" (still mad about that one).
Motherfuckers on this site really need to do a little bit more thinking before throwing such allegations around, this is a business and it's not right to run someone's name through the mud before you know the facts.
the kid who started this ridiculous thread was born in 1990!
First of all, I did not say any negative things about Soul Jazz. All this was taken from what Spyder D wrote. I did not come up with any allegations, I just asked a question. And I should be able to ask a question like this without anyone telling me "Oh you messed with my friends!" "You hurt my feelings, Soul Jazz is the best!", "Little dude!", "Motherfucker" +++ The bootleg alert pic was taken from the Black Jazz site right after someone mentioned it here on SS.
Artists, such as Spyder D, should at least be informed when their songs/recordings are beeing used/released. But this is not maybe Soul Jazz's fault.
Who released the Spyder D re-issue 12"? Maybe Soul Jazz got the track from them?
I think Soul Jazz is a great label. They have allways been releasing quality records such as Nicky Siano's The Gallery comp, Reggae Disco comp, the New York Noise copilations, Brtitish Hustle +++
And to you Lotusland;
That's not correct, at all. You don't know shit. Fuck you.
First of all, I did not say any negative things about Soul Jazz. All this was taken from what Spyder D wrote. I did not come up with any allegations, I just asked a question. And I should be able to ask a question like this without anyone telling me "Oh you messed with my friends!"
Asking the question "Never pays artists on their comps?" is really more of a statement. At best, it's a terrible insinuation spoken (in the context of this board) directly at the people who re-issue. A title like "What's up with this?", or at least "Spyder D Is Pissed At SoulJazz" would have shown more tact. Deflection. Flies and honey.
Artists, such as Spyder D, should at least be informed when their songs/recordings are beeing used/released.
No. This is not sharing in school - this is business. I feel sorry for artists that got scammed into signing their rights away under false pretenses, but the fact remains - if the proper channels are contacted, then tough luck. I mean, the guy wants money that's probably not his.
Who released the Spyder D re-issue 12"? Maybe Soul Jazz got the track from them?
Is this a way of saying: "Did SJ obtain this track by not following the channels and going to folks that might have ripped Spyder off in the first place?" Because it sounds that way.
And to you Lotusland; That's not correct, at all. You don't know shit. Fuck you.
Again with the tact. T*m is a beautiful man, and you don't know him to know that he was joking.
Asking the question "Never pays artists on their comps?" is really more of a statement. At best, it's a terrible insinuation spoken directly at the people who re-issue. A title like "What's up with this?", or at least "Spyder D Is Pissed At SoulJazz" would have shown more tact. Deflection. Flies and honey.
You are right!, sorry for that. My english is not the best..
Who released the Spyder D re-issue 12"? Maybe Soul Jazz got the track from them?
Is this a way of saying: "Did SJ obtain this track by not following the channels and going to folks that might have ripped Spyder off in the first place?" Because it sounds that way.
No. I thought they maybe didn't contact Spyder, but went to the other guys who might own the rights of the recordings or something. I don't know if the Spyder D 12" is a bootleg or not.
Again with the tact. T*m is a beautiful man, and you don't know him to know that he was joking.
Yeah I am sure he is joking. He is ALWAYS joking. The whole guy is a joke....
Comments
Amen.
I'm just curious as to how Mr Dwayne Hughes missed out on being informed even via a courtesy call / email.
Irrespective of who owns the license for his songs... it would just would seem like the proper thing to do.
They could've googles for him or go on oshh.com & ask if anyone knows where he is...
I'm only specifying him becasue of the albums title.
yeah that;s the key right there... even when labels are on the up and up i can be a bitch to get paid when they are i none country and you're i nanother.. i got a track on a comp last year and i've got to fiel some esoteric royalities / tax waver form before they pay.. problem is they sent me a US one and i can't even find the canadian equiv.. so now the onus is on me to track this down or i aint gettin no $.
I have a Clarence 'Frogman' Henry cd that I love to death - I sure as heck hope he saw some $$$ from it.
Townes Van Zandt's box-set is on Charly...I hope his estate saw their dues.
Reminds me of the recent Shirley Bassey stink/episode over Kanye's use of 'Diamonds...' - you haven't heard anything from her as of late pertaining to the issue, likely b/c John Barry's legal associates have informed her that she already was paid for her performance back in '73...
In the case of major label/BMI/ASCAP music it's fairly easy to research and see who should get paid.
When you start talking about small label, independent, private issue stuff it's hard as hell.
In the projects I've been involved with I've had everyone from Managers, Studio Owners, Family of deceased band members and even a Lawyer claim they owned the "rights" to material.
As a label owner you have to use your best judgement and pay who you decide is most deserving.
The way I've always tried to handle it is to pay the band, specifically the "main" band member who usually wrote the songs.
But I'm certain that in a court of law, I've probably not paid the "rightful owner" in every single case.
And I can't afford a lawyer to work on a project that will sell 500 copies in a best case scenario...the Lawyer would cost more than the project itself.
I've also found that the artist is usually more concerned with some sort of artistic control over his art, rather than the minimal profit they may actually realize from these "niche" releases.
My experience is that most legit labels do the best they can in this area but you're always gonna piss somebody off if they don't get paid, whether they really deserve it or not.
Someone told me there was a loophole in the European licensing laws that allowed for someone to put money in a fund (kinda like an escrow account) if they could not track down an artist. It was then up to the artist to find out if they had been used on a compilation and get paid. This has led to abuse in the doo wop/northern soul/funk/jazz compilation market.
I have mixed feelings on this. I do know that my friends Robert Lowe and Leonard King got paid for their stuff. In fact, Leonard said when they called him about the Soul Messengers tracks, he gave them a very high figure saying "You guys ripped me off 35 years ago, you're not going to do it again." They balked at first but eventually called him back and met his price. On the other hand, I also have run into many people who were in soul groups when young and come into our store trying to find out if we have any of their records. They are very surprised when we tell them "oh yeah, it's actually on CD, it's on Rare Soul Nuggets Volume 45" and then tell them it's $16.99 for some shady ass looking comp made in the EU. Most of these people do acknowledge giving up the rights or not knowing who has them. I feel sorry for them.
A funny story though, one day I get this call and it's a young guy asking for new Andre Williams re-issues on vinyl. I say yeah we got some and he says he'll be right in. About an hour later three dudes walk in dressed like Mafia bosses who sideline as street pimps. The two younger dudes in front do all the talking and I notice the older guy in back is wearing his hat cocked forward to disguise his identity. I show the 3 new Andre Williams re-issues and the older guy in back takes them, cocks his hat up with one finger, and reveals himself as Andre Williams. He says "Son, I'm going to sue the shit out of these motherfuckers". I get his autograph, he hits on a few women in the store, he pays for the records (I only charge him cost), and he leaves. A couple of weeks later I find out from my boss that Andre got paid twice. His friend did the comps and the deal with Andre was done in the back of a car with Andre pretty lit, cash up front and a handshake. Dude thinks it's all nice, puts out the comps and Andre hits him again for the same amount! No contract, no record of payment, Andre gets his money twice. Crazy.
Personally, I never buy Soul Jazz comps, too expensive. I also don't trust them, if everything is on the up and up, why does this subject come up so often here?
SONIC
Like I said, the rights owners are probably under no obligation to do that, and if there's no obligation either for SJR (or any other licensee) to inform the artist about it either, why should they? If the licensor warrants that they have the right to license the rights in question, and there's no good reason for the licensee to suspect otherwise, what else can they do? Spyder D needs to go after the people who it would appear are licensing out his shit without the right to do so. As for the title, "Big Apple Rappin'", unless he's trademarked that phrase, he doesn't have a leg to stand on. A song title is a song title.
Spyder's beef that he wasn't consulted is a product of not enough research, not treachery. If I contacted Universal tomorrow and said "Hey, let's do the best of Blue Thumb" they'd say "Send the check here:" and it would be done. They own the rights and they're not going to do any more work then they have to. We didn't talk to Dean Francis or Marion Black when we made the Capsoul record, but they knew that Bill Moss owned all the rights and were pleased when we got in touch. That's your best worst-case scenario.
Soul Jazz does some very solid work. It's easy to hate on the big boys, but really your targets should be at places like Goldmine, BBE, or younger upstarts like Escrow. Rob chime in here...
although i fully understand why somebody would be pissed at not being consulted/informed/paid/etc for the reissue of their music,when we're talking about hiphop i find it quite hard decide who is right and who is wrong.i'm not talking about the specific case here as such.after all most hiphop/rap music for a large period of time relied on uncleared samples and nobody seemed overly bothered about giving the sampled artists their dues.the whole thing was based on cutting up other peoples music in a diy fashion.
only reason people started getting paid for the samples was because producers were being taken to court,not because producers were falling over themselves to pay people the artists.
in this entire thread...
There are obviously straight-up bootleggers: You know who they are. Low-rider comps, breaks n' beats, Soul Patrol, Trouble With Funk, etc. It's generally pretty obvious, based on packaging, lack of contact info, etc.
There are people who are difficult to tell, and stay in kind of a grey area of legitimacy. BBE, for instance, clearly licenses very little of the material on their collections. In many cases, I know for a fact they didn't license particular tracks on those collections. Case in point: Sons of the Kingdom "Modernization" and The Pleasure Seekers "Give Up the Funk" are two tracks that the copyright owners of have never heard of BBE and never, before I talked with them, thought for a moment that anyone would give a damn about their music. There are a number of people in this category. There are certainly cases where Tuff City falls into this category. The Chosen Few had a handshake deal with Chuck Sibit to lease the track "We Are The Chosen Few" for release on Mod-Art after their failed release on Few Inc. (their own label). They still hold the copyright and publishing, it did not belong to the Mod-Art heir to sell to Tuff City. I'm sure that Tuff City has indemnified themselves carefully, but it's still, in the end, a questionable grey area. There are other cases in which tracks appearing on their comps are untraceable. Tuff City has a lot of enemies for a variety of shady practices, but they are not outright bootleggers.
There are people with the best intentions who make mistakes somewhere between rarely and often. Jazzman seems to run a tight ship over there, but I know they fucked up with their licensing of a track off the Black Ferry comp. I know this, for one, because I went to high school with (and still hang out with) the son of Tony Llorens, who wrote almost every track on the LP, who still has all the contacts, and is in the BMI system for those songs. Jazzman licensed it from the Better Boys Foundation in Chicago. He called, they said "sure, we'll take your money." Why wouldn't they? But they're not the rights holders, and unfortunately I found this out before it was too late. I think Soul Jazz falls into this category as well. Some of the licensing seems to be based on strong hypothesis as to who owns the rights, rather than the result of a long research process. We know people who are paid by Soul Jazz, so it is clearly not the case that Soul Jazz "never pays artists on their comps." However, I am curious how they licensed that Salt record.
A label I'm still not sure where the fit into this is Escrow Records. They released the Timeless Legend LP and CD without any licensing. Now, I knew several of the songwriters and was able to get in touch with the rights holder for the whole record. With a name like Escrow, it's implied that they have an Escrow set aside to pay the rightful owners. My first suspicion was that there was no way to contact the folks at Escrow Records, and they have no website, no internet presence. With some detective work, I was able to find out who was involved and I contacted him. After significant delay, he said all he needed was a letter from the rights holder (who doesn't have the internet, so all this correspondence went to me (I had to print out the emails from Escrow, put them in the mail to the rights holder, wait for him to call me back, etc.) I pushed the rights holder to send the letter quickly, helped him a little with the wording, and have been waiting months for a response. So, are they grey area, or are they straight bootleg? Or just really slow? I guess the jury's still out. I'm going with bootleg at this exact moment, because I'm frustrated.
Then there are obviously people who painstakingly license everything. For those people, it is clear why these other categories exist: it is a long and painful process to track rights holders and license content, and it takes a lot of the fun out of running a record label. But you still got to do it, because when it comes down to it, distributing copies of copyrighted materials that you don't own and haven't licensed is both immoral and illegal. That's it.
Exactly. But if they pay Salt if they come out of the woodworks and call Soul Jazz up, I'll still say it was a good move to put Hung up on the comp in the first place.
Like the man said, so much
in this thread indeed.
As someone that's recorded for the label several times and has known Stuart Baker and the boys since the 80???s I can promise you that Soul Jazz go out of their way to do things right by all of the artists that appear on the label, reissues or otherwise. Anyone that says otherwise is just talking uninformed bollocks. Christ I???ve been in the room when they???ve called up artists to license samples for one of our tracks, and that was just for a fairly obscure Ronald Snijders sample for a one-off 12?????? nearly a decade ago.
Do you honestly think they???ve built up their reputation or the label on the back of deliberately shafting artists? Do me a favour. Seriously, posts like these are the reason some of us gave up posting regularly on here a long time ago.
Much has been said to defend Soul Jazz in this forum. I don't really see the need to be so aggressive, but thanks for the anecdote and the Franklin avatar.
These labels should be used to this kind of slagging by now....it's called Jealousy!!
Agreed, but notice how it's always Soul Jazz and never Blood & Fire? Weird.
Exactly. That's what the Fryer-Mantis Funk 45 board is for!
Thanks for the info...truly fascinating, and a bit disappointing, as I held the releases on the label with very high regard (superb sound quality/artwork, etc...).
SG
Any clues would be appreciated.
JRoot
the kid who started this ridiculous thread was born in 1990!
raj sort us out so we can properly clown these whippersnappers.
I'd be very interested in knowing, too. I have a (probably far-fetched) theory that a lot of these boots have really bad sound quality in order to tease purchasers into shelling out the big bucks for the original artifacts on eBay and the like, sort of like a "try before you REALLY buy" kinda deal. It's worked on me a number of times.
Why else would so many of these 8.99 jawns sound like complete shit?
SG
That's a real damn shame, Monty.
Pookey adds himself to the "self-sonnings of 2006" list. Right under the cat who called Otis's life's work "crap" (still mad about that one).
www.charlottekrunk.com
First of all, I did not say any negative things about Soul Jazz. All this was taken from what Spyder D wrote. I did not come up with any allegations, I just asked a question. And I should be able to ask a question like this without anyone telling me "Oh you messed with my friends!" "You hurt my feelings, Soul Jazz is the best!", "Little dude!", "Motherfucker" +++
The bootleg alert pic was taken from the Black Jazz site right after someone mentioned it here on SS.
Artists, such as Spyder D, should at least be informed when their songs/recordings are beeing used/released. But this is not maybe Soul Jazz's fault.
Who released the Spyder D re-issue 12"? Maybe Soul Jazz got the track from them?
I think Soul Jazz is a great label. They have allways been releasing quality records such as Nicky Siano's The Gallery comp, Reggae Disco comp, the New York Noise copilations, Brtitish Hustle +++
And to you Lotusland;
That's not correct, at all. You don't know shit. Fuck you.
Asking the question "Never pays artists on their comps?" is really more of a statement. At best, it's a terrible insinuation spoken (in the context of this board) directly at the people who re-issue. A title like "What's up with this?", or at least "Spyder D Is Pissed At SoulJazz" would have shown more tact.
Deflection. Flies and honey.
No. This is not sharing in school - this is business. I feel sorry for artists that got scammed into signing their rights away under false pretenses, but the fact remains - if the proper channels are contacted, then tough luck. I mean, the guy wants money that's probably not his.
Is this a way of saying: "Did SJ obtain this track by not following the channels and going to folks that might have ripped Spyder off in the first place?" Because it sounds that way.
Again with the tact.
T*m is a beautiful man, and you don't know him to know that he was joking.
You are right!, sorry for that. My english is not the best..
No. I thought they maybe didn't contact Spyder, but went to the other guys who might own the rights of the recordings or something. I don't know if the Spyder D 12" is a bootleg or not.
Yeah I am sure he is joking. He is ALWAYS joking. The whole guy is a joke....
fo real