They own them, but artists are due residuals or royalties. There are royalties due the composers of the songs as well. And it certainly depends on the relationship to the leader, and the contract signed.
Monies are due to artists according to the contracts signed. At that time, the contracts likely wouldn’t have called for royalties to artists. It could be that the labels and artists, or their estates, have since renegotiated to provide for royalties on sales from reissues. That would be the right thing for the labels to do. Absent that, pretty much the only ones getting paid are the ones who kept their publishing. Otherwise, even the leaders got paid by the date and the label kept the masters.
Gabe is really hitting the nail on the head here. To add some empirical color, I'm reminded of some straight talk from a book (I'll omit the title and author/artist since it might distract from the context and intention of answering the questions posed on this thread). The excerpts below are from an artist who made about as many records for Blue Note as anyone. The records he's on include this recent Tone Poet series as well as a couple from the upcoming BN80 series. He is one of the guys. This is what he said about the matter in his book: Excerpt from a chapter on recording: As Sidemen we would only get the fee that we would agree upon before the date. Sidemen on records don't get royalties -- they don't get nothing other than the fee that they get doing the recording -- unless they have songs that are on the recording. I always made between three and five times union scale. Or another arrangement could be that I might decide I want this certain amount of money. It depended upon who I was working with. I might say I want $5,000 for a recording date -- maybe more depending on the date. But this backfired on me one time ... [describes a session gone wrong] So what I learned from that experience was, when I didn't want to do something -- I wouldn't do it. Simple as that. Excerpt from another related chapter: We're at Rudy Van Gelder's studio recording the ["XXXX"] record. Ron Carter is asking me how much money I was getting for the date. "Herbie and me are getting five times scale," he tells me. Not knowing that you've got to ask for the money, I say I'm getting three times union scale for this record. Ron says, "You can't just accept what they give you. When they call you for the gig, you've got to tell them what you want. You're doing the same date that we're doing so I think you should talk to [XXXX, the producer]." After we cut, ["XXXX", song title] Ron came over to the ... booth and he asked me, did I talk to [XXXX, the producer] about the money?" So he said, "Hey [XXXX, the producer], [XXXX, the artist] wants to talk to you." And he came over. "Ron and them is getting five times scale," I said. "And I want the same thing." And he said, "Okay." And that was it. That's how I got to elevate myself. I had been making three times union scale. That's how I got to elevate myself. I learned you had to ask for it. All the big record companies have a union contract. Half of the money might go through the union and then to get your money you have to go through the union and pay the tax on the money. Then they give you a check. I like to do it like that. But then the union takes a lump sum out. So then the record company gets slick and they take the taxes out on the whole amount. On $5,000 you might be paying $600 for this and $300 for that, and so forth. Next thing you know, you have just $3,500 left. So I take half the money [cash] upfront and then send the other half of the money through the union. That's how making a record works.
That was very interesting, thanks! I think I know where this was taken from but I would love to have confirmation. I understand if you don’t want to lead this conversation off-topic by stating the title and the author, so could you please PM us that info? I’ve had the idea to write a tv series that takes place in this exact context for a long time and this book seems like it could be extremely helpful!
I was out of town when I read your post and didn’t have time to reply. May I ask how Amazon FR informed you of this policy change? I checked everywhere and the only information I could find on their website concerning pre-orders is the following: Lorsqu'un article a une date de sortie définie, si votre commande est entrée dans le processus d'expédition avant cette date et que le prix baisse en dessous du prix facturé dans cet intervalle, nous créditons automatiquement votre carte de paiement de la différence entre le prix que vous avez payé et le prix le plus bas à la date de sortie de l'article. This only specifies that an article might enter the shipping process before its actual release date, at which moment your credit card is charged, but I don’t think this can happen more than a few days before the release date. Did you confirm your credit card was charged for Mr. Shing-a-ling? Could you maybe copy/paste the email Amazon sent you? Maybe this has to do with your order being an international one? Would love to help you get to the bottom of this because it sure as hell isn’t normal!
That's the thing. They only informed me because I noticed my credit card was charged and sent an e-mail. If I hadn't noticed, they wouldn't even inform me either by e-mail or a notice on their website. I also found it quite strange and kept on replying to their e-mails demanding an explanation. The first two reps told me it was merely an authorization and the amount was going to be back on my credit card in 5 to 7 workdays. I contacted the bank and they assured me that was not an authorization, it was already charged. After that, I talked to three different reps and they let me know about the new policy. I cancelled my pre-order since and have my money back on the credit card now so I confirm that it was a debit and not an authorization. It has nothing to do with my order being international or at least I think so. Please read this thread: Amazon UK new pre-order pre-payment policy The OP is a user from the UK that had that happening to him on Amazon UK. And there are several other examples throughout the thread. It's their new policy and they slipped that to us from under the rug. They didn't let anyone know and there's absolutely nothing on their website that states that clients are now charged 5 days after pre-ordering. Like I said before, this is, most probably, illegal. Buying terms should be explicit to both parties. Here's the part of one of the e-mails that talks about their new policy:
My Joe Henderson Art of the Tenor arrived yesterday. Visually the vinyl was pretty much perfect. Clean, flat, no issues. The jacket is not a gatefold but it is of the same high quality as the others I have from this series. I played it last night and right off the bat, the music is fabulous. I know this was done in 1985 but it's as good as anything I have heard from any era. The record played flawlessly. Very quiet, with excellent sonics. Considering I only paid $31 Canadian for this it ranks as one of the best buys out there. I strongly urge any jazz fan to check this album out, and this series. Now we just need Volume 1.
Amazon UK has charged my card for Bill Evans in england (RSD vinyl) and the availablity date is 1-2 months aka unknown!
Same with me. I ordered it on the 24th of April and the card was charged on the 29th. I did not know what to think back at the time, until I've seen the other thread. The record has just been shipped this last Monday. I guess this means no more tricks with preordering and canceling to buy somewhere else under better conditions...
There was discussion about this over in the Marketplace section but essentially my understanding is that your card will be charged 5 days after you preorder now from basically all of the Amazon Europe sites. They will credit you back later if the item is eligible for the Price Match Guarantee and the precise drops between when you were charged and when it ships. So you still will get the best price eventually but you do have to pay upfront. No signs at all of such a policy being used for North American Amazon sites yet.
Bill Evans in England actually shipped? This is amazing. My charged pre-order is for 36.57 GBP. Great price.
Yes! I was a bit skeptical at first, but I still ordered it. I think i even posted it on the amazon.uk offers post. After about one month wait, I finally Received the confirmation shipping email last Monday. It Should be here by Tuesday. I got it for 41,26£ Shipped. Way better than the prices it is fetching on discogs and the bay!
The biggest problem with this is the fact that they are not able to guarantee a delivery date. And we all know how records can get postponed to eternity. On top of it, there is no information at all about this on their website. On the contrary, all info you find online is the old one that says you will get charged once the item ships. Even on the cancellation e-mail. I cancelled all my pre-orders on Amazon.fr and noticed this on the cancellation e-mail of a record I had been charged for by the new policy in place: How ironic is that?
I hadn’t heard about it on FR only on the U.K. site. I don’t think it was posted there either but customers got replies from Amazon Customer Service outlining the new policy...
As far as we know, it is happening across all Amazon european stores. I can confirm it happened to me on FR.
I received my replacement of New Bottle... today from Amazon, and the loud pops have been replaced by a scratch that is even worse than the pops. Instead of the two loud pops at the end of Lester Leaps In, there is a visible and quite audible scratch at the beginning of ‘Round Midnight, that can be heard for more rotations than I care to count. Wtf.
Thanks a lot for the heads up! I dug deeper, read the thread you mentioned, checked, double-checked, even triple-checked my bank statements and I am 100% certain that Amazon FR has not charged my credit card for the Tone Poet records that haven’t been shipped. I focused on Mr. Shing-a-ling and Clubhouse because they are my most recent pre-orders. The last time amazon debited my card was last week when it shipped Etcetera. There is definitely something weird going on! I will send them an email asking about their new policies too even though, so far, I haven’t been affected by them. Hopefully the negative feedback will make them change things back to the way they were. As an alternative to amazon, have you tried Fnac.com? They usually have the same prices and shipping costs and they claim they will charge your card only when the item ships. They have the Tone Poet series available for pre-order.
Please do that and then let us know on the linked thread what they replied. We're also really confused to why some people are getting charged and others aren't. On top of that, some people are getting their card charged for some pre-orders and not for others. There seems to be a lot of randomness going on. Regarding Fnac, I have never thought of that. We also have a portuguese Fnac, but don't sell Tone Poets unfortunately, only BN80s. Thanks for the heads-up, I'll definitely pre-order there!
I played the Gil Evans New Wine a couple nights ago. There was a couple (2) light pops at the beginning of one song. Not enough for me to send it back. Maybe the pops will get less after more plays. Anyway, I've been buying vinyl since 1975, and if you were around then, there was always the chance of a couple pops. Tone Poet is a great series.
