Ownership of data on hard drive vs signals on analogue tape???

[kudzu]

Thots, guys please.....I'll been engineering/producing for over 20 years...back in the day (80's) the recording budget offered by record companies included the buying of all media (ie tape) that would used in the recordings......nowadays with shrinking budgets, most of the time, all the data recorded during sessions is recorded to one of my hard drives.

Nowadays recording agreements with record companies usually state minimum amount of tracks expected (10) to last a minimum duration (35mins).
A recent album project has ended awkwardly, with me fulfilling my commitments, but the band in conflict with record company (over which tracks to use).....The record company has asked for all the sessions to be itemised, ie ALL music recorded to be titled and indexed......Now there's over two weeks worth of data (over 100GB)... some out takes the band want deleted...some songs they don't want anyone to hear at all....

Now backintheday when we ran out of tape, we'd go over out takes/unwanted takes.....we don't have to do this now.....but should we?

Anyway, these outakes/unused tracks...who owns them? Me? the band? the record company?....if I side with the band and erase these tracks, I'm I liable to any sort of action from the record company?
incidently, there is no mention in the recording contract that the record company owns everything we recorded, just that had to deliver a minimum of 10 tracks (35mins)

[JTR]

"he who pays the piper calls the tune"

that's one philosophy - or,

rather than getting stuck in the middle and being dfegad on by both parties, why not do a conference call and tell them to sort it out and then get in touch?

You shouldn't have to be the innocent bystander to their domestic fracas

regardless, make sure you're paid (with a markup) for the drives

[Riad]

If you had overwritten the tracks while you were recording, oh well. However, you certainly wouldn't want to be selective of what you give them if they are paying the bills.

jmtc,
Rob

[Kenny Gioia]

As long as the label pays you for the time you recorded those bad songs, it's still theirs.

What I would do is charge the label for 2 drives?

Drive A would have the Masters that the band wants to give to the label.

Drive B would have the others.

Give the band both drives and have them deliver it to the label.

This way if Drive B gets lost on the way, The band can explain it. Not you.

[chap]

If you own the hard drive, it's yours (just like you owned the DAT machine or
2"inch deck). If the contract entitles one party to ownership of the contents,
they should (I always do this) buy a new hard drive and pay you for copying their material
or pay you to back up the project to DVD. I always keep a safety. It only gets used when you haven't backed things up. Physics.
chap

[Exmun]

Since you're dealing with intellectual property on the hard disc, the question of "ownership" is a somewhat questionable issue. My take is that you own the drive. It's a hardward piece of property that you bought (right?). The intellectual property belongs to two parties: the song copyright [lyrics and melodies] belong to the songs' authors (songwriters--I'll assume the band wrote the songs); the sound recording on the drive belongs the owner of the sound recording copyright [here, it looks like the label, but can be altered by contract; my "test" is to ask who's paying for the recording session and who will later pay to put the material out... it's a question of financial risk].

What you the engineer has is an "interest" in the material, because you own the drive that houses the intellectual property. You have a "lien" interest in the material, to the extend of full payment for your services. Nothing more, nothing less. I like Produceher's suggestion of having the band pay you for new drives and giving the tracks to the band to sort out with the label. You probably don't have the time or need for the trouble of any lawsuits.

[T_R_S]

A client pays me for my work (the master mix) I am not paid to show how I do it. Have a contract before you start therefore there is no confusion. I usually have no problem sending out the sessions as I have an 7 card HD rig and use a lot of outboard so recalling my sessions 90% of the time are not easy but not impossible.

[alphajerk]

Originally Posted by Produceher

As long as the label pays you for the time you recorded those bad songs, it's still theirs.

What I would do is charge the label for 2 drives?

Drive A would have the Masters that the band wants to give to the label.

Drive B would have the others.

Give the band both drives and have them deliver it to the label.

This way if Drive B gets lost on the way, The band can explain it. Not you.

ditto that. either that or drive A holding the album material all condensed only containing what was used on the final album. and B holding all the takes for the album as well as outtakes and other songs so the album itself is on two hard drives... plus i would also burn A to DVD's as well [for a charge of course]