Was drummer in a band... kicked out after mixing album! Need advice!

[cbc459]

I would like some advice on how to proceed in this situation...

I played drums in a local band, we had been together for 5 years. We recorded an album, and did the mixing. It took over a month (not much spare time from school), but the result was great. We each forked over some cash to get it mastered by a respected local pro. Now, one day after I received the master copy, I get kicked out of the band. They say... they don't feel comfortable with me in the band anymore.. all very vague without any specifics.

So now, they expected to be able to use the mixes. I said no, I felt horribly abused and said they could NOT use my work. They accepted this decision. As my last act in the band, I removed all my mixes from their website and myspace. Two weeks later, the exact same mixes are re-uploaded by them. We did not reach any agreement, I was not paid or compensated in any way, and the money I forked over for mastering not even refunded still.

What can I do? Should I just sell the mix? What rate would you recommend? Or keep it in spite? Should I go all the way to small claims? This sucks, I would like some help from some fellow sluts, I'm sure I'm not the only one who got effed over like this.

[hachre]

This sucks, but I don't really have a clue...

If they sell it without your permission you should be able to get them to stop legally... Otherwise you can't do anything because I don't think you had any kind of contract with them about this records etc.

They might claim that the drums on their mixes aren't played by you though, and proving otherwise might be hard...

Good luck!

[otobianki74]

sorry about your situation...

I dunno if there's much you can do unless you had something in writing.

if they had an equal share in terms of $ put in for mixing and mastering, then a portion of that recording is their's as well.

I would make sure you get something in writing in any case as it sounds like they might proceed with using the material with or without your blessing, and honestly is it worth it in the long run getting a lawyer.. that will cost up the wahoo.

my suggestion would be to first get an agreement in writing that you own x percentage of the master and are entitled to $ from sales. they might have to show your receipts to claim this income. I would also make sure you iron out immediately your share in the songwriting/publishing and make sure you register accordingly with ASCAP or BMI.

additionally, as an act of good faith, ask if they might reimburse you the $ amount you invested into the mixing and mastering and call it a day.

if the shit is good and you are good you will find yourself another playing situation with cooler cats. use this material as part of your reel to showcase your playing.

best of luck.

oto

[narcoman]

Unfortunately, there isn't a great deal you CAN do. There is no legal grounding for you to claim compensation since you weren't drumming in the band for a living. You also can't claim you're owed money for the mixing - since there was no agreement in advance. You've handed over the mixes - so there isn't much you can do.

I'm sorry this has happened - I'm also at a loss to comprehend why some people with whom you've played in a band for five years suddenly decide they aren't comfortable with you in the band any more. There must be some more to the story - have you fallen out?

Does Canada have a music copyright body like the USA? You could exact revenge by somehow registering these works in your name! How about lodging them with the Canadian equivalent of the UKs MCPS..... take ownership of the songs as writer. Not morally very nice, but then again neither is what they're doing by using your work without any recognition of your contribution. Put them up on your Myspace page as your songs. Advertise a CD as beig for sale. Put them on I-tunes - in your name. All that kind of stuff.....

[otobianki74]

it's still worth asking for compensation... keep your cool, don't get heated, be the better man. you might be surprised.

oto

[travisbrown]

Thsi is why every band should be set up as corporation with its members as shareholders. Then they can vote you out, but they still have to buy you out to really get rid of you.

If you talk to a lawyer, he will likely try construct a case that they acted in bad faith. This will be easy if you can establish that they knew they were going to give you the boot before you forked money over.

As far as who gets to use the mixes - well, that's a grey area. depends on who owns the media it was recorded on, what the agreed terms were (were you doing it for money, points, good will...), etc.

Getting an injunction against them using the mixes is a pain in the ass, but might be easier and preferable to get money out of them in a court demand (if you can't work it out civilly).

Also consider your good name - will this get ugly and give you a tarnished image in your performance/bandmember community? Is that worth a protracted legal battle?

Sometimes a well-written letter from a lawyer can solve a lot of things. It lays out where things could go, and were things should go, and gives them pause for thought.

[narcoman]

Originally Posted by travisbrown

Thsi is why every band should be set up as corporation with its members as shareholders. Then they can vote you out, but they still have to buy you out to really get rid of you.

If you talk to a lawyer, he will likely try construct a case that they acted in bad faith. This will be easy if you can establish that they knew they were going to give you the boot before you forked money over.

As far as who gets to use the mixes - well, that's a grey area. depends on who owns the media it was recorded on, what the agreed terms were (were you doing it for money, points, good will...), etc.

Getting an injunction against them using the mixes is a pain in the ass, but might be easier and preferable to get money out of them in a court demand (if you can't work it out civilly).

Also consider your good name - will this get ugly and give you a tarnished image in your performance/bandmember community? Is that worth a protracted legal battle?

Sometimes a well-written letter from a lawyer can solve a lot of things. It lays out where things could go, and were things should go, and gives them pause for thought.

...which will cost him about $500 or more. Ownership of the mixes has nothing to do with the physical media- it has everything to do with who commissioned the work. The whole band did - so he has as much ownership as they do. As for legal battle - that'd be the silliest move - lot's of money for nothing - it's a local band with school kids!!

[CISUM]

this stuff happens all the time to ber honest with you.

It really sucks to see a group of guys who are in a band screw one another like that, but honestly brother there really isnt much you can do.

From a legal view the only thing you can do would be go talk to a lawyer and take it to court, but you and I both know by the time you do that you will end up paying more than what you get back.

The only thing is to talk to them and reach an agreement, see what they say.

Are they not giving over any credit to you?
Make sure you are definitly getting correct credit with the album, ascap/bmi as said before in prior posts.

Remember this, you made an album, you SHOULD get the credit, even if you dont get your money back, its ok... Dude get your credit, and maybe when the album sells enough you can get your royalties, BUT make sure you have some sort of contract either which way to ensure you get the correct percentage and make sure they are not holding back anything.

UNLESS they wanna buy you out for everything, but thats going to be hard and rare. So just talk to them and make sure royalites/credits will be there, and its always a good thing to talk to a lawyer...

***Lawyers, by law will havew to give you free advice if you do call them and talk to them, if they dont their full of shit bro, its their job to give advice, contracts etc then they get paid for it. I was on the phone with a lawyer in the past calling and getting advice for what i need to do on a lot of matters and it was free and he was very nice, so contact one if you feel the need.***

[SK1]

This is all stuff you should have been thinking about a long time ago.

It's always easier to negotiate and get things in writing while things are going well. Let this be a lesson to anyone reading, that the music business is half business.

You must have been doing something right to have the gig for 5 years.

[narcoman]

Originally Posted by CISUM

***Lawyers, by law will havew to give you free advice if you do call them and talk to them, if they dont their full of shit bro, its their job to give advice, contracts etc then they get paid for it. I was on the phone with a lawyer in the past calling and getting advice for what i need to do on a lot of matters and it was free and he was very nice, so contact one if you feel the need.***

Well that's certainly NOT true in the UK. You're entitled to CAB advice - that's half an hour free advice with the Citizen Advice Bureau. If you phone a lawyer and ask a question they have no obligation to answer any question.

[cbc459]

I should add... they don't have the album. They have a low bit-rate MP3 rip, I still have the master CD. I just spoke to the band actually. I offered to sell the CD to them for a rate of 12$ an hour (CD has around 11 songs)... the offer was too high for them it seems, I'm waiitng for a counter-offer.

They also refused to take the songs off Myspace until this is settled. I'll keep this updated when more occurs.

Thanks for the support and info everyone. It looks like this might get settled amicably, if my negotiating skills hold up!

[ebot9000]

He who has the masters has the control.

You got em, so you're in good shape. Keep em until you're paid.

[hachre]

Very good....

[Sqye]

.

what'd you do?.....mix the kick drum hard right - on all the tracks?...

good luck...bands are a headache: the more egos, the quicker i'm outta there...
been there, done that...

recording and mixing a record is an intense process for most,
so everyone might just need to settle down some.

i'm sure you guys'll work it out if you want to, after everyone's chilled a bit...
take a deep breath, and ask yourself, "are we having fun, yet?"

if the guys are too much of a pain in the ass, it might be best to just move on to the next project.

OTOH, if the project is really important to you, it could be worth your time and effort
to be the bigger man, and stick it out - maybe, just let the dust clear a little...

good luck.

.

[Snatchman]

Hey Man..To bad about your situation here. I hope you get it resolved peacefully. SOT...just to put a little humor here and ease the tension.....the title of your thread really spooked me there for a minute ( until I read deeper into the thread)..I thought " Dang..that must have been a *&^% up mix for them to kick him out of the band!.......Good luck

[Sk106]

As I read it, this is more a question of hurt personal pride on both sides, and consequently further oversteps in matters of trust and agreement after a parting deal has been made. It's not a big case of arbitrary use of your name and artistic efforts, although I'm sure it's very irritating.

As I understand it, you got the master, but they (and perhaps you too) got access to the unmastered mixes. Where I'm at, the law clearly regulates that an artistic work that has not yet been made publically available or presented to the grand public cannot be made publically available without the author's specific persmission. This is regardless whatever use this concerns - economic profits or publicity gains. As you are the drummer on this artistic work, they would be crossing the law to make this work available without your explicit permission - if they were located here. A legal matter baseed on this would probably not lead to much more than you getting some voices on your side telling them to clearly remove the stuff from public availability, or possibly if you could reach some kind of economic agreement. Morally, it seems pretty clearcut, but legally it's real small potatoes that not many people want's to bother with too much. As much as we all want there to be an option for nailing someone for being an asshole, it's not very easy.

If they made money off of this work, or abused your good name, in a way that you can prove, for work that you not only participated in and contributed to, but also paid for, then it's probably easier to gain some support from a laywer and have your way with things or squeeze some cash out. But such a thing would also get you - and them - media exposure in your local paper and such. And that can be good or it can get terrible.

You've been butt****ed, and the fact that they are not upfront with it, saying "we know this sucks, but this is what we feel and here are the reasons why and we've made our decision", but instead it's vague and unclear why, probably a scent of being uncomfortable about telling you at all, that should tell you very clearly that there are no clear reasons why and certainly not something that they feel straight-backed about. So, I don't think it sounds like you have done anything wrong that you have to consider in the future. You got used and hung out to twist by some spineless people. You should be upset, and justifyably so. This can happen, although it's not like you should expect it and accept it with a happy smile.

You rarely get hit by the car you see in advance, but by the one you didn't even know was there. So, don't start being too paranoid about protecting your butt in all collaborations in the future. You can't really get screwed over in a way that you can predict in advance anyway. Going to measures with protecting your interests, and still get screwed over in a way you never thought possible ... that's alot worse than being screwed over from just good trust.
*pat on the back, bro*

[Freq18Hz]

Originally Posted by cbc459

I would like some advice on how to proceed in this situation...

I played drums in a local band, we had been together for 5 years. We recorded an album, and did the mixing. It took over a month (not much spare time from school), but the result was great. We each forked over some cash to get it mastered by a respected local pro. Now, one day after I received the master copy, I get kicked out of the band. They say... they don't feel comfortable with me in the band anymore.. all very vague without any specifics.

So now, they expected to be able to use the mixes. I said no, I felt horribly abused and said they could NOT use my work. They accepted this decision. As my last act in the band, I removed all my mixes from their website and myspace. Two weeks later, the exact same mixes are re-uploaded by them. We did not reach any agreement, I was not paid or compensated in any way, and the money I forked over for mastering not even refunded still.

What can I do? Should I just sell the mix? What rate would you recommend? Or keep it in spite? Should I go all the way to small claims? This sucks, I would like some help from some fellow sluts, I'm sure I'm not the only one who got effed over like this.

take the high road, find a new band, don't let the old one suck any more of your energy.


-Freq

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by CISUM

[...]

***Lawyers, by law will havew to give you free advice if you do call them and talk to them, if they dont their full of shit bro, its their job to give advice, contracts etc then they get paid for it. I was on the phone with a lawyer in the past calling and getting advice for what i need to do on a lot of matters and it was free and he was very nice, so contact one if you feel the need.***

Wow. What state do you live in?

That most definitely is not true in California. Some lawyers may talk to you for free a bit in order to see if you might have a case they could take on a contingency basis for a slice of the pie.

And if you're lucky enough to live somewhere where there is an active public legal aid office and volunteers, you might be able to cadge some advice off them or a similar service.

[SK1]

Originally Posted by Sk106

.......... You rarely get hit by the car you see in advance, but by the one you didn't even know was there. So, don't start being too paranoid about protecting your butt in all collaborations in the future. You can't really get screwed over in a way that you can predict in advance anyway. Going to measures with protecting your interests, and still get screwed over in a way you never thought possible ... that's alot worse than being screwed over from just good trust.
*pat on the back, bro*

I disagree. Be paranoid. 5 years adds up to a lot of work. Live and learn.

Pros get things in writing. Let's act pro. Anyone pro shouldn't have a problem with this type of posture.

[Sk106]

Originally Posted by SK1

I disagree. Be paranoid. 5 years adds up to a lot of work. Live and learn.
Pros get things in writing. Let's act pro. Anyone pro shouldn't have a problem with this type of posture.

I know how you mean.

But, living and learning is different for all people. What we learn fromsomething is individual to us all. To me, living and learning doesn't mean that I try to prevent a bad thing from ever happening again without considering what that actually results in. That's square black&white thinking to me. The same thing applies to Pro; Pro means one thing in one place and it means the complete opposite on other places. Pros in different places do it differently.

If somebody suggests my involvment and asking for my support, my contribution and my loyalty and then slams a written lockdown agreement in my face first thing? A more dumb gesture of distrust, disrespect and paranoia is hard to find. If a man conveys distrust and suspicion of my contribution and my loyalty to what I take active interest in, then what heck is he doing at my doorstep in the first place? what would he want a man he doesn't trust in the first place for?

Secon, I feel that something with a higher risk yields higher rewards artistically. If someone looks for more efficient rewards in the form of money, with more security and tries to find that in the music business .. that's just not a very smart man. A linedancer, doing incredible stuff 100 feet up in the air, without any security net or any such security devices is to me a much higher achievement than one with securities, and much more interesting to watch as well.

Third, when I work with people I prefer there to be some bonding, some friendship of some kind, shallow or closer, some relaxed trust and enjoyment. Not contract-bound people who are there out of duty. It makes the work 100% more pleasurable, you wake up and you want to go there and if you pull it off without feeling you're simply being used by a contractman .. then whatever you achieve is just work. There's no heart in it, no pleasure, nothing special at all. I don't fully trust people who doesn't want to do it out of free will, and if they are contracted they usually just do what the paperwork says they should, and not much more. Something of higher risk assures my highest commitment to it. It makes me focus more and do a better job, since I have to.

A woman may cheat on a man, but if the man tries to prevent this from happening again - by juridical measures before even hooking up with another woman again, doing shit like premarital settlement to be able to tell her he loves her - that man is scared and square and misses out on alot, alot.

[cbc459]

God! It feels good to get some emotional support on this. This isn't the kind of thing I can go blab about openly to everyone I know (i.e. everyone the band knows)... I love gearslutz!

[Sqye]

Originally Posted by cbc459

God! It feels good to get some emotional support on this. This isn't the kind of thing I can go blab about openly to everyone I know (i.e. everyone the band knows)... I love gearslutz!

yeah, dude - you're not the only one - THAT's for sure...

welcome to the mostly miserable world of fusing music and business...

.

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by narcoman

...which will cost him about $500 or more. Ownership of the mixes has nothing to do with the physical media- it has everything to do with who commissioned the work. The whole band did - so he has as much ownership as they do. As for legal battle - that'd be the silliest move - lot's of money for nothing - it's a local band with school kids!!

If it's worth $500 to him, then I guess it's worth it. He asked.

Ownership of media has a lot to do with it, especially when he is part of the commissioning party. It certainly is not clear that this was a work for hire scenario since he not only didn't get paid, but invested in the project himself both financially and in good will.

It's also not clear it's a high school band. I actually assumed he meant college since they'd already been playing together for five years. And being a highschool band doesn't preclude prospective capital gain off recordings or anticipated future glory.

So silly if it's not worth it, but I was giving him options, including opting out if it's too much of a pain.

[travisbrown]

Oh, and if it's any consolation, I got permanently replaced the day of a live recording when I was playing for my first band for which I'd played several years and compromised my high school graduation year to tour. A very traumatic experience, especially since I was replaced by a friend.

[BLueROom]

I say it depends on how far this band will really go and who they know. In a local scene reputation is everything. I'd just ask them to credit you and give them the raw tracks to have mixed elsewhere. Odds are if you do much to take any legal action they will destroy your local scene cred. Sucks, but it's reality in local scenes. If they credit you and you kicked some ass on the recording, it will get you another band to work with in no time.

[thermos]

I agree with the written agreement thing. Absolutely necessary since you put so much time in/helped develop the sound of the band. You are entitled to it.

What a bummer. Show them by becoming the world's best drummer!