weirdojace wrote:Probably to keep people from seeing the album on iTunes and thinking it's an actual Weird Al album.
Yeah exactly. I don't think it's that outlandish a request considering you're technically making a competing product. Still a little annoying though...
Yeah, we weren't allowed to use Al's image to promote the tribute concert either. He didn't want us to inadvertently give people the impression that Al would be performing. I assume the same thing applies for any tribute album.
Yes, I completely understand his logic behind it, it'll just be tad more difficult making a cover (concept) that isn't just some accordion and glasses sitting on a table near a plate of assorted foods. We'll figure it out.
Note to anybody who wants to make a Weird Al tribute album after this: try to avoid covering anything from before 1992, unless you'd like to pay a ton of extra cash.
The problem lies in the fact that they want an advance against royalties, not straight up royalty payments that happen as the albums get sold. Ear Booker agreed to waive that, but Sony still wants the advance and for us to go through the Harry Fox agency.
Hypothetical question, what happens if you just say, "Screw this advance against royalties crap", proceed with the album, but pay royalties. Is there anything, legally, they can do to you?
Yeah... but our record is going to have MC Frontalot, mc chris, and other mildly famous peoples on it, which gives it a greater opportunity to be popular. Thus, it would be much easier for a record label to find our album online and track us down and sue our pants off (literally... I'm pretty broke as it is). Not to mention that we've already contacted these labels about our record, so they already know about it. They might get a wild hair up their ass someday and say "Hey, I wonder what ever happened to that silly Weird Al tribute CD thing and why I never got royalties... they must've just given up..... WAIT! Here it is on iTunes, making (at least some amount of) money! I shall inquire about this, and if necessary enforce my big record label executive powers with further litigation! AH-HA!" I mean, I'm sure the advance means something, otherwise they wouldn't make you pay it. Honestly, if they wanted us to pay $10,000,000 per song we covered, we probably would have to do that, cause you pretty much are at the mercy of the person who owns the songs you want to honor. I mean, it sucks ass, but it seems like its that sort of ass suckery that we'll have to go through to professionally, and legally release this record.
