In the world of music there are tons of loopholes that many artists use to get away with things that the average everyday person would not be allowed to get away with. Of course, the larger the artist, the bigger their label is which equals out to more power and grip on such topics. With Kanye West being one of the biggest artists in the world, one can only imagine the kind of pull that he has. Actually, we are seeing that power now as Kanye West’s label and the label that have King Crimson are going at it with one another via a sample that Kanye West used from King Crimson from the song ’21st Century Schizoid Man’ for Kanye’s work, ‘Power’.
Earlier this year, Declan Music Group went after Universal Music Group over underpaid streaming royalties from Kanye West. The claim via DCM was that UMG failed to pay streaming royalties equivalent to CD sales for the use of the sample, as the labels had agreed in their initial deal.
After much time has passed, UMG now responded to the allegations, saying that not only all royalties are up to date, but they are even paying more than they’re supposed to.
Via UMG’s statement: “A purchase of a CD gives permanent ownership of a copy of the recording, which entitles the owner to play the recording as many times as they wish. By contrast, exploitation of a recording via a streaming service or platform is ephemeral, and only provides the listener or subscriber with conditional access to, rather than ownership of, the recording.”
The statement continues: “The latter is of an intrinsically different nature to the former, and the price of such usage is accordingly very much lower.”
UMG now claims that DCM owes them money as they ‘overpaid’ for the sample used.
