dont even bother, everyone and their little brothers are opening up digital labels. get signed to respectable label and if they are, they will handle your mastering, and no, they wont ask you money for it. you dont really gain anything when you sign with a label like this. i highly doubt you will get even half your mastering costs at a 50/50 deal with them. now you want a lawsuit over this? welcome to online mp3 sales with a flooder label that has no guarantees of paying you those small amount of dollars at the end of the day. my 2cents. also, dont be emo, k.

Don't sign anything without talking to an entertainment lawyer, first. I'm not as concerned with the parts of the contract that you did show me as I would be with the parts not disclosed. That said, you probably shouldn't sign a contract with that indemnity clause, which is probably going to be found in any first contract a label would send you.

Also, 50% sounds like a lot, but it really isn't that much, unless you're selling a lot of records. Even though it seems like they made an open declaration on profits, how much operating costs infringe on their profit margin could mean that they're only splitting 50% of total revenues after Costs of Goods Sold, taxes, and other operating expenses "attributable" to your work have been deducted.

Did you check for a web-presence on Audiojelly or Beatport? It seems like you did a fair amount of research work, trying to find them as an established label, and what you found was, at best, a fledgling label having trouble running their web-site. The fact that you're not convinced about the song's quality sounds like they could have just been spamming sound-cloud accounts to see who will bite.

Go with your gut on this, dude. Don't sign anything. Even if it's not fishy, it still sounds like they don't know what they're doing and that could fuck you, too.

FWIW, I'd love to have a copy of that contract to look at, myself. I'm not a lawyer but I'd like to see the standard fare of what an artist can expect to be encountered with, as he or she signs with a label. PM me if you can send me a copy but I quite understand, if you can't.

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my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012

the holy bible says, "a simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to this steps."

Thanks for the feedback guys, it helps me in my decision making
EddieZilker: PM sent

I agree with Eddie. Even if it's not a scam, they're incompetent. No-win situation imo.

Last edited by david.michael on Aug-29-2011 at 14:17

quote:

Originally posted by Andyman3k Thanks for the feedback guys, it helps me in my decision making EddieZilker: PM sent

Just glancing over it, I can tell you it suffers from an incomplete proof-reading for grammatical errors and a lot of murky language. I was right about the profit sharing - that it's 50% after expenses have been deducted. Even if it were a firm of Armada's stature that had sent me this contract, I wouldn't sign it without having an entertainment lawyer, familiar with Australian legal code, negotiate for better terms pertaining to the artist. A lot of it looks like they copy and pasted an anachronistic legal contract as there are clauses pertaining to record advances only basically struck through with parenthetical advice that they don't apply. Do not sign this.

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Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012

In other words.... it's not worth bothering with. Seems to be a recurring theme with all these useless digital labels.

Why would you want to release on a shitty unknown label anyway? If that's the only kind of label that you can manage to have your track signed to, the track is probably not worth releasing in the first place.

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quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Levels is...decent...damn better than a lot of the shite dominating the charts at the moment. It sounds absolutely nothing like...a billion and one similar tracks in this big-room style. I always had a soft spot.

quote:

Originally posted by Adam420 Why would you want to release on a shitty unknown label anyway? If that's the only kind of label that you can manage to have your track signed to, the track is probably not worth releasing in the first place.

You read my mind

Yeah, it's a scam in the sense that you pay and get nothing.

Not even worth the time to investigate it.