Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain_jovi
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't owning the masters and having the publishing rights two different things? I legit do not know.
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Yes, but both are relevant.
Publishing is regarding song writing royalties. Most bigger song writers set up their own publishing company and they own the rights to their own songs. Some may sign up to another publisher to collect royalties for them (the publisher will take a cut), but the writer still retain the rights. Some my choose to sell their publishing, which is the current trend, due to streaming meaning that royalies from song writing are not what they were.
The masters is the recordings, not the songs. If you are signed to a regular record deal as Bon Jovi were, these will be owned by the record company, unless a deal is negoiated such as the Metallica one, or the band purchase the masters from the label. It depends on the contract how much the label own, often it's just the albums and any other material that has been released (Live, B-Sides, etc), but some older deals indicate that they own anything the artist records while signed to them. Very uncommon these days.
Everything from recent years since Jon has been licencing to the label, Jon will own those masters. However, he's restricted as what he can do with those as he has a contract with the label for them to distribute the recordings for a set amount of years.