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Does Mike own his videos and masters?

charismatic

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I was just checking out itunes and noticed that for Micheal's videos and his recent release of Thriller and it says the copy right owner is MJJ Inc. which is interesting because I though Sony owned his videos and Music.

While on Amazon it list Sony Distribution as the copy right owner ( i'm guessing) of the new Thriller album -- but make not it says Sony Distribrution and not just Sony which leads me to believe that Sony on have the distribution rights and not the copy right.

Does anyone have any background on this?

Also, when I looked at the Dirty Diana (Live) video and was suspecting that Sony owned the rights It said MJJ inc owned it. I''m recently discovering that the live video is not the orginal video released for Dirty Diana. I just can't wait until they finally release the entire concert. I''m getting very impatient and agry at it's delay.

But back on topic-- does anyone know when Mike took owership of his videos. Most artist don't, but again he's not most artist.
 
from what ive read mj owns the masters from the bad album upwards and gets the rest back anytime now according to most reports.dunno about the videos but i presume he owns them aswell.
 
elusive moonwalker said:
from what ive read mj owns the masters from the bad album upwards and gets the rest back anytime now according to most reports.dunno about the videos but i presume he owns them aswell.
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Thanks, that makes some since. If you look at the videos prior to Bad (i.e Don't Stop Til You Get Enough) is says the copy right owner is Song BMG, but the Thriller videos are own by him.
 
What I always wondered was, if he owns the rights to all the footage his camera men filmed during his tours, etc.? Because if he does...MAKE A DVD OF IT ALL, MIKE!!! PLEEEEEEEAAAAASSSEEEEEEEE!!!! I want a "Private Home Movies Part 2"!!!!!!!!!! :kickass:
 
All the sound recordings from Bad to Invincible have been owned by MJJ Productions. But it looks like Michael now owns the masters (Michael said in 2002 that in 4 or 5 years he would gain control of his masters for Off The Wall and Thriller) for all his studio albums from Off The Wall to Invincible, as MJJ Productions Inc is listed as the owner for those albums on iTunes.

Michael owns almost of his music videos including Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, Billie Jean, Beat It, Thriller, Scream, They Don't Care About Us and many more. The Thriller video was financed by Michael and MTV, Sony/Epic then CBS/Epic had nothing to do with the financing of the Thriller video.

The Way You Make Me Feel, Remember The Time and Cry are just 3 videos own by Sony/BMG not MJJ Production Inc. I'm not sure who owns the videos for Rock With You and She's Out of My Life, as they aren't on iTunes.


summer said:
What I always wondered was, if he owns the rights to all the footage his camera men filmed during his tours, etc.?
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Sony have nothing to do with Michael's tours. I'm sure all the footage of Michael in concert is owned by Michael Jackson not Sony. If it was owned by Sony I'm sure we'd have had the Bad Tour from 1988 on DVD by now, as music labels always want to make a profit.
 
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Yeah, also afaik Michael has always owned his live performances. I think Michael hasn't released them because he still wants people to see him live, not on tape. And he knows fans can have many recordings if they just want. And he hasn't been that interested in his live performances because he wants them to be perfect and the truth is they just never can't be. So he wants to sell studio albums mainly only, that's his primary task. Because they are perfected as much as they just can be and need to be. But you can't perfect mistakes happening during the live act. You can try to make it better next time but the fact is then there's some other mistakes. So it's kinda endless circle. It's very challenging and that keep it's motivating, but it's never nice to watch and review if you're as critical as Michael is.
 
benscarr said:
Sony have nothing to do with Michael's tours. I'm sure all the footage of Michael in concert is owned by Michael Jackson not Sony. If it was owned by Sony I'm sure we'd have had the Bad Tour from 1988 on DVD by now, as music labels always want to make a profit.
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No I didn't mean Sony...but maybe the person who filmed the footage. I can remember reading somewhere once about his camera man being angry that MJ used some tapes he had filmed or something like that....Like back in teh 80's or something...and that's why I was wondering...Does MJ own all the footage since he was paying for it and since it was him on the videos...or does the camera man own the rights...or have some say what happens to the videos? That's what I was wondering...
 
summer said:
No I didn't mean Sony...but maybe the person who filmed the footage. I can remember reading somewhere once about his camera man being angry that MJ used some tapes he had filmed or something like that....Like back in teh 80's or something...and that's why I was wondering...Does MJ own all the footage since he was paying for it and since it was him on the videos...or does the camera man own the rights...or have some say what happens to the videos? That's what I was wondering...
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I think the camera man owns them IF they haven't made an agreement, meaning if Michael hasn't bought the tapes WITH the copyrights. Technically Michael could have owned the tapes themselves but not the copyrights. It's the similar situation with the most of journalists. The newspaper doesn't own the copyrights but the writer itself if there's no contract that the writer loses them when published.
 
Mike does own his concert footage. The film guy is a"work-for-hire" and does not own a thing. The record company however has what's called "blocking rights" to prevent michael from releasing any "record" that were recorded during the term of his contract. Records include DVD, and VHS ect. So if anything they may want a cut of the profits.

But if Mike owns his video footage, i'd believe he has the rights to release any of his concert footage. Now with the Dangerous concert, Mike I believe got a new contract with Sony and with his increased celebrity was able to trump any such blocking rights to his concert dvd releases, again that's everything after dangerous. Also, although in our mind, Mike was calling shots after Thriller, he was not. He was a popular employee for Sony but not the shot caller. He didn't get this until after he resigned with Sony or whomever.
 
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A friend of mine is a director, he directs music videos for Cher, Tina and Kylie and I asked him who owns concert footage of an artist and he said that it's USUALLY the record company or the TV station that broadcasts the show.

RS
 
I agree summer surely he owns the rights to all his concert footage? Why not just release them? Doesn't he know fans have been DIEING for a Bad tour to be released!
 
I believe he owns all his music and videos . Can,t see him giving that up. Michael is no ones fool and a very good bussiness man. Yeh he owns them.
 
summer said:
No I didn't mean Sony...but maybe the person who filmed the footage. I can remember reading somewhere once about his camera man being angry that MJ used some tapes he had filmed or something like that....Like back in teh 80's or something...and that's why I was wondering...Does MJ own all the footage since he was paying for it and since it was him on the videos...or does the camera man own the rights...or have some say what happens to the videos? That's what I was wondering...
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Michael's not the kind of artist/business man who'd let someone film him performing and let them own the footage. This would give other people rights to release Michael's performances, and make most profit from them leaving Michael with little of no profit from any DVD release.

A person who worked as Michael personal videographer in the 1980's, sold footage of Michael's home movies to USA tv shows, and released them on video in the 1980's. Michael was angry with that videographer, and I think sued him of got an injunction on him making any profit from Michael's home movies which are owned by Michael. I think this may be what your talking about when you say a camera man was angry with Michael in the 1980's. I presume any camera man that works for Michael, makes copies of the footage of Michael they've filmed for Michael. Just as I'm sure all the demos and unreleased songs, have been copied by people who work for Michael despite Michael owning the songs they've copied and released without his consent.
 
remember his aold camera man hamid sued him over who owned some footage dont think it was concerts though just general stuff
 
Yeah, I also thought the poster meant "backstage stuff". You can't just hire a guy to shoot anything and you suddenly own the footage. It doesn't matter if the guy is your employer, he still owns copyrights until you buy that footage with copyrights. Of course there could be a contract that he loses the copyrights to Michael right away, but you must make the contract first.
 
Jackson owns all of his music before "Bad", too. It is said on every record: (c)(p) MJJ Productions/Mijac Music Publishing, not any else entity.

And there were no reports about Michael not owning something or that he is going to "get back" something.

There is nothing to get back since he did not ever lost or gave away ownership on his work.

Theoretically, rumours can be not about "masters" and owning, but about contract with ER/SME/S-BMG ME under which copyrights were exclusively given to the label. This means that actual owner is MJJP/MMP, but the label decides what and how to do with it -- for example, to release or not, to promote or not via radios.

That is why back in 2001-2002 Michael could not do anything to force Thomas Mottola to promote Invincible. Copyrights were transferred to SME.

However, usually such exclusive copyrights give-away are very long time contracts, like "forever" lasting. So, most probably, S-BMG ME will be hold copyrights (by contract) for Michael's already released music for unknown long time.
 
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MJ has ownership over his stuff. and He has alot of video footage and a company that stock piles his footage over the years in his vault. MJ owns the copyrights and has his hands all over any and everything that is released with his name on it Post Motown.
 
Mike DOES own all his concert footage- remember he sold the rights to air the Dangerous tour to HBO for a million dollars. The record company only has "block rights" which prevents the artist from releasing any "records" without the record companies concent -- now AGAIn, the only reason Mike was able to release a "record" dvd and sale the rights to HBO was because by the time of Dangerous and a his new contract with them, it appears he trumped their "blocking rights." Now the only reason he may not have release the Bad tour is because they were filmed during the time where the record company had blocking privileges which means they may want a cut for authorizing such a release which mike may not want. I think when those blocking rights expire he may release them.
 
I think he owns everything.
Music, videos, demos.....and the funny thing is that I think that Sony too owns the same things....
 
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