“SHOUT IT OUT”
By Corrine Montorfani
Michael Jackson INVINCIBLE, a double
platinum album considered a flop!
Michael expected to get back the mechanical royalties rights
of his master recording in 2000, which would allow him to sell
his products without sharing profits with Sony,
but found out that various clauses in his contract, kept his
masters under Sony control until July of 2009.
The contract required Michael to publish a number of albums
within a specific period of time. For each album not released,
Sony would have exercise the clause options adding more
years to the date the mechanical royalties would finally go
back to Michael.
Michael said he had never been informed about these
clauses.
After some investigations, he discovered that the law firm
representing him, also represented Sony. He rightly used this
conflict of interest to get rid from the contractual obligation as
artist. He would have released “Invincible”, Sony would have
keep his publishing catalogue rights previous to Invincible
and Michael freed from Sony.
It was the end of May 2001, when Michael Jackson finished
recording v