I did some research on record deals and how they work to understand Zayn’s situation more. #FREEZAYN #FREEZIRECTION here’s what I found:

First, here is the short version of what a record label does. They are basically a glorified bank for musical artist. They loan out money to artist, so artist can make their art and the artist has to pay them back with their earnings.

To understand why record labels work the way they do we need to understand their history.

Record labels used to only make the physical copies of artist’s music. They would help the artist record the music and put it on the physical record and distribute it. But since digital music has come on the scene things have changed.

They needed to find a way to make money, so they have dipped into other parts of the music industry. Once artists had to go to multiple different companies for each part of the job. Music videos, merch, touring, and etc.

This is where the 360 deal comes in.

A 360 deal let’s the record label control/own almost all aspects of an artist’s art. The deal usually promises promo, radio, videos, merch, and even more.

Here’s where things go bad. Record labels main goal is to make money, and since music has changed for the worst for them they scrap at anything to make it. Instead of making money off of records they make it off of artists as a whole.

They basically want their artists to always be in debt to them. They pay for an artist to do all these things and then the artist makes money and the company takes the money back that they put into the artist and then more through percentages.

Record labels will basically buy someone’s brand for a certain amount of money (which will most likely be less than what they are truly worth), and put things in place for them to make money off of artists earnings. Artist could be making millions and will only see thousands.

Also owning masters is important. Zayn’s song that got leaked most likely got leaked legally because he probably doesn’t own his masters. Masters are the original mix of the song aka the studio version.

Zayn can get his contract renegotiated, but then again we don’t know what his contract says, so we don’t know for sure. I also don’t understand why RCA is holding him back so much.

Personally I think Zayn should do what he can to get out and just do his music independently, because he already had to pay for his music videos himself and he could definitely find a company to distribute his physicals way better than RCA records.

Here are my sources for this thread:











https://www.bustle.com/articles/143067-how-can-an-artist-get-out-of-a-record-contract-kesha-dr-lukes-case-raises

I suggest watching them as well cause this thread is just a surface level understanding.

Anyways stream Icarus Falls https://open.spotify.com/album/2aE3VcIiNPqqo4VzOXiDoR?si=XSE3glicTnm2gkHIs_Jb_A

And #FREEZAYN