To the esteemed members of the California Assembly and Senate:

As you know, California’s “7 Year Rule” limits personal service contracts from locking California workers beyond 7 years.

However, because of successful lobbying in the 80s by major record labels, recording artists are exempt from this protection. 

There is absolutely no reason to deny recording artists protection under the 7 year rule.. 

Major record contracts are unconscionable and filled with predatory provisions that take advantage of up and coming artists. They own the artist’s work, they keep almost all the money from recordings, and they earn revenue from the artists work outside of the recording studio, because they now demand a “360 degree deal”.  Money artists are supposed to receive are lost in creative accounting practices and outdated contract provisions. 

Even though we now live in a singles economy with streaming now accounting for 65% of global recorded revenue, many major label contracts still deal in “albums.” 

With no limit on the length of their personal services contracts, artists are locked into these horrible deals with no way to escape. The balance of power in favor of the record labels should never stand in California, where worker rights, and artist protections, have served to build California into an economic powerhouse. 

Many major label contracts keep artists locked into their deal for what could be up to 10 albums. Not years. Albums. Which could last decades. The artist doesn’t get to walk away if they want. Only the label can decide if they want to have the artist make more albums or cut them free. 

Actors are similarly stuck in outdated exclusivity provisions that hold them off the market and unable to work for unreasonably long periods of time. Studios and streaming companies have exploded in popularity and power in the digital era, and yet actors are stuck in contracts leftover from the age of broadcast television.  California should not stand for this injustice, just as they did not stand for injustices in the early days of Hollywood..

The major labels made nearly $19 billion in 2021. They’re doing just fine. Musicians need to be protected. These massive corporations do not. 

The majors are claiming that it takes longer than 7 years to develop an artist. This is patently false. The major labels do not develop artists anymore, they profit off them.  Period. 

Record labels negotiate major payoffs from giant tech firms like TikTok, Facebook and Twitch.  These payoffs benefit the labels, but never the individual artists.   

The studios and streaming companies now make their money in global subscriptions. Individual artists are no longer valued. 

It is time to restore the balance of power among workers and industry.  It is time to make the digital era of entertainment fair for all, not just a windfall for corporations.  

We ask you to please pass “The Fair Act,” Assembly Bill 2926 (Kalra).