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Official Perseverance Records Thread


Koray Savas

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MV Gerhard just emailed me to let me know that the following Perseverance releases are also illegal:

Deadly Friend

Prophecy

Prophecy 2

Fade to Black

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Legal? Yeah. But it is titled differently, isn't it? Nowhere on the disc. nor in the booklet, is the film ever mentioned. It is referred to as an "unmade film, as it were".

Karol

I think that is an actual legal issue with the film studio. Their release of Chinatown's rejected score makes no mention of it either. But that's if we're taking Robin's word for it.

Rain Man is botched because Zimmer tried to prevent it but he still managed to get a crappy sounding version to release.

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Guys, I have to weigh in here. I am sick of having to explain and defend my actions, so here they are; straight from the horse's mouth. Once and for all.
Slipstream is NOT a bootleg. I had a licensing deal with the Elmer Bernstein estate that allowed me to manufacture and sell the CD. Unfortunately, as it turned out, they claimed to own the rights to the score's masters in addition to the publishing which turned out not to be true. I had done my due diligence and gotten a license. If someone sells you a car you don't go around asking other people if they own it instead, do you?
Bootlegs: We didn't do Deadly Blessing; that wasn't ours. I wish MV would get his facts straight before accusing me of illegal activities. That is the second time he did that. If he does it again he might find himself in court for libel. I'm serious.
Prophecy I and II: I admit: This one is a gray area; While David Williams and I got the OK from the producer to do the albums, not even he could tell us who owned the masters. The franchise had changed ownership so many times that no one knew who owned the rights. We figured we'd go ahead anyway. Is this something I would still do today? Probably not.
Craig Safan Promo: I did this as a favor for a friend. We are not selling these and are actually losing money on them. It cost us money to produce them, plus we have to give Craig his royalty on top of that. Bootleggers are in it for the money; big money; bootleggers don't pay royalties. I pay royalties on ALL my releases, commercial or promo.
Chinatown and Edge of Darkness: These are legitimate commercial releases. I have licenses for both. The reason why they don't say the film title on the cover is that the production companies (Paramount and GK Films, respectively) didn't want the albums to be associated with the films in question. So, we had to come up with a different title. In the case of Edge of Darkness, we weren't even allowed to reference the movie at all in the package. In both cases the composer came up with the alternate title.
Rain Man: Hans didn't actually want to stop this release (I don't know where you got that information); he merely wasn't interested in releasing the score. We already had a deal with MGM and put a lot of money in the project, so we decided to go ahead with it. Again, I probably wouldn't do this today.
Expanded Re-issues: The reason why Witches of Eastwick wasn't expanded was that we thought the music on the original WB album was already the best representation of the score. If you know the rest of the music you'll find that it is the same thing over and over again. That's why John Williams released it that way originally. We don't think there needs to be every single note from a score on a CD for a good listening experience, but that's just our opinion. If you don't agree, don't buy the album. Nobody is forcing you to. Furthermore, whereas the album is owned by one entity (WEA), the additional music is controlled by another one (Warner Bros Films); to license anything additional would have cost us considerably more money, and we wouldn't have been able to pass a fair price on to you. Also, more legalities would be involved.
Newsletter Emails: I am sorry you think they look amateurish. You are, however, the first ones to complain about this. No one else has so far, at least not to me. We are in the process of re-designing our Web site, however, and we hope you'll like the outcome.
In closing: I am not a bootlegger or someone who engages in illegal business practices because it makes my life easier. I wish people would stop saying I am.

Robin Esterhammer

<Robin@PerseveranceRecords.com>

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Chinatown and Edge of Darkness: These are legitimate commercial releases. I have licenses for both. The reason why they don't say the film title on the cover is that the production companies (Paramount and GK Films, respectively) didn't want the albums to be associated with the films in question. So, we had to come up with a different title. In the case of Edge of Darkness, we weren't even allowed to reference the movie at all in the package. In both cases the composer came up with the alternate title.

I was never trying to imply there's anything illegal about Music From The Edge. Granted, you might get that kind of impression from above posts, but that has mostly to do with dry humour of this place, which can be hard to read for outsiders. Also, I pointed out that "different title" approach was simply funny, in an "elephant in the room" kind of way. Doesn't really matter to me. And, again, this disc is splendid. One of my favorite discs released in the past few years. Corigliano should do some Terrence Malick film, if anybody asks me. Not that he needs film industry.

Can't really jump on any bandwagon and comment in detail on anything involved. Why? Because I have no idea how this stuff works, sadly/happily. I'm a complete idiot when it comes to that kind of business.

I hope things between label owners/producers can be resolved and explain in an amicable manner. As I happen to be a customer of all of them. A happy one, too.

Karol

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Robin

There was a mistake in Jason's post. It was DEADLY FRIEND not DEADLY BLESSING that your label released without the proper permission from Warner Bros.

You have released some great titles in the past and probably have some wonderful ones in the future.

I once told you privately and now I am telling you publicly -- stop doing dumb stuff like being involved in that Safan Promo. If you want to be legit, then act legit. Stop pulling rank amateur bs like being involved in promos or titles that have "questionable rights." If the rights are questionable walk away. When it comes to business, it's black or white -- no gray area.

MV

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BTW, before Robin made his post here, Roger F made this post on Intrada yesterday

Not at all. I've had plenty of composers come to me with projects they want to do, but I've never had a composer look over my shoulder to make sure I've got all the proper clearances in place. That's not their job...they just trust I know how this business operates. MGM has generally been supportive of promotional releases and probably would have been happy to license those tracks to Robin (or possibly more likely told him they were already being released so he should focus on something different). But he didn't even ask them. Just because you're not charging for something doesn't give you the right to distribute someone else's IP.

http://www.intrada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=65037#p65037

And today, after seeing Robin's post here, Roger F posted this:

I think the title was Deadly Friend which he did put out, unlicensed from Warner Bros. I had even talked to him about the publishing mechanicals on that and he had no idea what I was talking about. I was trying to help him understand how the soundtrack business works. When we pay advances/royalties to the studios, new use to the union, mechanicals to the publishers, it is frustrating when someone else thumbs their nose at the rules and just does their thing.
I remember fondly working with Lukas on his release of ICE PIRATES. Bruce called one day, a bit confused, to say Robin was putting it out. Doug, Lukas and I were mystified as Lukas had a license and Bruce had provided us the elements to assemble the album. So we all had a heart to heart with Robin. A few weeks later, Bruce calls and says, "You know Robin is still working on that Ice Pirates album." I mean...WTF?
By the way, when you buy a car you get a pink slip that proves ownership. If that doesn't come with the car, be very suspicious. The IP owner on Slipstream has no interest in licensing the soundtrack rights.
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I already posted that I won't do those gray area releases anymore. Persey has been growing steadily ever since its initiation 10 years ago, and this second half of the year we have 24 releases coming up that we have signed contracts for, and we are working on yet more to come. So, we don't want to risk the chance of being shut down by anyone by acting amateurish.

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To Roger:

Nothing could be further from the truth. I did want to release Ice Pirates, but when I was informed by Bruce Broughton that someone else was working on it, I stopped trying to get it released. And NO ONE had a "heart to heart" talk with me. That is simply not true.

Ands when you get a pink slip, which, essentially, is teh equivalent of a license, such as I got from the Bernstein estate, you don't question that pink slip.

So, Roger, get off your high horse and get real.

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To lay the supposed Charmed bootleg issue to rest once and for all, here is the email I sent privately to MV Gerhard after he posted his false accusations.
Dear MV,
As you know, I am getting a lot of heat from the other labels for putting out what some of you consider a bootleg. While I still reserve myself the right to respond to these allegations, I need you to clarify something on your Intrada post, which is completely and utterly untrue:
1. I didn't "try yo pull a fast one on Charmed" - I had a deal with Peter Robinson to re-record the Charmed tracks for a double album that I was going to pay him anywhere from $3-5K for. When I contacted CBS to license some additional music we were informed that the initial release of a score on TV does not qualify for the automatic right to have it re-recorded by someone else. We actually had three law firms involved in this debate, which tells you that no none knew exactly what the situation with the re-recording rights were. In order for us to license the tracks from CBS, which, at this point, they were willing to do, they wanted a license fee of $10,000, a sum both Peter, his manager, as well as myself found as too unrealistically high, so we declined. Peter wasn't happy having to pull out of a deal that he had already had so much time and labor invested in. When the deal fell through, AND ONLY THEN, you guys came into play.
2. I tried to do so "while you were in negotiations for the damn project" - If you had already been in talks to license the double album why did Peter work with me on this project for several months? Also, how come CBS were willing to license the music to me if there was another party already interested.
3. "Luckily we stopped the release in its tracks before his bootleg got out there." - You didn't stop anything. The reason Perseverance didn't release the Charmed music was that CBS wanted too much money upfront. That's all. And it was NOT a bootleg. I wish you people stopped using that term in connection with my releases.
In closing, I want to point out that the Charmed album that Lala Land Records eventually released is, note-for-note, the very same album Peter and I selected, re-recorded, sequenced and mastered. And where was my name on the credits?
I leave it up to you how you deal with this, but I hope you have enough decency and honor in you to rectify this error in judgement by posting the truth about Charmed in another post.
Sincerely,
Robin Esterhammer
President & CEO
Perseverance Records
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It's still not clear to me if Perseverance is/was willingly and knowingly selling material they had no rights too, or that their business practice is just a little different then those of Intrada. LLL etc etc...

Selling bootlegs would of course be wrong. But that hasn't been established. Other labels claim it, Perseverance denies it. The fact that some of their releases (for example Rain Man) had poor sound is also not proof.

Also, one swallow doesn't make a summer. I remember Intrada releasing Young Sherlock Holmes years ago, and it later turned out there was a rights issue.

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Well we'll just have to see how things play out.

There's enough music to go around for everyone to have a piece of the pie, so to speak, so I doubt it's a case of greed amongst the labels.

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Well LLL, FSM, Intrada seem to have always respected each others patches and tried not to undercut each other. Perseverance might be playing a different game. Not very noble perhaps, who knows. But that happens in businesses everywhere.

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Robin

CBS (the company that entrusted La-La Land Records with their Star Trek franchise) had no prior knowledge of this release until I brought it to their attention (after you started taking orders). So spare ALL of us your lies. You were trying to slide this one by and you got caught. You embarrassed yourself and the composer and now you are further embarrassing yourself.

Furthermore, you are not credited or thanked on this release because both CBS and the composer wanted nothing to do with you or acknowledge how you underhandedly acted. We released what J Peter assembled because it was what he wanted and CBS agreed. You are lucky you got out of this as unscathed as you did.

Oh, and if you fine folks want another example of how this guy operates go on over to the Intrada Message board and read Roger's post all about ICE PIRATES. Fascinating stuff. smile.gif

MV

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Hey Robin, when is this "80s Holy Grail" you've been hyping for a while going to come out?

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I paid whatever the price was when it was released, $34.99 or so.

When LaLaLand released it I bought theirs and gave my old one to John C .

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I was given the SuperTracks Krull as a free gift from someone else when they bought the LLL version, I have yet to even listen to it. Although if I do I probably would end up getting the LLL version if I like the score enough.

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Woops, I was confusing Krull with the Dragonslayer... my bad

http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=67059&forumID=1&archive=0

Their Krull was legit, though apparently they kept selling it after their license expired, for a bit

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Their Krull was legit, though apparently they kept selling it after their license expired, for a bit

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Nope, you have to destroy it.

You usually have a 6 month window after expiration. After that, the Licensor has the right to take back any unsold product (at no charge to Licensee) or have Licensee destroy said product

MV

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I was given the SuperTracks Krull as a free gift from someone else when they bought the LLL version, I have yet to even listen to it. Although if I do I probably would end up getting the LLL version if I like the score enough.

If you like Star Trek II (which you do) it should be right up your alley.

Karol

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MV is correct - there is always a sell-off period after the license expires.

Also, I just feel that in fairness that this label being taken to task is not the only label to ever issue a promo. I know this because I have a bunch of composer authorized promo releases that had no real licensing deals. The issue is the selling (or in this case the giving away) of the promo. But as I recall I paid for these other composer promo releases.

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