Music executive George Britton has spoken on the controversial 360 record deal.

He said it is a deal by which a record company “takes a percentage of your revenue from other ventures” apart from music sales.

“It could be concerts, sales of your merchandise, public appearances, image rights, it covers all this,” he explained.

He intimated a 360 deal is as beneficial as it may seem scary.

“When we sign a 360 deal, it’s my role to project you to the rest of the world because if you make more money, I make more money as well,” he assured.

On an artiste owning 100 per cent of the economic rights to his masters (the final version of a song which is put on the market), he said “even distribution deals these days, the distributors make money by taking your masters away from you for 10 years – mind you these are not labels”.

The rationale, he offered, is “I’m investing in you [and] I need to hold on to something that can [guarantee] a return on my investment”.

“Music has become business,” he emphasised.

The entertainment entrepreneur spoke to Prince Benjamin (PB) on the Class Morning Show (CMS) on Class 91.3 FM.

He noted how a 360 deal, typically from a major label, could promise to “blow” and “project” a musician to the global market, assuring of performance opportunities at enviable venues and, for example, “every festival in Europe”.

“Plus,” he said the record label could indicate, “we’re going to build a website for you, you’re going to have an e-commerce website that is going to sell your merchandise. Let’s say Camidoh is so popular, girls want to wear Camidoh’s shirt and hat – same as boys. The label would say: ‘We’re going to do a huge marketing, we’re going to create a marketing budget for this and help market your mech. Now, every sale your merchandise makes, we get a percentage. For your image rights: everybody that comes in and uses you as a brand ambassador or uses your image for advertisement, they pay x amount [and] we own this percentage in your x.”

George Britton asserted this all means “the label would have to double up their work to make sure they push you into some rooms in which some [key] decisions are made and for you to be seen on [some particular] platforms”.

Eventually, he cited, when an external company recognises the artiste’s value and offers a deal of say 5,000,000, when the record company takes 50 per cent of the money, for example, per the preexisting contract, the artiste cannot claim they have been cheated because “it’s business”.

“Nobody holds anyone at gunpoint and says: ‘Sign this’,” he noted. “You’re presented a contract [and] usually, you take like two weeks or even more for it to get back.”

While an artiste considers the contract, he advised getting help from “a legal practitioner – a lawyer so you know what you’re signing”.

Ultimately, the contract is there because “nobody wants to lose,” the creative strategist and GB Records founder noted.