The new deal model is simple.

Mr Longtale is committed to monetising your creations. In simple English this means that you make the Art and Mr Longtale will help turn it into MONEY. The idea is to make you money – no point in harping on how inequitable the industry is if Mr Longtale cannot come up with an equitable model.

Mr Longtale rejected the conventional record deal as "not fit for purpose" in a modern world. Then he looked at the old style indie deal. This was favoured in the 70's and 80's and is still used in the dance market sometimes. Basically you assign your masters to the Indie. They market your record and all the costs are recouped from initial sales. Once recouped you get to split the income 50:50.

Good in principle But in reality how do you control costs, you are still subject to all sorts of 3^rd party costs and there is always an accounting problem. How do you know when you have recouped? How do you know exactly what are legitimate costs and not etc.?

Until recouped you receive Nothing. The re-recording restrictions still apply, You give up ownership of your copyright.

Mr Longtale decided that there would be no automatic ownership of copygright. If Longtale finances the copyright creation then there is an argument that as a risk taker they should have some benefits. If however Longtale does not finance the Master then it would expect that you would exclusively license the masters you deliver to Longtale but reserve the right to re-mix and re-use your original masters. Until recouped you would need to do so by mutual consent as you do not want to have two record companies competing in the marketplace. This only confuses the market and will not be good for your career.

Longtale will need to have the rights to license your music in perpetuity for film, TV and new media, on compilations, and sound track albums. The object of Longtale Recordings is not to sell records. The object is to build 2 brands. Firstly - your brand, and secondly the Longtale brand. In parallel with that our objective is to make money with your creations. The object is to find ways to get the music to work and consequently earn you money. We call this artrepreneurialism. (The monetisation of art).

There are some instances where the collective is great – that is where we can validate your work due to the fact that it is signed to a cool label, where we create bespoke compilations both on line and physical releases. There are other opportunities where your brand can speak for itself and in those cases we will just be the support behind your brand. We hope to keep this tightly under control and to work closely with you and your management to develop your brand and income streams so that you can afford to be an Artist.

Here is the deal:

You – supply the masters and make sure that the publishing is controllable – [we need to have a dialogue with your publishers and they need to understand exactly what we are doing. They need to sign up to the program. We cannot pitch you to films, adverts of games only to have your publisher nix the deal. If you do not have a publisher we have a deal with Real World Works that is perfectly in synch with this deal. - our preferred option]

Longtale – will work with you to sort out artwork, biogs, press releases, release dates.

Longtale will supply ISRC Codes, Bar Codes, proof the product info, help with your myspace page, give you a Longtale page, Upload your works to iTunes as well as other digital eTailers such as Rhapsody, eMusic, we7 and others that we think are suitable for your album.

Longtale will market your songs to the Film, TV and New Media Industry.

If necessary and by mutual consent we will press up CD's (if we think the deal is financially sound) we will attempt to place the albums with physical distributors (we currently have deals in place with Egea Distribution and Proper distribution). We will sell the CD's from our web site and do the European Fulfilment. We are in discussions with a US fulfilment house.

We will account to you quarterly.

The Financials

Longtale will take a 10% administrative commission from all income earned and received by on these recordings.

The remaining 90% will be split into 3 pots

Longtale	The Pot	Artist
30%	30%	30%
We get 30% of all income received	This pot pays any of Longtale's expenses incurred on your behalf.	You get 30% of all income received
<<<<<< We use this to develop Longtale and to enable us to have a bit of cash to finance things like pressings, internet marketing and the few things that you need to keep a label running.	Uploading (Currently +/- £25.00 Bar Code costs (currently £10) Artwork – if agreed Pressing – if agreed Press – if agreed Mechanical royalties any other agreed costs <<<<<<<<<<<	You get this income from day one. paid to you every quarter. You spend your money on all things rock n roll.
	Once Longtale costs recouped this 30% pot goes to the Artist >>>>>>>>>>>	>>>>You can do what you like with this

So in a nutshell.

Until recouped it's a 70 / 30 deal  (LTR / Artist)

After recoupment its 40 / 60 (LTR / Artist)

Also from Day One and from Record One you earn 30%. Compare that to the average record deal where you get 14% if you are lucky (and then they still hit you for deductions and reductions).

Longtale is incentivised to make the recordings work as it can only recoup from 30% of the income.

Mr Longtale thinks that this is a very FAIR deal for Artist and the development of a viable alternative.