Artist Rights Quotes

I firmly believe artists should be paid for what they create.

I truly believe, as an institution, most major labels should just die.

I think all the bad blood started when Geffen released a greatest hits package of my solo stuff.

Once you put songs out, they're not yours anymore. They're everyone else's.

Certainly, my many years working in the comics industry, creating products that I do not own, has made me rather fierce on the subject of giving up rights.

Finally, my manager negotiated a deal where I got to produce my own records.

I believe in artists. I'm an advocate for artists.

I've made six films for Disney, and they have a clause in their contracts called the morality clause that I've always refused to sign.

I'm one of those artists that people take my music without my consent. People love to snatch my music and do things on their own. You got people that put me on beats I never rapped on. I just feel that it's a bad thing.

I began to fear that Mos Def was being treated as a product, not a person, so I've been going by Yasiin since '99. At first it was just for friends and family, but now I'm declaring it openly.

You're just so excited that you have this record deal or this movie opportunity that you don't stand up for yourself and say, This is what I want to do.

An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine.

Imagine if someone like John Lennon or Bob Marley, Sid Vicious, Picasso, whomever, were doing their work, and some corporation, some CEO, some branding entity was saying to you, 'Well, you can do that, but you've got to remove this aspect of your work.' There would no longer be that purity anymore.

When a record co. finds a guy now, they want to own everything. They want to own the rights to market that person's particular name. They want a piece of the action all the way through.

I don't get involved in record label politics.

I think we have to bottom out. When the studios jump out of the ring, perhaps the artist can get back in.

We are passionate about making it so that users enjoy the music that they want to enjoy but at the same time fairly compensates artists. That's not the same as saving the music industry.

A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid.

One thing about an artist, it doesn't matter how much your work sells for in your life, it's going to sell for ten times more than that after you're dead, and that's what you have to protect.

I'm very supportive of creative people being paid for the work that they do.

There's this thing called compulsory licensing law that allows artists through the record companies to take your music at will without your permission.

The copyright bargain: a balance between protection for the artist and rights for the consumer.

All art is exploitation.

I don't hear record companies coming up with any good ideas or suggestions. Historically, if it ain't their idea, it ain't no good, so you got that to contend with.

I'm like, 'Why aren't artists owning their masters? Why are labels robbing artists dry, and they have to spend all this time on tour to even break even?' Like, what happened? Why are they promoting things that aren't either socially conscious or elevating the human consciousness?