The Artifact Summary

672 Words2 Pages

“Artifact” is a documentary that depicts the hectic battle between alternative-rock band 30 Seconds to Mars and British label EMI. After 9 years of being with Virgin Records/EMI, 30 Seconds to Mars decided to opt out of the contract. In return, the recording giant served them with a $30 million lawsuit for “breaching the contract”. Jared Leto, the band’s front man, picked up a video camera and recorded the whole process under the name of Bartholomew Cubbins. Touring the world and selling over three million album copies was not cutting it; the band was still in a 2.7 million dollar debt. 30 Seconds to Mars sent EMI a termination letter and cited the seven-year statute in it, claiming that they could not be held bound to a contract for more than …show more content…

They had no idea if they were going to continue to be a band in the future. Taking in a guy from outside the music business who, in addition, did not play by the industry rules had partially led them to this situation. The band and its team clearly did not follow Passman’s advice of effectively screening the sharks. The Record label industry was, at the same time, having problems of its own. Record labels had failed to create their own future distribution systems; Illegal downloads, online streaming and other factors led to an overall decrease in record sales. EMI was being acquired by Terra Firma, a U.K. based private equity company, for five billion dollars. Guy Hands, founder and chairman of Terra Firma, really thought that he could turn EMI around, but that wasn’t exactly the case. He didn’t quite understand the music business and started hiring and cutting jobs, all of a sudden. The overarching dilemma of the whole documentary is that the business model of record labels is to screw an artist; they take advantage of uneducated artists. The record label gives $25,000 dollars in advance to the artist to record an

More about The Artifact Summary

Open Document