UMG has filed a motion to dismiss the class-action lawsuit brought by representatives of several artists whose master tapes were believed destroyed in the 2008 fire (about which more below). The upshot is that the label asserts that the plaintiffs have no case because UMG controlled the rights to the masters at the time of the conflagration. More details soon.
In a memo that went companywide on Wednesday, Pat Kraus, UMG's head of studio, production and archive services, provided a detailed progress report about the company’s efforts to determine what specific master recordings were destroyed in the 2008 fire at the NBCUniversal Studios lot.
“At Sir Lucian’s request,’ the internal memo begins, “I’d like to update you on our efforts to provide our artists transparency with respect to the archived assets we have in our facilities and those that were lost...
“Over the past several weeks, our team has been working around the clock, fielding requests from approximately 275 artists and representatives. To date we’ve reviewed 26,663 individual assets covering 30 artists. Of those assets, we believe we’ve identified 424 that could be missing or lost due to the fire, with audio assets accounting for 349 of them. Our data suggests that 22 of those could be ‘original masters’ which are associated with 5 artists. For each of those lost masters, we have located high-quality alternate sources in the form of safety copies or duplicate masters. As we complete new work and we fill in gaps of work we’ve already done, these tallies will continue to evolve by the hour.
“Of course, our work is just beginning. In the coming weeks and months, we will continue to update our artists and internal teams with our progress. That said, our work can’t be reduced to numbers. As Sir Lucian stated, the loss of even one piece of archive material is heartbreaking. And while our initial efforts have yielded encouraging results, it’s fair to assume that while some recordings will prove not to have been impacted, others naturally will. For those of us who have devoted our lives to the preservation of music, there are many painful moments when we contemplate what has been lost. However, this experience has inspired us to redouble our efforts...”
Kraus then answers the most-frequently asked questions he’s received since the 6/11 online publication Jody Rosen’s New York Times Magazine report revealing that the extent of the loss was far greater than previously known. Some excerpts follow:
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