Ugg, more any women claiming rape must be a liar.
I notice that it is now just "Kesha", not "Ke$ha".
Presumably the contract must have some clause in it covering early termination by either party?
2: I don't know anything about this case, but it is really common in the music business for contracts to be more terrible and indentured-servitude adjacent than you would think legal.
Preliminary injunction voiding a contract is a fairly steep hill to climb. Unlike most interlocutory rulings, though, this one is likely subject to immediate appeal.
She could always emulate the Sex Pistols and behave so unpleasantly that the studio will actually pay her to go away.
I haven't looked real closely at any of this but all that's happened so far is that the judge denied a request for a preliminary injunction. It's certainly a discouraging sign, but it doesn't completely foreclose the possibility that Kesha will ultimately be able to get out of her contract.
Haven't seen the order, but my guess is that it turns on the requirement that to get a preliminary injunction you need to show (among other things) that it's necessary to prevent "irreparable harm", and economic harm is rarely considered irreparable for PI purposes--it can be repaired down the road, with money, once the case has fully run its course. Of course the harm of forcing her to work with her rapist ought to be irreparable, and could certainly be taken into account at this stage. But my understanding (perhaps wrong) is that what's at issue here is not the prospect of being compelled to work with him, but whether she can be released to work with a different label. The bits I've seen in the legal press (and the OP's blockquote) suggest that her argument wasn't that she'd be endangered by working for Sony, it was that her career will be ruined if she doesn't get to work with another label now because Sony will retaliate by not marketing her albums.
Not suggesting it was necessarily the right decision to deny the PI (no idea at this point), but I doubt it's a simple matter of not believing/not taking into account the rape allegations.
5: Cursing on a chat show doesn't produce the returns it once did, alas. (Oh, wait. Or was it the barge down the Thames that finally did it?)
We could also repeal the 1987 state law that exempted the music industry from limitations on contract employment length. (And make that particular law more muscular.)
5, 7: But there is a proud tradition of cranking out weird or unlistenable albums for the sake of getting out of a contract.
Since a lot of her concern is with her long term marketability, though, she probably isn't really up for producing the next Metal Machine Music. But it might be fun.
Need to sit this one out, sorry. 3 is kinda true but mostly not really anymore. Though the only area in which the complexity of contract/amount of money at stake ratio is larger than the music biz these days is ... I dunno, probably elder law people who figure out how to keep Medicaid benefits.
Apparently the judge felt that since Sony had agreed to let her record without Gottwald's involvement, the argument that they would not promote the results was largely speculative. Which at some level I guess is true but it's not like the "speculation" is particularly outlandish.
8 is deeply ignorant from an artist's rights perspective but sadly since this is actually something I know about I can't say anything. The paradox of the blog commenter.
5, 7: But there is a proud tradition of cranking out weird or unlistenable albums for the sake of getting out of a contract.
The issue is that her contract specifies that she work with a particular producer. So that's out.
9.1 There's more than one way to skin that cat.
elder law people who figure out how to keep Medicaid benefits
In my minimal, layman's interaction with this subfield: this. Guarantor trusts and all, what fun. In fact, our lawyer screwed something up (and thankfully paid for it, good dude) that generated an unnecessary tax bill larger than the total of what we'd paid him. Seems easy to make a critical mistake.
It seems really weird to me that this producer is worth so much to Sony that they're willing to get this much terrible press. Seems like they should be able to arrange something where Sony still gets their money but Kesha gets a better arrangement.
Pretty sure 13 is wrong; or rather, that may be what her contract specifies, but she appears to have conceded that nobody's demanding she work with that particular producer at this point.
17: I am puzzled about what the lawsuit is about then. If she can keep working at Sony, but not with this guy, then why doesn't she? What's Sony's motive to deliberately sabotage her career (and their own financial prospects) by not marketing her album?
What's Sony's motive to deliberately sabotage her career (and their own financial prospects) by not marketing her album?
Exert control and punish her?
18: See the blockquote in the OP. Her argument is apparently that Sony stands to gain more by retaliating against her to make the producer happy than it does by maximizing the profitability of her albums.
I wonder if Sony's considered that rapist producers may not be good for morale.
Who's morale are we talking about? Every job has customary fringe benefits.
15: So damn complicated. Seriously, this is one of the reasons I support Bernie. Maybe in 30 years the means-testing will be less harsh.
21: Ha, good one. If a producer is raking in the sales no one cares what else is going on. Phil Spector was a genuine fucking lunatic for decades and it didn't slow his roll at all until he finally got a murder conviction.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/28392/5-artists-reportedly-held-gunpoint-phil-spector
Only Kesha knows what's best for Kesha, but I'd certainly be very entertained if she told Sony she would be working with Kathleen Hanna and Kim Gordon on her new triple CD set *Dr. Luke's withered soul will rot in hell for all eternity*, which will include several covers of songs from Chaos and Disorder, the album by the artist then known as the artist formerly known as Prince.
Only Kesha knows what's best for Kesha
Eh, who knows, she might be an idiot. Gottwald's track record the last dozen years in terms of commercial success is pretty impressive.
She could cover that Marvin Gaye song that ends, "Why should I have to pay attorney fees? This is a joke.... I need a smoke"
27: If she's any form of idiot it wouldn't be for having priorities above and beyond "Dr. Luke"'s commercial track record, surely.
But there is a proud tradition of cranking out weird or unlistenable albums for the sake of getting out of a contract.
My understanding (probably from the Kesha section of The Song Machine) is that the record companies have gotten wise to this trick and now insert clauses into their contracts that specify that the artists must produce records the companies actually want.
29: Hard to know just from articles like these. Remember that SNL fiasco? Maybe that's what happens when she's allowed to have input.
So are we now legit arguing that she's fabricating rape and abuse claims to get out of her contract? Just want to be clear here.
32: It happens, but I have no idea of whether that's what's going on in this case. I'm just pushing back a bit against the idea that a news article or two gives us a reliable basis on which to judge the situation.
You can do that without calling her an idiot.
30: The everybody-wins compromise (not this situation, but in the usual case) is to release an easy to produce live/jam album. I'm thinking specifically about the Workin'/Relaxin'/etc. With The Miles Davis Quintet albums, which I'm pretty sure were obligatory contractual things that took only a few days to make yet are still amazing.
'Cause, you know, you call her an idiot and people might get the impression you're saying something a little stronger than "hey we can't really know the facts here just from a news article or two".
36: "Might be" an idiot, and what are you going on about? I said it in the context that she might not actually know what's best for herself professionally. It had nothing to do with the rape allegation.
If you think the two aren't related, I'm not sure there's anything I can say that would convince you. Calling victims' decision-making in other areas of their life into question is a standard trick. You might call it something catchy like "character assassination".
I don't follow this closely, being middle-aged and all, but: Isn't the evidence that Dr. Luke is already washed up? Kesha's second album performed worse than first, for example.
I hear that the bootleg album Sniffin' Coke With The Miles Davis Quintet is really outstanding.
40 comments exactly, and I really wouldn't feel guilty about derailing this discussion in particular: I got a job. Or rather, I got the same job from the new company. (Either my estimation of the odds of that were too low, or I was just lucky.) So did everyone else on the bridging contract. A tiny bit more money but definitely worse benefits, so call it even at best.
I haven't been too happy working here for a while, and this mess doesn't encourage me. (In a practical sense it's almost certain to not happen again for five years, but it was still annoying, and a lot of little things bode ill.) Officially I'm still looking. Unofficially I didn't complete an application start-to-finish since I got the offer to come back. I feel guilty about that and really do plan to, but, eh, I had something lined up, I had chores around the house, and I'm told I was on the payroll almost as soon as I accepted. But still, I really want something else, so why haven't I been looking harder? I almost wonder about undiagnosed ADD or something.
But (a) I know those discussions here tend to devolve into being competitive about how much we all procrastinate and I'm sure someone can beat me, and (b) today I don't feel guilty about a lack of productivity because Atossa decided she wanted to play from 1 a.m. to 5. Not hungry or anything, just didn't want to sleep, apparently. Ahhh, parenthood.
41: Congratulations on getting your job back! That's great news and give yourself a break.
30: The everybody-wins compromise (not this situation, but in the usual case) is to release an easy to produce live/jam album. I'm thinking specifically about the Workin'/Relaxin'/etc. With The Miles Davis Quintet albums, which I'm pretty sure were obligatory contractual things that took only a few days to make yet are still amazing.
Sure, for jazz artists that works great! Miles Davis recorded two double LPs on February 1, 1975, and didn't record again until 1980.
You can do that without calling her an idiot.
To be fair, there is a strong element of idiot in her no doubt carefully crafted public persona. Yet it seems that male performers such as LMFAO and Lil Jon can appear to be idiots without being forced into infantilizing management contracts.
44: She withdrew from Columbia to make her record. (True!)
31: The SNL fiasco happened at the height of Dr. Luke's influence over her career, so I doubt it was an example of her "input." But what I was really getting at is that having priorities other than whether she could sell more records with her alleged rapist -- like, say, her own artistic freedom or mental well-being -- would not of itself be evidence of her being an idiot.
FWIW most of what I've heard of her outside the deliberately juvenile stage persona indicates that she's quite bright. I would also not be surprised to find that she's a legitimately talented musician outside the prescribed limits of "Dr. Luke"'s production style and concept. And I don't think you're trying to be a victim-blamer or anything but I get why Josh finds it a bit gross to be lobbying the word "idiot" at her even in a speculative sense in the context of implying that she might have been commercially better off making music with the dude who sexually assaulted her, its being beside the point and rather callous in a number of ways.
To be fair, there is a strong element of idiot in her no doubt carefully crafted public persona.
Carefully crafted by... Dr. Luke. Gosh, what a coincidence.
You guys are taking this way too seriously.
I'm too lazy to look this up: Has anyone any idea whether her counsel proffered any precedent preliminary injunction in a comparable personal-services-contract situation? There is, after all, very little new under the sun.
Look, I get that your remarks are lightly-meant. Just, you know, given that the main subject matter involves contentions about rape in the entertainment industry, maybe that's not in the best of taste.
50: I actually did skim the papers for some reason, and they cite a couple performer PI cases; but of course the other side claims they're inapposite and I didn't go so far as to look them up so who knows.
Congrats to Cyrus on keeping his job, but I strongly encourage him to keep looking for a better one, while acknowledging that that is difficult for people who are averse to change like me and apparently him. I sympathize strongly with his situation, as an employee of the government of a natural resource–dependent state whose finances are in catastrophic freefall. (NOT FUN.)
Congrats Cyrus!
I sympathize strongly with his situation, as an employee of the government of a natural resource-dependent state whose finances are in catastrophic freefall. (NOT FUN.)
I feel you.
41: Job hunting is completely draining, even for folks who are normally go-getters. I mean, yes, do it, certainly, but give yourself a break. Congrats on the new contract, though. What a relief!
Job hunting is crap, but at least you now have 5 years lead time, for which congratulations!
Late to this because I'm so deep into lurking on the Ke$ha docket but I'll guess the adverse ruling is ultimately a positive for Ke$ha. Legally, meh on her arguments for preliminary injunction (the argument isn't that she'll be harmed by continuing to work with the obviously heinous Dr. Luke, but that she's irreparably harmed by not being able to record with Not-Sony while litigation is pending--in, say, the next year? 18 months?).
But then the judge is on the record (full transcript not up yet, believe me, I'm checking) talking about doing the "commercially reasonable thing" despite RAPE and it sounds atrocious and gets a lot of attention and I would legit take a bet that she's out of her contract for good in the next six weeks.
Fwiw, Adele just announced her support for Kesha in her Brit award acceptance speech.
Yay Cyrus!
I remember reading a personal services contract case in law school involving I think Shirley McLaine.
Congrats, Cyrus. Looking for work is the most soul-destroying (and non-paying) job.
On the OP, I think I've been mixing up Kesha and Kreayshawn.
Thanks, everyone. Two days ago a co-worker said her husband's employer is looking for someone with my qualifications, which (a) seems more promising than answering ads (b) likelihood of success aside, is a lot less miserable than answering ads. On the other hand, most of my immediate co-workers who had the same contract problem as me seem to feel better about how it has turned out than I did, so maybe I was just being a bit too negative. We'll see.