Henley on artist options

HENLEY ON OPTIONS: “Artists have several things they can do. They can re-up with the label and use this as leverage to renegotiate a recording agreement. They can invoke termination rights and take back their master recordings and see what they can do themselves. If they get it back, they can shop it around and see if anybody else wants it—another label or an indie label or they might market it themselves on the Internet. Or artists can go back and re-record everything. The Eagles have talked about doing that for years. But people have done that in the past and it doesn't quite have the magic. It's not going to sound the same. The originals are burned into people's psyches, and it's hard to replace that.” (9/8a)