#image clause

[zot3-flopped]

I looked up the term 'image clause' which Marte says gives a label the right to impose any image they think is profitable on an artist and I couldn't find anything about it!

Image Rights is completely different and is about who owns the photographic image and likeness of an artist and can use it on album covers, posters etc.

A morality clause allows the label to fire the artist if they are found guilty of commiting serious crimes.

Nothing about an 'image clause' anywhere!

Mad Marte invented the term 'image clause' and is using it to brainwash young gullible Larries. They should ignore her insanity and do their own research, as you have.

[alarrytale]

Hello Marte! I´m sure you saw or at least read what SC said about not owning 1D name and regreting it and I´m suprised it´s not talked about at your blog as well. I can guess all opinions about this from literally every larrie blog are basically the same so I guess you share the same - we know SC is evil and he would put boys through much bigger hell if he´d own the band´s name. Anyway what I wanted to share is that since that interview I got a feeling that if there will be a 1D reunion, it will be when SC will be gone for good like you know what I mean. Because boys will make sure they won´t make any more money to him with their reunion and so when the reunion will happen it will be because they want to not because they have to. So I guess this will happen in like 20 years according to SC´s age. And second thing is that I have a bad feeling from the way SC once again prooved he´s in fact an evil person and took not only boys but also other artists just like a product, there are a lot of secrets and traumas that will come out when he will be gone. So I just got into thinking there will be a document about him and it will be something as shocking as that one about M.J*ckson few years ago. No idea how much the music industry will change in like 20-25 years so not sure how much expose will be allowed but when talking about SC at least Louis and Liam (aka those two have the most trauma inside imo and with Louis is even worse because of his closet and bbg) will surely tell everything if they will be allowed by that time. You know, I just have a feeling we no way know anything actually what SC had done and it will be revealed after he´ll be gone.

So Simon Cowell can’t use the band’s name, create anything with their likeness, & can’t tour if all of them don’t agree, but we larries still think Harry & Louis are under a contract with Simon that are forcing them in the closet? I'm confused now

Hi, anons!

Sorry, i've been a bit busy and i can't keep up with all my asks.

Yes, we all agree that SC is evil and that he's done despicable things to a bunch of his acts in the name of making money. What i'm not so sure about is why he said what he said.

We know SC went on that podcast (or whatever it was) to get promo for his new boyband show, and he got the promo he wanted because of the provoking statement he made. So it must have been calculated and intentional. I also wonder if he admitted to having regrets and wanting something he can't have, because he knows he's got the last laugh, because Sony (his parent company when he ran Syco), owns and controls their images. SC also makes it appear like 1D is the one with the power, and that they're now free of SC. Which they are, because SC was just a middleman between 1D and Sony, but they are not free from the contracts SC made them sign. Not at all.

I'm also not entirely sure that we can trust SC's words and that everything he says is true. I think people in this fandom jump to conclusion a bit too fast, because he said something they want to hear, instead of asking themselves why he said what he did and how that's serving SC himself. SC also said that he doesn’t think there will be a 1D reunion. If 1D still got deliverables to Sony (a greatest hits album was reported on as part of their contract, and that isn't fulfilled yet), then they might be able to force them back together at some point (when they can't squeeze more out of H...). If 1D owns the One Direction name and use, that isn't of much help when Syco (and Sony) controls the images of it's band members.

We also know from contracts and from tabloid reports that anyone under a Cowe*l contract aren't allowed to speak ill of him or put him in a bad light. He can also use people contracted to him to defend himself from critisism (i think that was reported on in a tabloid one time). Eta. found it.

The contract has hundreds of clauses, one of which states it to be enforceable anywhere “in the world and solar system”.

Clause 32.4 says artists must not make any statement which “may be considered unduly negative, critical or derogatory of the Company – including its personnel and, in particular, Simon Cowell”.

So when Helene Horlyck is out there singing SC's praises, remember she was under contract on txf at the time...

[ssfoc]

Why would Louis have longer contract than the other boys? Shouldn't they all have 10 year contract then? Or are some anons hoping Louis to suffer longer?

The presumed 10-year contract (which isn’t verified, just hypothetical) is an image clause, not a work contract. It’s a legal document to maintain a certain image, so the artist “brand” stays constant and revenue for that artist (One Direction) is not affected for the label (Syco/Sony).

Antis often argue that contracts can’t stipulate specific sexuality, which is true, but there are many ways to draft language around it.

[alarrytale]

If they were still bound by the image clause wouldn’t Louis not be able to do a lot of the things he does now? And Harry? Harry sings explicitly about drugs and Louis swears a lot even in interviews and generally they do a lot of things that are presumed to be under the image clause. I mean, Louis released a whole movie where he talked about the gripes he had with people in the studio. If babygate is truly a thing, I don’t think that would be what keeping it going.

Hi, anon!

Good question. I think they've both negotiated with Sony several times over the years and Louis has been at the helm of it. I think they've managed to get Sony on board with letting them have some slack in regards to their public images in exhange for their cooperation. There is little that would threaten H's career other than larry, so i don't think Sony cares much about other aspects than that. H shaving his hair off is fine.

I also think Sony let Louis go to BMG and let L and BMG create his own new image, as long as the image is in accordance with bg and that whole narrative. If he didn’t they probably wouldn't have let him leave. Also, as i've mentioned before, 1D may still have deliverables to Sony in form of an album and tour. 1D never broke up. They're on a hiatus. There might be a reunion clause in their contracts for all we know. If Sony's going to make money off a reunion, they can't have their members with face tattoos, three convictions and a member who's posting right wing conspiracies on the internet.

Also Sony did care about making sure Niall was blond (to make him the blond one), that Liam was the responsible one (he's the one that was balancing on a ledge) and that Zayn was the mysterious one (to mask his anxiety). Sony made up cheating stories, drug stories and you name it to get 1Ds names in the papers. They were a boyband and very controlled. Sony knows that sex, drugs and rock and roll sells, so they're okay with that. They're also okay with performative queerness, that's exciting and interesting, as long as people don't believe they're actually gay and in relationship. That's the thing they fear the most (not in a homophobic way, but in a it will hurt the bottom line way). Also, letting H and L give off the illusion that they are free and can do and say what they want will help legitimise bg. Louis can come off as very outspoken, he did in 1d too, but we know he's holding back on several topics. There is so much he can't say or do still. Neither of them are free.

[ssfoc]

I agree 28 is likely just head canon, but to be fair, Harry will be 25 the day Louis turns 28, albeit briefly, so maybe there's something to it... I guess time will tell, but it's a nice thought (in theory) that there could be a dedicated end date (or year, at least) in sight.

The ten or fifteen year image contract is one that I have heard applied to XF artists before, including Kelly Clarkson.

[alarrytale]

Hi Marte, before you leave, I wanted to ask you something about bbg (sorry if you’ve already talked about this)

So from what I’ve seen, apparently it wasn’t originally intended to last 10+ years, at first people didn’t even think the baby would actually be born (correct me if I’m wrong) so that means that the original contract was extended afterwards or the terms were changed, right? So my question is, doesn’t that mean that Louis would’ve had to approve (and re sign) after every single change? If yes, why did he do it? And whatever the reason was, was it actually worth getting involved into something like this? Apparently the genral consensus is that he signed the original contract and then was tricked and got stuck into it, the baby was “born” and after a decade, it’s still going. But how could that happen? At that point, he had years of experience in the industry and surely knew that those people (and their promises) couldn’t be trusted, so I imagine that he had every detail of that contract looked at by his own lawyer to make sure that they wouldn’t be able to do anything shady and that there weren’t any loopholes in the clauses.

Just to clarify, I believe in bbg, what I’m questioning is the part he played in it, what he could’ve possibly agreed to and how it ended up being this way.

Hi, anon!

You make a lot of assumptions here that are only theories and not even widely shared ones. There is no way to know how long bg was planned to last.

I don't think Louis has signed anything. The contract is between Sony and F's real parents. Sony controls L through owning his image/persona and the way he's percieved, which he signed over to them at 18 in a 360 deal. He's still bound to that deal.

I've talked about this a million times before. Check out my contracts tag, my image clause tag, my boyband politics tag or my Sony tag for more about this topic.

(Or get AI to summerize my thoughts on this for you lol).

[alarrytale]

https://www.tumblr.com/voxina/791879148074352640/some-larries-think-harry-is-trying-to-force-sony?source=share

Hello Marte, what do you think about this? (the power a label has over an artist "ends" when the artist is signed to a new label)

You have often written about their image clauses, which is totally not mentioned here...

Hi, anon!

I think i've said my piece on this subject. People are allowed to believe what they want to believe (and be fucking wrong and uneducated lol).

However, i think a lot of fans would benefit asking some of these questions to an AI chatbot, and asking for given examples and citing of sources to educate themselves. I think a lot of fans would be suprised about the level of control a label with a 360 contract with a successful artist can wield, not just during the contract, but also after.

I also think it would benefit the overall conversation if we agreed on terminology - like who "management" is what "image clause" means, and that we distinguish between what's contractually stated and what's a decision made with a forced hand.

I wish great blogs like stop1dsmanagement and other blogs by lawyers and people who interested themselves in H and L's contracts and images were still around and educated this fandom. Because it seems to me a lot of fans are either forgetting, or is not aware of the contracts, clauses, agreements, terms and conditions 1D, and H and L were under and still are beholden to.

[alarrytale]

i’m the scenario anon //

i’d imagine that harry, given his status, has gotten offers from labels like universal’s for example and i don’t see the reason why they wouldn’t fight sony for harry’s image. also you’ve said that louis is being held back by sony because harry is under sony too and 1d’s image clause can be used against him as a tool to protect harry and profit off of him to the maximum. universal and any other label would not consider louis a threat, he’s with Bmg

Hi, again anon!

I think that depends on if the image clauses are a part of his recording contract or a seperate contract. They might have different lengths. Or H's image clause is tied to his 1D recording contract that's not yet delivered on. They're tecnically still on a "hiatus".

Let's say, in this hypothetical scenario, that there is a reunion clause that states that Sony controls their images until the reunion tour is completed and the greatest hits album is released. If Sony doesn’t have a wish to sign any of them but H, the other members can sign with whatever label they want. But they still need to adhere to the terms in the contracts they've already signed. The new labels need to respect the 1D contract and the terms and commitments in that contract. Universal can't tell Niall that he can't reunite with the other 1D members as 1D under Sony for example. So old contracts needs to be respected if they're still valid.