They need to buy the rights to their old material from Sony if they wanna release their back catalogue on her. Like a previous comment above - I wonder if this was the reason for their material being taken off YouTube/iTunes etc for the overseas market.

Exciting times for the band, nevertheless.

I know how their new song was titled. Leaving "Epic" to make their own "Masterpiece".
@kudo_maharizu I think you are right. Those were the days they are bargaining with Sony/Epic.

@MICHIO87
Worldwide distribution would be my concern, too.  If they partner with a bigger machine in bigger territories they will lose a percentage of the potential profits.  But for all we know this could be a better arrangement than what they had been getting with Sony.


Good luck to them with this new venture.  This past year they started writing for other artists.  I imagine they will use it to build up their own roster of young acts that they like, a la Apple (Beatles) and Swan Song (Led Zeppelin).

Anyone want to start a pool on how long into this until they branch out into cinema?  My bet is Rina directs something before their third album release.

The members eventually branching out into other forms of entertainment, etc. in addition to their musical activities would be interesting....

Rina becoming a director seems interesting, given her love of cinema.
I could see Mami becoming a fashion designer and having her own brand.

I'm a little ambivalent about this myself, although I do think that on balance it's probably good news.

But you have to wonder what's going on behind the scenes. It's rare for any two entities (ie. band and record label) to split if things are going well.

Some of the things we've talked about as being their "maturing" are, coincidentally or not, things that cut costs. For example, switching to writing their own songs vs. hiring outside musicians to do it (some of which were quite famous, and probably expensive).

We also know that they seem to have lost one, if not two of their managers.

My sense is that Sony gave them some kind of an ultimatum about how they're going to support them from now on, or maybe just dropped them. (If they really did split from them, but it sounds like they have.)

You can pretty easily read between the lines of Haruna's statement about this new label allowing them to keep making music longer. The implication is that they knew they'd have to stop making music otherwise.

So in that sense, it is definitely good news, because the alternative would be no more Scandal. The band obviously really wants to keep going and I certainly want them to, so for them to go to all this effort and probably take the financial risk on their own shows how dedicated they are and guarantees us more Scandal.

But they're definitely going to have fewer resources available to them. There *are* a few really huge "indie" bands in Japan that can basically do whatever they want (Golden Bomber are one example off the top of my head), but it's rare. Usually indie bands in Japan are like indie bands anywhere; they don't get that much promotion outside their own social media channels, they play small shows, etc.

Scandal's hardcore audience probably guarantees them a certain income as long as they keep releasing stuff; we're gonna know about it and buy it without any extra promotion. But I think that this is probably evidence that the zenith of their career is behind them - they're probably not going to be able to grow in size and popularity beyond where they are now. And that's ok; most of my favorite bands are small indie bands, but Scandal just deserves more. They've paid their dues.

Anyway, I am really curious to see what they do now that they (presumably) have total freedom. And if this is what they had to do to keep making music, then I'm all for it.

I would say Epic/Sony probably did as much as they could to push the last album and it was time for a change. Honey they definitely tried to use their looks as well to push and stick out of the crowd.
Every Wednesday is a release date in Japan and you see all record stores rotate out their promotional booths every week, doesn't matter if you are number 1 or not, you get rotated out, its a very competitive market here.

Yeah I would agree without the backing of Sony it might be harder to get promotion to larger events/tv outlets etc. But Scandal has never been mainstream any how.

Honey I wonder if it was mixed by Rooftop since as many have complained the loudness of the tracks and the different sound engineers that were used.

Recently they have have been doing other activities, Rina had her style book, Haruna with her Photobook, Feedback! promoted heavily with all the merchandise, Member's week etc.
They also seem to be appearing more at promotional events and SNS advertising(?) stuff subtly maybe... more exposure is good as it most probably get new fans in other ways.

The name issue with Patti Smith *might* be similar to Puff Daddy "Sean Comb" vs Puffy "AmiYumi", but I do not thing its that issue that cause the withdraw of their streaming. With insider info I was told Sony made an effort to pull these stream from YouTube etc. for various artists including Scandal for some unknown reason. I tried to ask Team Scandal about this and they didn't know or may pretend not to know what was going on and its all dealt by Sony.

The Asia entertainment industry is very close knit and full of old executives/contacts etc. I wonder with Eisuke head of Rooftop being so young and forming Rooftop if he has the power to pull various strings. (Then again his father previous was very big in the industry with Kitty film)

Also good news:
scandalmania.jp and scandal-4.com domains are owned by Kitty/Rooftop.
Bad news:
Club Scandal is run by Sony Music Marketing, so it may need to be relaunched.
Scandal Mania is run by Rooftop.

Just my 2 cents.

Merry Xmas everyone!

That's awesome !
Can't wait to get some 24bit/192khz FLACs from them. And if they are 100% independed I would finaly buy their music, knowing that the big share of sales will go to them sound really good.

Also don't worry about distribution...we are in 2018, soon in 2019. I am sure they can afford to open their own online store and for music you don't need shiiping. Maybe they will finaly go digital(high quality, not streaming on Spotify/iTunes) with their albums and songs.

Maybe now they will get out of "Loudness War" and have better mastering/mixing.

How about their old songs during their time in SMJ, do they have the right to play or do they have to pay to be the rightsholder?

EyE_uttarothai wrote:How about their old songs during their time in SMJ, do they have the right to play or do they have to pay to be the rightsholder?

Not sure if this is what you're asking about, but by saying "play," you sound like you're wondering if they can or cannot play their older songs live at concerts? I don't that's something that can really be regulated or controlled, but they probably have every right to play them live. They would need to negotiate something (if they haven't already) if they were to release an album or the like that contained songs from when they were on Epic, though.

thoseguiltyeyes wrote:Not sure if this is what you're asking about, but by saying "play," you sound like you're wondering if they can or cannot play their older songs live at concerts? I don't that's something that can really be regulated or controlled, but they probably have every right to play them live.

In the US this would be a really complicated issue because of the songwriting credits on so many of their most famous songs - royalties would need to be paid to every songwriter individually in the absence of some larger agreement. Sony would have been dealing with that kind of thing, and as the copyright holder on the songs themselves, Sony would have been able to insulate the band from really any bureaucratic stuff regarding performance rights.

It will be interesting to see whether and how they've resolved this now that they're on their own. Is Rooftop helping them out with all the individual songwriters? Is there some holdover agreement with Sony acting as a go-between for some additional royalty? (Royalties will likely need to be paid to Sony anyway, unless there's an agreement excepting the band from that too.)

Japanese copyright and performance rights laws are probably a little different from the US, but I think they're pretty similar in general. So this has the potential to be a big mess, but hopefully they've been working on these kinds of issues behind the scenes and it's all taken care of now. But, this is the kind of thing where there might be one or two staple songs that you all of a sudden just no longer hear played live and nobody knows why. But we'll have to wait and see. I am really curious how this affects everything about the band going forward. It really is a major, major change in status and my hat will be off to them if they can make it even mostly seamless.

I have a feeling that they already tackled theses issues before announcing 'her.' Otherwise, it would have been real complicated indeed. But then again, spacecadet maybe right in saying that the real reason for the separation was the continuation of the band. Honestly tho, this is killing the mood. LoL

I'm just excited for SCANDAL and for 2019!  .love.

I think Sony keeps the rights of their old songs. For example, if they want to release a new live DVD they will have to pay royalties for the songs from the Epic/Sony era.

there must have been long negotiations in recent weeks to allow the launch of their own label. Now they will finally have full control of their career, it must be an exciting project ... and a lot of work.

thoseguiltyeyes wrote:

EyE_uttarothai wrote:How about their old songs during their time in SMJ, do they have the right to play or do they have to pay to be the rightsholder?

Not sure if this is what you're asking about, but by saying "play," you sound like you're wondering if they can or cannot play their older songs live at concerts? I don't that's something that can really be regulated or controlled, but they probably have every right to play them live. They would need to negotiate something (if they haven't already) if they were to release an album or the like that contained songs from when they were on Epic, though.

JASRAC would handle all the royalties. They collect royalties from songs being played at events/restaurants/bars/karaoke machines etc. There was an uproar recently as they wanted to get royalties from Music schools from Music lesson etc. At the end of the day its a business so it will be more of a question who gets how much from the royalties.

JASRAC as also why CDs in Japan are sold with various restrictions, can't be discounted until the date on the back of the CD, singles can only have so many tracks etc. They also handle licensing, say you want to use a Scandal song in your own video etc they would handle the licensing and collect various fees associated with it. Its also why a US artist's CD are price the same when a Japanese version is released and why the same imported CD say from the US is cheaper. (so on incentive is they add an extra Japan bonus track and translation)

From what I found on JASRAC database, it seems Sony Music Publishing owns the back catalogue from debut, but from Honey, its owned by ROOFTOP MUSIC.

park23 wrote:That's awesome !
Can't wait to get some 24bit/192khz FLACs from them. And if they are 100% independed I would finaly buy their music, knowing that the big share of sales will go to them sound really good.

Also don't worry about distribution...we are in 2018, soon in 2019. I am sure they can afford to open their own online store and for music you don't need shiiping. Maybe they will finaly go digital(high quality, not streaming on Spotify/iTunes) with their albums and songs.

Maybe now they will get out of "Loudness War" and have better mastering/mixing.

Actually I wonder if the quality went down because it was Rooftop Music doing rather than EPIC/Sony, maybe they didn't use Sony provided resources and tried to do it their own way and hence the "loud" Honey mix.

wildthing wrote:Actually I wonder if the quality went down because it was Rooftop Music doing rather than EPIC/Sony, maybe they didn't use Sony provided resources and tried to do it their own way and hence the "loud" Honey mix.

This is interesting. Hopefully, they are aware of the sound quality of 'Honey.' They were still experimenting (on Honey), as they already said, and maybe have learned a thing or two to make the next album/single/EP/etc. sound more polished. Crossing fingers here.

izzy wrote:I think Sony keeps the rights of their old songs. For example, if they want to release a new live DVD they will have to pay royalties for the songs from the Epic/Sony era.

That's a good point, and may be one reason why we haven't had any sort of DVD release since 2016, when we got *three* that year. (And we got one every year before that since 2010.) Who knows how long this changeover has been in process, but a year or two definitely sounds plausible.

I look forward to their live discs almost as much as their albums, so this would be a major bummer if they decide releasing them is too expensive for royalty reasons! I hope they can work out something reasonable.

Ditto for Video Action 3... though at least I have all their videos separately. I just like to collect them all on official discs. (And I like giving them my money!)

I've gotta wonder if this is also a way of protecting themselves should their future output diversify at some stage down the track. Say, if the girls choose to pursue side/solo projects or perhaps take some time off for whatever reason.

A major label would typically insist on a certain quantity and uniformity of output as part of their contractual obligations. This independent label, however, might ensure that regardless of what they do, and how they do it, that they will still have the requisite support behind them to pursue such endevours.

Didn't notice if anyone's mentioned this yet, but.. it may be that members are thinking about starting families pretty soon. They talked about this in the past. If so it makes extra sense to be in control of their schedules and output. Got a feeling they are very conscious how important it is for them as an all-female band to keep together and continue to develop through that kind of change. I'm sure they can do it but let's make sure they can count on our solidarity. 
As to whether they've passed their pop zenith, I'm gonna bet "you ain't seen nothin yet."

I don't doubt that this is better for them in a lot of ways. They will have more freedom to do other things and, maybe just as importantly in Japan's patriarchal society, they won't feel pressured to do things that other people (and especially guys) tell them to do. There have been times, even recently, when I've wondered "did they really choose to do that?" And given the way they formed and the "office" structure in Japan, there's no way to know for sure. But now, we'll know. Whatever they do from now on, it's their choice.

I'm sure there are a lot of reasons for this, and I agree that starting families may be part of that. I'll personally be sad if they take more time between releases, but that's just me being selfish. They're absolutely entitled to it, and it is totally possible that they just didn't want to agree to doing an album per year for Sony anymore.

I do think it's unrealistic to expect them to gain in popularity with a strategy like that, though, and I get the sense that they know what being an indie band means too. Despite one comment above, they *are* a mainstream band (all of their albums have cracked the top 5 on the Oricon charts, and most of their singles have hit the top 10), but that really only happens with a lot of promotion, and a regular release schedule. So the big question is whether they're going to try to maintain that, or if this newfound freedom is so they don't have to. Only time will tell.

www.her-label.com

Under Colourful Records 
Which is under Victor Entertainment

I’m a little worried as it’s a smaller label

The major artist under Colourful Records is Ieiri Leo (who I follow)

Kimura Kaela has her own label ELA which would be similar to HER which is under Colourful Record

---

This tells us that "her" is under Victor Entertainment (a subsidiary of JVC Kenwood that produces and distributes music, movies and other entertainment products such as anime and television shows in Japan); more specifically, they're under the "Colourful Records" imprint.

It seems that their situation will be similar to Orange Range's…

While not as big as Sony & Epic, at least they have the backing of another major label to help handle the manufacturing and distribution.

They’re under the same label that handled Dollsboxx’s album. They barely got any attention with that release even thought it was a really good one.

I mentioned this on Reddit too if anyone saw my post there, but Colourful Records is also Kimura Kaela's label since 2013, and she also created her own sub-label (Ela Music) at that same time. She's probably the biggest artist they have, but the interesting thing to me is that she moved over to them and did the same thing as Scandal's doing at almost the exact same point in her career (the 10 year mark with her previous label). So it wouldn't surprise me if Scandal's getting some advice here, or at least looking at what others in similar situations have done.

I also wonder if they had a 10 year record deal...

But yeah, good to see that Scandal do have some backing. It's not just them trying to start up an indie label on their own with a skeleton crew.

I also think it's better for them to have the support of a real record company, even if it's a smaller company than Sony Music. I hope they will also work with JPU Records for overseas releases.

@spacecadet  I saw your posts on reddit, I agree with everything you said about the creation of their own label. I hope they will be successful

I wish—now that they've launched the new label with new distributor—that the band could find a way to address the copyright issue. Why couldn't they call themselves "sukyandaru" in USA and other places where they can't use "SCANDAL"—? Maybe could also get away with "sukyandaru (SCANDAL)"... That way they don't really have to change their real name... They have to succeed as a Japanese female band—OK so I'm a fanatic, but they should be big over here dammit