Martin Garrix management releases official statement regarding Spinnin’ Records court appeal
Earlier into the week, news broke that Spinnin’ Records had made a successful court appeal against Martin Garrix. This meant that the court ruled in agreement that Garrix had no right to legally break his agreements early with the label and also with MusicAllStars Management. After announcing way back in 2015 that he would split from the label, he won a lawsuit against them and the management company in 2017. This has been an ongoing legal battle since then, and now Martin Garrix management has issued an official statement regarding the most recent news with Spinnin’ Records.
The full statement is as follows:
Firstly, it is important to understand that Martijn Garritsen started these proceedings against MusicAllStars Management (MAS) and Spinnin’ Records because in 2015 his co-management Scooter Braun Projects and his counsels did not succeed in coming to agreement about the return and future ownership of Martijn’s master-rights and his current management contract.
Martijn thus no longer had faith in a collaboration with MAS, because of Mr Van Kooten’s conflicts of interest. Mr. Van Kooten refused any reasonable cooperation which forced Martijn to unilaterally cancel the agreements with MAS and Spinnin’ and, if that did not work, to terminate them as of July 30, 2015. For that termination, Martijn’s lawyers put forward various grounds. The Court of Lelystad recognized error as the first ground for cancellation of the agreements and on that basis, the contracts were terminated. Furthermore, the Court ruled that Martijn is the phonogram producer and therefore all rights to his tracks belong to him and not to Spinnin’ Records.
The result of accepting error as grounds for termination was that Spinnin’ and MAS had to financially compensate Martijn. MAS and Spinnin’ appealed and the Court of Appeals confirmed the judgment that Martijn is the phonogram producer and all rights to his tracks belongs to him. Instead of error, the court of appeal ruled on other grounds that Martijn had put forward, that Martijn was entitled to terminate his contracts per 30 July 2015 and that they did not continue until 30 July 2017 as MAS and Spinnin’ claimed.
With the Court of Appeal’s decision, Martijn received what he wanted in the first place: to be recognized as master owner/phonogram producer and a confirmation that he did not have to serve out his contracts until 30 July 2017. The first is particularly important to him because he hopes that other young artists will realize what their (music) rights are. Already four years ago, Martijn stated that the protection of fellow musicians was an important reason for him to take up this fight, and in that sense, Martijn is pleased with the outcome.
The Court of Appeals has ruled that MAS will be compensated for some outstanding items for their work from January 2015 to July 30, 2015 (which is not special) and that Spinnin’ Records will not receive any compensation.
MAS and Spinnin’ did thus not gain anything with these cases except that they have incurred enormous costs for themselves and Martijn. If they had agreed back in 2015 with the reasonable requests of Martijn, this could all have been prevented.
We trust to have answered all questions and wish everyone a Happy New Year and a prosperous 2020.
Management Martin Garrix
Going into great detail and clarifying some needed information, this remains an ongoing case so stayed tuned on the We Rave You website and socials for more information as it becomes available.
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