Could Musicians Be Next to Deal with Drug Testing? November 9
Many professional fields have taken on a no drug policy since the 1980s and begun testing their employees (whether sports player or working Joe) to maintain that standard despite many attempts to subvert it. Now it seems that certain recording labels may be considering doing the same with their recording artists.
UK recording labels feel that there may be a lot to lose where it comes to drug use by their signed acts, so much so that they’ve been considering instating a drug policy of their own. The policy would be a clause in the contract that recording artists sign when they join a label. Michael Jackson’s homicide brought on the move by a newly formed alliance led by Marc Marot, a former head of Island Records. The clause would require that a recording artist who was found to be abusing substances would receive no payment for their work until they’d undergone treatment for the abuse.
These concerns rise from recording artists who’ve signed a 6 album record contract with labels and then begun to abuse drugs delaying their ability (or negating it) to provide what they’d promised in their contracts. But if such a clause were instated how much would it change the recording industry and the way that artists are paid for their work? Couldn’t it in fact allow a label to renege on a contract entirely on the basis that an album’s sales weren’t good and the label made up a phony positive drug test result?
Tags: musician, record label, recording artists