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Not sure if this was asked yet, I apologize if it was.

We are writing and submitting a lot of songs, we are also submitting stripped down versions of songs with vocals and making them instrumentals. In an exclusive deal can you still pitch alternate versions, minus the lyrics and or hooks, or do they own it all for the duration of the contract? Im guessing it depends on the contracts, but I'm curious if anyone has experience with this.

as you said, the key is in the contract language, but you can probably figure this out for yourself:

if you played the instrumental version and the vocal version back to back in court and a musicologist was asked whether the track in both cases was substantially similar………….

Also, all the publishers i work with want an instrumental version and sometimes several instrumental versions.

eo

Thanks. I figured as much. Just wanted to be sure going forward.

FWIW I think Andy and Ethan said "No" Mostly.