Just when it sounded like the ink had dried on an agreement which would spare Martin Garrix and Spinnin’ Records a long and ugly legal battle, an official release issued by the latter party reveals that, in an ironic turn of events, they will be pursuing legal action against Garrix.
According to the release, Spinnin’s parent company, Music All-Stars, bases their countersuit on a cut-and-dry assertion that Garrix breached his contract. Despite the young Dutchman’s version of the story – that label head Eelko van Kooten took advantage of his lack of industry knowledge while he was still a minor by coercing him into signing highly opportunistic contracts – Spinnin’ claims that Garrix’s father, a considerably successful businessman, also signed off on each and every one of them.
Most importantly, the verbiage suggests that even though Spinnin’ were initially going to relinquish their rights to all Martin Garrix tracks by July 1st, 2017, the breach of contract entitles them to damages that would result in a renegotiation that would entitle them to ownership as far out as 2023.
Spinnin’ Records’ release regarding their legal action against Martin Garrix is in its entirety below:
Background information on the Martin Garrix-Spinnin’ Records dispute
Spinnin’ Records and MusicAllStars Management (“MAS”) regularly receive inquiries on the dispute with Martin Garrix.
On the 26th August 2015 Martijn Garritsen posted a message on Facebook, announcing he was unilaterally terminating his contracts with Spinnin’ Records and MusicAllStars Management (MAS). With this, he made it clear for everyone he would no longer keep himself to his contracts with us and unilaterally ended our collaboration which was still to continue until July 1st 2017.
From early 2015 we have freely spoken with Martijn Garritsen about his wish to re-negotiate the existing contracts and in our vision, improper arguments were used to put pressure on the discussions. It was even mentioned ‘fraud’ had been used by us to move Martijn Garritsen to close contracts with us in 2012. Of course we completely disagree; Martijn Garritsen, his father Gerard Garritsen, a very experienced business man, and their team have always let themselves be advised, have widely researched the market and shopped around for deals and always had time and room for negotiation to come to well considered decisions. Moreover all agreements have been negotiated in detail and were also signed by father Gerard Garritsen.
The years of cooperation have always went well and brought success to all parties until the end.
Even though we were not obligated to do so, we negotiated and came close to new contracts with Martijn Garritsen, but we could not meet each other on new terms in the end- which can happen between two professional parties. We do not blame Martijn Garritsen, but this does not mean that he could unilaterally end or nullify all existing contracts, as he did with his post on Facebook. Contracts are contracts and need to be respected.
As everyone knows, Martijn Garritsen’s career has lived through fantastic developments since 2012, when our agreements commenced. Martin Garrix has grown to become one of the most important DJs in the world, even before he turned twenty years old. These years have been intense for us, no efforts and no expenses were spared, and have led to a great amount of wonderful releases. The whole team of Spinnin’ Records and MAS have worked with their heart and soul for Martijn Garritsen.
Parties have agreed now that the releases will be exploited by Spinnin’ Record at least until 2023.
Remains to be settled between the parties is the financial compensation for the collaboration which was unilaterally terminated by Martijn Garritsen. This is what Martijn Garritsen meant in a recent press release, saying “the remaining differences of opinion between parties will most probably be subject of further legal proceedings”. MAS would take care of management until at least 1 July 2017. And Spinnin’ Records would exclusively release and exploit all tracks of Martijn Garritsen until that date.
As this is not happening anymore, Spinnin’ Records as well as MAS will lose lawful income. No hard feelings, but we do want to be compensated – nothing more, nothing less.
That is part of a decent and professional settlement of what was a successful relationship.