The record-label agreement and its legal frame
A record-label agreement is not regulated in Georgia by a separate statute — no special law on record labels exists. A label deal moves on the neighbouring-rights provisions of the copyright law and on ordinary contract law: the phonogram producer's rights, the performer's consent and the essential terms of the licence contract. This page explains the label side on the basis of articles forty-seven, forty-eight and forty of the law.
What the Label Needs from the Performer
Under article forty-seven, the performer holds personal and property rights in the performance: the right to the name, the right to the respect of reputation and the right to use the performance in any form, including the right to receive remuneration. The exclusive right of use means the right to permit or prohibit the fixation of a performance not previously fixed, the reproduction of a performance fixed on a phonogram, its broadcasting, rental, distribution and making available at a time and place chosen by the person.
For a label this means: creating the recording and then exploiting it requires the performer's permission — permission is granted on the basis of a written contract, and for the performance of a collective of performers by the head of that collective. The performer’s right to receive remuneration for every form of use remains. Special rules exist as well: a contract with a broadcasting organization transfers to it the rights of recording the performance, its subsequent transmission and reproduction of the recording only where this is directly provided for by the contract, and the remuneration payable for such use is determined by that contract; a contract on an audiovisual work transfers the performer's rights only within the limits of the use of that work and, unless otherwise agreed, does not include the separate use of the sound and the image fixed in it. For a performance created in the course of employment, the performer keeps the right to the name, while the exclusive right of use belongs to the employer unless the contract provides otherwise.
The Phonogram Producer's Rights
Article forty-eight defines what the label acquires as producer of the phonogram: the exclusive right to use the phonogram in any form, including the right to receive remuneration. This right covers the reproduction of the phonogram, the rental and distribution of the original and copies, import, and transmission by wire or wireless means so that it is available to any person at a time and place chosen by that person.
These exclusive rights may be transferred by contract to another person — this is how rights pass to a distributor or a streaming platform. A boundary is also set: the first sale of copies in Georgia exhausts the producer's right over their subsequent distribution.