What is a 360 deal and why does it reach your whole career?

What a 360 deal actually reaches

A 360 deal (also called a multiple rights deal) is an exclusive recording agreement with extra reach: the label funds and releases your music like a normal record deal, and takes a defined percentage of income streams that used to be entirely yours. Depending on how it’s written, that can cover your live shows, merchandise, songwriting and publishing, endorsement and sponsorship money, and sync placements — the whole circle around you. That’s the “360.”

The most important sentence in the contract is the one listing which of those streams the label gets a cut of. In a fair deal, every stream is named with a defined percentage — if it isn’t on the list, it’s yours. In a predatory deal, the list becomes “all entertainment income” or “any and all revenue derived from your name and likeness” — quietly sweeping in acting, book deals, side businesses, and ventures you haven’t started yet.

Why labels want a piece of everything

The honest business reason: records alone no longer pay back what it costs to break an artist. A label fronting recording, marketing, and promotion money often can’t recover it from record income alone — so it reaches into the streams a bigger profile feeds: the shows, the shirts, the songs, the brand deals.

That logic is real, and it’s why a 360 isn’t automatically a scam. But it only justifies sharing in streams the label helps build. The predatory version stretches it to tax streams the label never touches — and that stretch is the whole difference between a deal you can survive and a deal that owns you.

The one rule that separates fair from predatory

Here is the rule Done Deal Digital’s clause library enforces, and the test to run on any 360 in front of you: the label may share in what it helps do — it may never tax what it merely watches.

Contract people call this an active versus passive interest. Active means the label does the work — books, promotes, manufactures, sells — then shares in the result. Passive means it takes a percentage of a tour you routed, merch you fronted, and brand deals your team closed, while contributing nothing. That’s money for nothing. If they want a piece, they have to help build it — and on any stream they won’t work, they take nothing.

The predatory version: everything, forever, for nothing

The worst 360 deals stack the same traps on top of each other. When you see several of these in one contract, you’re not looking at a partnership — you’re looking at a career-wide tax:

• The everything grab. Broad “all entertainment income” or “name and likeness” language instead of a named list of streams — reaching acting, books, businesses, and future ventures the label will never lift a finger for.
• Cuts of gross, not net. This is where artists get buried. Say your tour grosses $500,000 but nets $50,000 after the venue, agent, manager, production, and crew are paid. A 25% cut of gross is $125,000 — more than everything you take home. A fair deal takes a slice of what’s left, never a fat slice of money you’ve already spent on roadies.
• A tiny advance while taxing everything. The label risks little or nothing up front, pays a low royalty, and still collects across your whole career. If they’re taking a piece of everything, the money up front had better be real.
• Cross-collateralization across streams. An unrecouped album advance gets paid off out of your touring and merch money — a hit tour disappearing into a slow album’s debt. The danger multiplies in a 360 because there are more buckets to drain.
• No carve-outs. Nothing excluding your pre-existing business, side ventures, or pre-deal catalog — the label collects on income it had zero role in creating.
• A decade on a leash. Five-to-ten-year fixed terms, or an open-ended stack of options renewing at the same terms with no new advance — locking you in during success and dumping you during failure. Many states cap personal-service terms — California’s seven-year rule is the famous one — so a ten-year lock can be a red flag and unenforceable.
• The label becomes the boss of your band. Approval rights over your booking agent, tour routing, manager, even your merch-table staffing. The label can consult; it never commands.
• No way home and no way out. Masters owned in perpetuity with no reversion, no release commitment, and no exit triggers — so if the label shelves you, you stay frozen for the full term.

When a narrow 360 can actually be fair

Caution first — the best 360 provision is none at all. But a narrow one can be survivable, and even fair, when the label gives real money and real career-building in exchange, and every clause below holds:

• A named list of streams, each with its own percentage. The label shares only in streams it actively helps build. Everything else is 100% yours — in writing.
• Real money and real work in the trade. A meaningful advance sized to actual album costs, a clear royalty rate, transparent accounting, and audit rights. A multi-stream cut is only ever justified by a much larger commitment from the label.
• Modest percentages on net, not gross. On touring, think 10–15% of net income after venue, agent, manager, production, and crew — ideally only after the album advance recoups, and only with real tour support behind it. On merch, a modest cut of net only where the label actually funds manufacturing and runs the operation. If they want merch money, make them help pay to print the shirts.
• Your publishing stays yours. Or, at most, a limited actively-administered share — and only if the label’s publishing arm genuinely pitches your songs and collects. Your songs are the asset that pays you for life; don’t hand over the copyrights just to get a record out.
• A short term. One firm album or a 12–18-month cycle, plus a small number of options that each trigger a new advance and a release commitment — the whole relationship capped around three to four albums.
• Siloed recoupment. Recording costs recoup only from recording income, tour support only from touring, merch only from merch. Debt in one bucket never drains the others.
• Carve-outs in writing. Pre-existing businesses, side ventures, acting, and anything outside the named streams are explicitly excluded. If the label had nothing to do with it, they don’t get paid from it.
• A day your masters come home. Either you keep ownership and license the recordings for a limited period, or the label owns them with a defined reversion date.
• Named exits. If the label fails to release your music within a defined window, goes bankrupt, changes ownership, or breaches and doesn’t cure it after notice — you walk, and ideally your rights come back with you.
• You keep your team. Your booking agent, tour schedule, and merch operation stay under your control — a stake in the business doesn’t make them the boss of your band.

Before you sign anything

A 360 is a red-alert contract — it can transfer master ownership, reach your publishing, and run for years. Learn the patterns in our fair vs. predatory contracts guide, walk the paper against the pre-signing contract checklist, and if someone already handed you a contract, run it through the free Deal Check to see which red flags it’s carrying. Before any signature on a 360, have a music lawyer review the specific deal — skipping that step here can cost you a decade.

This is general music-business education, not legal advice, and Done Deal Digital is not a law firm. Before signing a 360 deal — or any contract that reaches your masters, publishing, or career income — have a qualified music attorney review it.

360 deal FAQ