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Tiny Engines relaunches under new management structure
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 3 July 2023
US-based independent label Tiny Engines has relaunched under a new management structure, having been on hiatus since one of its artists, Adult Mom, went public about a royalties and contract dispute in late 2019.
In a series of Tweets, Adult Mom founder Stevie Knipe said there had been issues regarding the reporting and payment of royalties due from recordings released by the label. That had then led to a dispute with label owner Chuck Daley over ownership of the Adult Mom masters. Other artists then made statements expressing similar grievances.
The label is being relaunched under the sole management of Will Miller, who was previously a co-owner with Daley. According to an Instagram post, past financial issues have been addressed and artist deals renegotiated, with most of those deals now seemingly licensing arrangements where the artist rather than the label is the actual copyright owner.
In a statement published by Pitchfork, Miller says: “After leaving the day-to-day operations of Tiny Engines at the beginning of 2020, I was excited to come home last year to revive the label and return to our roots”.
“When the opportunity arose for me to acquire sole ownership of Tiny Engines the prospect of restoring the label was something I felt a responsibility to pursue”, he goes on. “I am committed to making sure artists and their records are being cared for properly and treated with the required respect”.
“I also want to ensure that artists are being paid what they are owed. I have spent the last year plus making sure all of this happens going forward.
“To the artists and fans of the label, I am deeply sorry that it took so long to get to this point but we are finally here. We will work hard to re-establish Tiny Engines and be a positive force moving forward”.
“You the fan owe us nothing”, he concludes. “We will seek to regain your trust in our actions as a label and in how we treat our artists. If you do not want to support Tiny Engines please continue to support the artists in any way you can”.
