JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Jody's Mis-Information About The Music Business

Welcome to the fight. It's one I have been involved in since the 80's. Though my focus has been the JPF Awards the past couple years, I've been in the fight over royalty issues, insurance issues, payola and criminality in Radio and Label promotional payoffs etc. since before there was an internet and I have confronted the special interests representing entities taking advantage of musicians face to face in public settings including the RIAA who claimed to speak for ALL music creators when lobbying congress when they represent less than 2% of them. I got a standing ovation from the thousands of people at the political summit because though they tried to claim they never made that claim, I then produced and read their boilerplate on the bottom of all their literature which clearly stated they DID represent nearly all music makers and were given a mandate to negotiate on their behalf. We got Sony to admit to breaking the law and to make reparations for Payola. I confronted the folks at Pandora (who I had long helped and been friends with) when it was clear their rhetoric did not match their actions which cost me several sponsors who were doing business with Pandora. I noted very publicly that after they claimed they would go out of business unless rates were drastically cut, funny enough it was nearly 2 years later and they were still going strong. I could go on and on, but I just want to be clear that although I don't have my nose directly in the current issue at hand, my fingerprints have been all over a wide range of issues for a very long time. And unlike the shills I battled, I wasn't getting paid by anyone to simply do the right thing and demand fairness for our community. For me it has always been a moral battle and my efforts have been to do anything I can to help my friends in the community and those who will come after them in any way I can.