h. 10.21
Una e-mail da un cantante di lunga conoscenza personale & professionale…
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Dalla mia replica…
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Selezione e traduzione Antonio De Honestis
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Thursday 7th. July, 2005
10.21
World HQ.
An e-mail from a singer of long personal & professional acquaintance…
I hope you won’t mind me telling you that I am coldly furious with one of our ex- managers, having recently learnt that he has personally been receiving the (paltry, but none the less ours) album sales royalties for the last 35 years and never once has he accounted to us for them. I am trying to persuade him to make an educated guess at how much this might have been and send cheques to myself and JA and at least he has now had to admit that he has had them, because Sanctuary Records have sent him the royalty statements going back to 1993.
From my reply…
no reasonable person in the mainstream would believe that the treatment you describe is standard operating procedure – for all of us. so, whenever this happens to any of us, better the info is made public. this supports the case for all artists.
you require:
1. full accounting;
2. compound interest (on small sums over 35 years this becomes useful);
3. an explanation: it is possible that he "forgot" for the first 28 years but not since sanctuary has been rendering accounting.
4. if the explanation is not credible, an apology.
5. if there is any hesitation or delay, you will contact the MU legal department, and the BPI and the metropolitan fraud squad.
6. contact sanctuary, tell them the position & request that they send duplicates of the accounting in future.
do not be apologetic. do not be fobbed off. do not give up fighting – managers rely on that. this character has been stealing your money, and it was not an accident. it may be that he says he can’t produce full accounting. in which case you will make your own best guess of the sales for the first 3-5 years (the key period) & get an accountant to compound it up…
when the manager gets difficult, you produce your accountant’s figure and say this is what it will take you to settle. otherwise, you make your complaints to the official bodies.
… don’t waste your energy in anger: direct it towards redressing the grievance. the most powerful weapon you have is making the information public.