Posted on 06/26/2002 5:24:48 AM PDT by areafiftyone
LOS ANGELES (AP) The Rev. Al Sharpton announced plans Tuesday for a major summit he said would reform the recording industry and end exploitation of artists.
The ''Music Industry Initiative,'' is scheduled for the week of July 8 in New York City, Sharpton said during a news conference in Los Angeles.
Attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. is helping Sharpton with the project, which aims to bring together singers, musicians and recording label representatives.
Sharpton, a longtime political and social activist, has embraced issues ranging from police brutality to bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.
Earlier this month singer Michael Jackson aligned himself with Sharpton, who has formed a coalition to investigate whether artists are being financially exploited by record labels.
''It is our intention to break up the kinds of indentured servant-type of arrangement that many in the record industry now have with record companies,'' Sharpton recently told interviewers. ''We hope that this initiative would make it possible where one day the artist on the CD is as big as the companies that put out the CD.''
Sharpton has also said he would be willing to work with the Recording Artists Coalition, which is demanding new relationships with record labels, including less restrictive contracts and more oversight of accounting practices. Don Henley, Sheryl Crow, the Dixie Chicks, Billy Joel and Clint Black are among the artists who have joined that coalition.
poor, poor Michael.
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