"If I had an artist whose music was quirky and might take time to develop, then Simon's organization is not the one I would recommend getting involved with," he said. "On the other hand, if I have a client whose primary interest is fame and fortune, then Simon's organization is certainly worth considering."
...."It unfortunately takes two for exploitation," said Jayne Wallace, spokeswoman for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. "And in the U.S. music business, people are so desperate to get in they're willing to sign everything away."
She would not comment specifically on Fuller's practices, but said generally "most artists would sign a bad deal to get the break."
....Ruben Studdard told The Associated Press last summer that he had no complaints with Fuller, and described him a helpful career-shaping force who watched out for his well-being.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, however, Studdard wondered if "American Idol" had taken advantage of the contestants, citing commercials they filmed for free as part of the broadcast.
"Without the show, we wouldn't be recording artists," he said. "But we did a lot of commercials, dawg. ... We were exploited but not exploited. It just taught us a lot about the business. `American Idol' is what we like to call a crash course on the entertainment industry." As you can tell from reading a bit between the lines, no other AI contract information has been leaked, rather remarkably, since we revealed the contestant's contract for the first American Idol 1 series in September of 2002 (and we very much appreciate the courtesy of the link from Breznican's story!), which was further developed in a Salon story.
With the new season upon us, I sense a quickening in the Idol pulse. Look for more soon. We have a very large number of Idol-related stories from both seasons - just put American Idol in the search box at the top of the page.
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