NEW YORK, June 5: US civil rights leader Al Sharpton and O.J. Simpson defence lawyer Johnnie Cochran declared war on Wednesday on the “indentured servitude” of musicians by the world’s top five music recording companies.

Sharpton told reporters that his New York-based National Action Network (NAN) would be organising meetings with the heads of AOL Time Warner, BMG, Vivendi Universal, Sony and EMI, as well as calling a “summit” of recording artists in the next three weeks.

The goal, Sharpton explained, was to redress the balance in recording contracts which all too often favour the company to the musician’s financial and artistic detriment.

“We prefer conversation to litigation, but if we have to litigate we will,” Sharpton said, introducing Cochran as the initiative’s prime legal advisor.

In order to pressure the recording majors, Sharpton said the NAN would be using its influence with radio stations to boycott material from companies deemed as treating their artists unfairly.

“The lifeline of any music company is air play,” he said.

Sharpton argued that many artists were signed up to contracts that cut them out of a fair share of the profits and robbed them of legal ownership of their own material.

While emerging musicians were most vulnerable to the “promises of lights and stardom,” Sharpton said established artists were often equally exploited, even if the size of their bank accounts suggested otherwise.—AFP