A Warning;

Jazz musicians beware of Challenge Records and their offshoot...

A Records.

I had an Assignment of Copyright contract from May 1997 where I assigned Challenge Music Publishing

50% of the copyright on 9 of my tunes on the Wolf Soup CD "The Question".

In 1999, after joining the Harry Fox agency, I checked out my music on their website (Harry Fox's) and

was shocked to find out that Polygram (Challenge made a publishing deal with them after our original contract)

had taken 100% of the publishing on the 9 tunes.

I immediately contacted Challenge and have had email's from them. Here are a few of them with their dates:

#1.6/24/1999 "Hi Bob, I'm not really well acquainted with these publishing matters,besides that the

"question"-deal is from before my time with Challenge, so if you don't mind I'll forward this message

to both Colette and Anne. They'll get back to you about this as soon as they can. Sorry for the

inconvenience at this point, but I'm sure this matter will be solved in no time.

Warm regards - Angelo Verploegen"

#2. 6/30/1999 "Dear Bob, You are right. Polygram is collecting 100%. I have asked Polygram to advise

the statements regarding your 50% share. I am waiting for their reply.

Take care, Anne"

#3.5/17/2000 "Did you mail this to Polygram ? I agree that this is very dissatisfactionary.

I'll otherwise reimburse you for the 50% myself.

I'll see what I can do to get it back from Polygram.

Take care, Anne"

#4.8/7/2000 "Hi Robert, Come on, please bear with us. We are not in this business to screw musicians.

Unfortunately something went worng with your contract. It seems that you and I haven't noticed the problem either.

So you can not simply put this in our court only. There has been absolutely no intention to make

another deal then it should be. Later this week I'll make it my way to cancel the publishing agreement completely

so that you are free to deal with it. I'll see if I can get information for what amount Polygram has

collected. I can get a rough estimation based upon our sales-report anyhow. So I'll be able to work this out with you.

I apologise for the delay. We are a small company and try to run millions of things. That's why it took too

long to service you.

Take care, Anne"

#5.8/9/2000 "Ok, I'll look up the returned contracts. Then I do not understand why Polygram took the full amount.

They have copies of the signed contracts. So with your corrections. Anyhow. I'll solve this as I promised you. I am not

in this business to be on the other side. I like to work together with the artist and a deal is a deal.

Take care, Anne"

I contacted Polygram through Harry Fox and they deny my claim.

I don't think they screwed me intentionally but they don't seem to care enough about it to fix it.

I spoke with Colette Pannemans about it in June and she said there have been a couple other similar mix ups.

I left a message with Anne De Jong and have not heard back.

I would beware of any contract with this company since they don't seem to make enough of an effort to

make sure a contract is followed or repaired... when they admit the situation warrents it.

Sorryto have to put something like this on the Net but maybe it will get them to actually do something instead

of sending simpathetic emails.

When they actually do something about it and I get my $ for the publishing [I know it's not much but I am a jazz musician with a family and it's the principle anyway] I'll take this off.

Feel free to email me if you want to discuss this.

Thanks...Bob