The Journey Project – Phase IV
Well, to make a long story short (W-what? Me make a long story short?), I heard back from Jerry Butler and he advised that, “I finally got a chance to talk to Jonathan Cain about this. He has approved your use of the song with respect to his publishing rights.”
He called me to tell me that I would also need permission from the other members of the band that “control the rights to the Journey recording.” He assured me that he didn’t see a problem.
Sure enough, within days, Jerry let me know that everyone had been agreeable to my pesky request. “You don’t need to do anything until I get you the licenses. I have them drafted and sent them out for approval, which has also come back already. I’ll send you PDFs tomorrow by email and then I can explain any questions you have once you’ve given them a look.”
I still couldn’t believe this was happening. Why would all these talented men waste a millisecond of time on little, old me? Weren’t they touring the world making people happy with their music? Then again, they probably just wanted me to shut up and go away.
I emailed Jerry. “Hokey-doodle! They gave you an answer already? Man, I can’t believe how fast that went. You are one good lawyer.”
Showing just what a good lawyer he was, he responded right away. “Just so you know, the only hard part of this was getting Jonathan on the phone in the first place. Everyone I had to pitch this to basically said, ‘It’s such a good cause. How could you say no?’ ”
Me, a good cause? Most of the time, I feel like I’m talking to myself on the World Wide Web.
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