Hi Tommy.

How does Tommy feel about the very funny portrayal of hin on Wyclef's The Ecleftic?

Please ask him about his name check in "Cher Chez La Femme" by Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. This was well before his rise to power.

Tommy Mottola lives down the road
He lost his lady two months ago
Maybe he'll find her
Maybe he won't....

Big record companies and their radio station compatriots are dinosaurs. Long live the New Independents!

I work for a major record label in copyright administration. We've lost many people because of the rise of illegal downloading. Our department is not a glamourous one; it's a business department. In the most simplistic terms, we make sure that songwriters are paid for their share of a song of every unit sold. Thanks to people not wanting to pay for music, a songwriter makes a lot less now for their work. I am not a corporate drone; I am a person who makes a mid-level 5 figure salary to make sure others get paid for their creativity. But it saddens me to see how the industry is vilified when now: who will put the money upfront for the studio costs? Who can keep track and pay the songwriters for the millions of illegal downloads all over the world? AND the Pandora type services want to pay even lower rates for the music publishers than the satellite radio companies. Everyone wants it for free or for negligible sums. The music industry has never been perfect, but it stands to lose more people, laying off more workers while the customers out there continue to complain they don't want to pay for it.

How has the rise of MP3's and the internet changed the music industry? Are music studios facing the same issues facing the newspaper industry? Are large music studios obsolete?