PledgeMusic Co-Founder Benji Rogers Offers Help As Late Payment Problems Widen

Artist after artist is coming forward to share their stories of late payments and non-payments after their campaign with PledgeMusic had finished.  From Jesus Jones to Fastball and beyond, indie and major label artists at all levels and of all types are affected by the payment problems.

PledgeMusic issued a statement Thursday, promising to do better.  

Co-founder Benji Rogers,  who exited as PledgeMusic CEO in 2016 and from the board almost a year ago, took the unusual step of offering a personal and public Mea Culpa. The respected serial tech entrepreneur has also "been in touch with the current board and management team to offer my help both strategically and practically."

"If it is asked for," he continued, " I will commit to doing all that I can to ensure that this wonderful engine that we created does not cause any further harm, and can grow into something even better for all who would use it."

Benji Roger's full open letter:

To the Artists, their teams, managers, labels and fans, and to all who have been negatively affected by the issues at PledgeMusic, I am truly sorry.

When I conceived of Pledge, and when the co-founders and I started in on building the platform we thought of little else but of how it could help artists. We benchmarked the company’s success on how well our artists’ campaigns did. We didn’t sleep a whole hell of a lot as we put in the hours to make things work and build the features that our artists needed. In one sense artists drove the innovation and we viewed the platform as a place from which they could connect with their fans, make money and retain ownership over their data. As I had it in my head, Pledge was meant to be the home from which they could launch something amazing into the world, and thousands of you did just that.

Even though I handed over day-to-day control of Pledge as its CEO for the second time in April of 2016 and left the board last February, the fact that this trust is now broken is unacceptable to me personally and I am truly sorry to all of you who have been affected by this. I have emailed a lot of you from my personal email account, as I no longer have a Pledge email address, and have tried to help where I can, but it’s not enough.

As such I have been in touch with the current board and management team to offer my help both strategically and practically. If it is asked for, I will commit to doing all that I can to ensure that this wonderful engine that we created does not cause any further harm, and can grow into something even better for all who would use it.

Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the incredible team, which includes one of my co-founders, who have been battling to get the right people paid under immensely difficult circumstances both professionally and personally. They are feeling the heat, as they are on the front lines of this and are doing their very best to help you. Of that, I have no doubt.

Once again I am truly sorry to any and all of you who have been harmed as a result of what I made. Please know that I will do all that is within my power to make it right and to fix what I can if given the opportunity to do so.

Benj

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