Letters to the Editor
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That's not what the article said
"I'm still not sure about all the things I think the ending implies, but I'm sure about one thing: David Chase isn't letting a has-been rock-star dictate terms to him. If Steve Perry wants to think he negotiated to spare us all the gory trauma of an on-screen slaughter, that's kinda sweet, but who in their right mind would ever think that kind of denoument was a possibility?" -- rollerboyz
The article didn't say Mr. Perry negotiated to prevent a whacking in the Sopranos, what it says is that Mr. Perry did not want his song used in a scene where Tony gets whacked, and refused to grant rights until he received assurances as to how the song would be used. By that argument David Chase volunteered the reality of the scene, not rewrote it to use the song. Clearly Mr. Chase has a great deal of respect for the song and the artists that created, otherwise he wouldn't have used it. Since music rights are a particularly sticky whicket in the television industry, any aspect of the granting of rights would have been stipulated in writing by the lawyers, and as such, the statement that Tony isn't whacked in scene is pretty much gauranteed.
Now of course, that doesn't mean Tony isn't dead, since the song was not used after the screen goes blank, and tony could have been whacked after the scene went black, but given the fact that no other aspects of the scene (when viewed dispasionatly) imply that Tony got whacked it is doubtful that he was.