Case #2: Ethical and Legal Issues

When most people think of the rapper, Lil Wayne, they don’t get a picture of clean-cut, proper, mature performer in their heads. This case against Lil Wayne does not help his image.

This case has a mix of legal and ethical issues along with remix and copyright problems. The one example in class, involving Kanye West, unfortunately was not enough for the music industry.

In 1965, The Rolling Stones released their song “Play With Fire.” Over forty years later, Lil Wayne tried to incorporate the melody and lyrics from the Rolling Stones’ song into his own song titled, “Playing With Fire.” The Rolling Stones are contracted with Abkco Music Inc., which have executives who were originally prepared to grant the request to use “Play With Fire” as part of Lil Wayne’s song. Late the Abkco Music Inc. executives changed their minds when they learned of the lyrics to the Lil Wayne song. In the case the lyrics were called “explicit, sexist and offensive.” Abkco Music Inc. of course did not feel that those lyrics would match appropriately to the original music o

f the Rolling Stones.

The real issue started once Abkco executives learned that the song has been recorded and released with no contractual agreement anyway. They found out about the release through reading reviews. Abkco Music then sued Lil Wayne, his producer, record label and music publishers because of the copied song. The copyright suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. By the time the actual lawsuit had been filed Lil Wayne’s album “Tha Carter III” had sold almost two million copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen Soundscan. The single itself sold another 42,000 digital copies through download services like iTunes. Topping that off, the album was the best-selling album of 2008, with 2.8 million units sold domestically. These statistics don’t even touch the number of copies of the song that were shared and spread illegally. Lil Wayne was forced to permanently remove the song from the “Tha Carter III” album both on the physical and digital sources, as well as all of the single download options.

According to music industry lawyers, in most cases like this, the winning plaintiff would be awarded royalties and damages. So far, however, neither side of the case has released any information about financial compensations in the settlement. The settlement was announced by Abkco, Lil Wayne’s record label, Universal Music Group, and the two publishers of “Playing With Fire,” EMI Group Ltd. and Warner Music Group Corp. Interestingly, both Lil Wayne’s and the Rolling Stone’s recordings are distributed by labels owned by Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group.

Usually the winning plaintiff wants a financial compensation from the lawsuit, but in this case it was instead demanded that the song be removed from the market. “It’s not common, because usually they want the money, but it’s a remedy that’s available,” said Donald S. Passman, a lawyer and author of “All You Need to Know About the Music Business.” In response, Abkco President Jody Klein said, “The lawsuit was not about money. It was about protecting the written works of our songwriters.”

The link to the related article located in the ProQuest database:
http://ezproxy.ithaca.edu:2086/pqdweb?index=4&did=1635360291&SrchMode=2&sid=11&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1235615757&clientId=12342

It is incredibly unfortunate that issues like this occur in the entertainment industry, or any industry at all for that matter. Especially in this case, where it is very obvious that there was no signed agreement and that Lil Wayne and/or producers, writers, etc, released the song on purpose with the intent to get away with it.

I also respect the label’s decision to force the song to be removed from the album and digital purchasing systems but I also think that the Rolling Stone’s and their Abkco Music label should have been reimbursed with a fair share of the sales.

So although the two songs were technically different because of the lyrics, and most likely a slight variation in the music, it is extremely important to go about these types of agreements correctly. Copyright also addresses issues of expression, which shows in this case how the Rolling Stones label did not want to be associated with Lil Wayne’s sense of expression through his music. Through the 1976 Copyright Act the owner of the copyright, “Play With Fire,” has exclusive rights with reproduction, preparing derivative works, performing the work publicly, and distributing the work. More importantly, copyright becomes property of the author as soon as the work is finished. Copyright covers literary works, musical works, dramatic works, motion pictures and other audio-visual works, pictorial, graphic and sculptural works, sound recordings, and architectural works. Maybe Lil Wayne should have studied up on copyright before he we

nt ahead and recorded and released his song. If he had he would have known that work is still copyrighted even if the work doesn’t have a © symbol, if there is no monetary charge, if it is on the internet, or if the copyright is not defended, thankfully in this case the copyright was defended. There is fair use of copyright material for certain reasons like criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research, none of which had anything to do Lil Wayne’s release.

Hopefully even these two examples will be enough for the music industry to shape it up. Otherwise there will be even more unsatisfied consumers out there.

Nike v. Puma

While creating personal shoe designs on each of the Nike and Puma sites I was able to fully understand the consumer experience. I created accounts for both websites in order to save my work and go back to it later.

I enjoyed the NikeID site more because it seemed to me to be more relevant and directly related to the shoe-buying experience. The Nike designs were more appealing to my personal style and interest so it kept me more focused. I did experience a few technical difficulties, however, when I was unable to save my first two shoe designs. From the consumer standpoint this situation was extremely frustrating because I had to start the design over two times until I finally decided to give up and wait for another day. So although I like the visual design and set up of the Nike website more, the Puma site was actually easier to use. I also thought Nike stood out because you can also take part in the creation and design of certain clothing and sport items as well.

Nike’s website headline for the shoe design section read, “Dominate in colors all your own.” I felt that this fit well with Nike’s image of top sporting equipment and appeal. This also tied in with the option of picking the specific shoe design based on specific sports teams’ colors. This was not an option I took advantage of but I know many people who would fully appreciate it. NikeID also offers an in-person studio where customers can make appointments to try on the shoes in-house. This is also a very creative idea, especially for those customers who are willing to pay top dollar for their sneakers. This NikeID Studio is connected to big names like Ludacris.

The website itself was full of audio and visuals that catch attention but can also drive you a little crazy after awhile. There were a lot of pop-up description boxes and flash animation.

One positive part of the experience was the option to start with a blank shoe design or look at other original designs that were submitted by customers like yourself. You can also design any type of shoe you want, not just one or two different styles.

The Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ website was a much more unusual experience for me than past online shopping has been. I did not like the concept/idea of relating shoe design with cooking. Logically it makes sense, I guess, but when I am looking at shoes, I do not also want to be thinking about ingredients that I will be putting in my mouth. Puma’s website opened with the heading, “Grab your chef hat and preheat your creativity.” It’s an original idea, but it just threw me off a little. The whole look of the website, from the opening photos to the commentary really did not make is seem like a shoe supplier. If I didn’t already know what Puma was when I saw the homepage, I would probably think it was the website of a restaurant. In support of the website, at least I can say Puma kept the concept constant throughout.

Puma’s actual shoe design process was easier in most ways. Unfortunately there were only three styles to choose from. And although the process of creating and saving the design was easier, I was less satisfied with the graphics, colors, angles of view, and event the lay out of options. When a color selection was made it looked a lot different on the shoe in the picture than actually in the color sample. The shoe design was also split up into three sections. This option added more available combinations but in some ways provided too much to do and not all the colors matched.

The Nike shoe design also allowed for the customer to click directly on the section of the shoe they wanted to change. That was useful because most consumers don’t particularly care what the company has decided to name each individual part of the shoe, they just want to get their job done in the easiest and most enjoyable way possible. The Puma site, however, did not provide that option. Instead there was a list on the side that held the names of each part along with the colors you could choose for it. It took some guessing and clicking around, but eventually it worked out.

The two companies had slightly different approaches to their customized athletic shoe websites but the overall ideas were the same. It is hard to differentiate a service like that because for the most part the same options will be offered. Even if a competitor was offering a characteristic that you didn’t, it probably would not take long for the opposite company to offer their own variation of the same thing.

I did enjoy the Nike experience more, even with the technical problems. My own personal taste has everything to do with that decision. Companies must really look at their target audience and main customers in order to create the right website environment and experience, otherwise a lot can be lost.

New stuff starting from here..

Hey everyone! I originally made this blog for my Audience Research class as a sophomore at Ithaca College, and guess what!? Another class is requiring a blog…so I’m going to use the same one!

Grand Theft Auto IV

WHOO HOO! It's finally here! I don't really know what all the fuss is about because I have never played the game, but I do know that millions of other consumers have and it is HUGE! According to the AdAge article, the Grand Theft Auto IV release "is expected to lift the entire industry even further, while putting the spotlight firmly back on the core gamer audience."

Currently the record for video game sales is held by Halo 3 with $300 million, but that is expected to be broken with the GTA release by up to $50 to 100 million more.  The game producers are not the only ones who will be getting direct sales increases. Gamestop, Game Crazy, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart will all benefit from the sales of the game, especially those that held special opening nights and promos for the game.

The M rating has had some downfall on strictness  for minors and some marketing activities. With those problems, the game has still received all perfect reviews so far and special recognition for its "first-time interactive play as well as superior graphics on the next-generation platforms of both Sony's Playstation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360." 

Tyson's misleading promo gets disputed!

In my two health classes I have heard so much about diet and the national food intake lately. One of the biggest topics has been meat and the harmful substances that are used to raise chicken, pigs, and cows which are then turned into the meat we consume and those harmful substances and put directly into our own bodies. Many consumers are still unaware of these huge problems but it is becoming a more popular and serious topic everyday.

According to AdWeek, Tyson's latest ad campaign contained ads that read ,"Raised without antiboitics" but that claim does not include the detail that the specific antibiotics it does not contain are those that can also affect the antibiotics that humans take. Tyson does actually use other antibiotics when raised the animals. Competing companies, Perdue and Sanderson brought the ad campaign to a federal judge and showed that no companies use antibiotics that can affect the antibiotics that humans use, but the ads would appear to consumers that those other companies do.

There was a preliminary injunction granted against the marketing Tyson used, in part because of the huge loses that the competitors have been experiencing. Sanderson reported $4 million in loses while Perdue reported $11 million.

Tyson has all of the materials for the campaign and although they had not released it yet, it had plans to begin before the main summer grilling season. As passionate about advertising and marketing as I am, I have learned about the information from the other side, the meat industry in particular, and so I strongly feel like is one campaign that needs to be left alone because of the amount of misleading information consumers will get.

Meaningless Promos

I'm not really sure how this makes sense, or why people would be interested, but hey, people will do anything for more money and fame. Oprah has been in the news a lot for her weight problems and inability to cook, not like it's anyone's business, but people still talk about it.

Oprah's magazine, O, is now coming out with a new cookbook that even features a special recipe from Oprah herself (and her personal cook), reports MediaWeek. The companies excuse for putting out the cookbook is that it is more of a reflection of Oprah's style and attitude rather than her eating habits.

The cookbook also includes recipes from other famous cooks like Bobby Flay, Daniel Boulud and Ina Garten. This thing is, Oprah doesn't have to have cooking ability and maybe her weight will help sell the delicious recipes, but no matter what she is interested in or what she is trying to sell, as long as Oprah's name is on it people will buy it. And from a business perspective, there could be nothing better than to be able to sell absolutely anything because of the name you have created for yourself. Congrats Oprah.

Virtual Worlds...right on time

After the great presentation in class last week I thought this would fit in perfectly with what we have been learning about! Although there are already hundreds of virtual worlds already set up "Big Media Players Going 'Virtual' for Kids" is the topic of this MediaWeek article.

I have honestly never visited a virtual world site, even though I always remind myself to while I am having a discussion about them with someone else, but then I always forget... I always have a lot going on and I really can't imagine having enough time to just hang out in a second world. Sure, if I had two of me I'd love to create another, better me to play with...but I don't see that happening anytime soon. But either way- tons of people do have the time and obviously they love doing the virtual world thing cause it is still growing like crazy!

Today there are virtual worlds designed for any target- older adults, young children and all ages in between. People from different ages visit and participate is other sites as well. The bigger media companies are now targeting mainly 'tweens' which are 8-12 year olds. This is actually probably the best market because these kids don't have a lot of homework to do, money to go out, or even cars to leave with. They sit at home until their parents get home from work and what better to do then play on the computer?

I really do want to discover what this virtual world thing is all about, and maybe this blog will finally push me over to edge to actually put the time into explore. Companies are putting a lot of money into them...so there has to be something cool there, right?