MERGE from Tom's Thread
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Grammys Deserve History's Worst Ratings
Posted by Tom Barger on February 12, 2005 at
8:49 PM (printer friendly)
Hey, it could happen to stinkers like Miss
America, the Cleos and the Tony Awards. Why
shouldn't TV networks cancel future Grammys?
Netscape interviews Neil Portnow of NARAS.
The organization had previously kept its
head down and did not join the lawsuits, but
now deserves our best trolling efforts at
WHAT'S THE DOWNLOAD?
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2005021021390002638204&dt
=20050210213900&w=RTR&coview=
(Excerpt) (snip)
THR: WHAT DO YOU FORESEE IN THE FUTURE FOR
THE ACADEMY'S ADVOCACY INITIATIVES?
Portnow: Over the past year, we've seen a
number of tangible activities that we've
done as an academy in terms of advocacy.
We've hired and put on a full-time lobbyist
in D.C. We've never had that before. This
gives us information 24-7, and also gives us
a way of disseminating our information, our
message. The academy also created an amicus
brief that was presented to the Supreme
Court in the hopes of influencing them to
consider the MGM vs. Grokster case. From the
information we've received, this was very
compelling to the court, in terms of their
decision to actually take this case on. We
now are writing a brief that will be
submitted for the actual deliberation.
THR: HAVE THE ACADEMY'S EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS
OVER THE PAST YEAR HAD AN IMPACT ON
CONSUMERS' VIEWS ABOUT ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING,
AND HOW CAN YOU BROADEN THE MESSAGE?
Portnow: The simple answer is, yes, we
believe we've had an impact, and a direct
impact. If you remember, last year on the
show we announced our public-service
campaign, What'stheDownload.com. That came
as a result of about 18 months of research,
focus groups, going out into the field with
the Edelman research and public relations
firms as a partner. We wanted to craft a
message that young people would be able to
hear. What it's ultimately about is changing
behavior. We allowed behavior to develop
without having any educational component.
There was no place where a young person
could learn about intellectual property,
what are the ethical things to do, what are
the issues. They just don't know. We felt
our role as an academy is as educators.
Hence, the What'stheDownload site. Since we
launched, we've had over 500,000 consumers
visit the site. We've heard from educators,
parents, the kids themselves: "Hey, this is
great; this is useful for us." Now we've
expanded the campaign this year by creating
what we're calling an interactive advisory
board. We did a nationwide contest for a
dozen kids to become this board, who are
typical everyday music fans. It gives us a
place to go to get feedback about how
they're feeling about these issues. We're
having our first discussion this week, on
Saturday. That will bring food for thought
about additional elements for the campaign.
We want to be sure that any message is one
that our target audience is going to be
listening to. Otherwise, we're just wasting
our time.
User Comments (These do not necessarily
reflect the beliefs of this site)
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tomsong
Date: February 12, 2005 @ 9:08 PM
I have been contemplating the amicus brief
for a week that NARAS, CMA, R&B Foundation,
Hip-Hop Summit and RAC et al filed with the
Supreme Court. Here it is.
http://www.grammy.com/news/MGM_v_Grokster_bri ef.pdf
So many lies. I suggest we jump on What's
the Download with a little truth-telling
squad.
Lawyers Jay Rosenthal, Joel Katz and Jay
Cooper know better, and yet cannot help
regurgitating up the oldest (and most
discredited) argument of all: the claim that
the loss of music jobs is not from ruthless
corporate consolidation, but rather---well,
read for yourself and puke:
(quote Page 26 amicus)
It is hardly a secret that record companies
have fired
thousands of employees and have
significantly cut back on
investment and expansion plans, largely due
to the downturn
in record sales resulting from illegal
downloading via the
internet.Experimentation -- the seed of most
intellectual
progress -- has largely been abandoned. Only
low-risk music
projects see the light of day. Many artists
have been dropped
by major labels, and for those artists
remaining, promotion
and tour support money has been greatly
curtailed, if not
eliminated entirely. Artists who would have
been signed in
better times are being ignored. And, for
every recording
artist who has been dropped or whose
projects are not being
funded by record companies, countless others
have suffered
economically as well -- the musicians and
backup singers
who would have been employed, graphic
artists whose
livelihood is derived from creating album
covers, employees
of recording studios, songwriters, and
untold others. It
cannot be reasonably disputed that the
principal reason for
this catastrophic harm is the proliferation
of businesses like Grokster.
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gdZiemann
Date: February 12, 2005 @ 9:50 PM
"It cannot be reasonably disputed..."?????
Where oh where do these people buy their
drugs, cuz I want some of whatever they've
got.
The only empirical, factual evidence
presented to support this conclusion so far?
-- Sales are down.
The Supreme Court cannot possibly be stupid
enough to be buying into this bullshit.
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gdZiemann
Date: February 12, 2005 @ 9:52 PM
And if I were on the Supreme Court, I would
be pissed that they think SCOTUS is EXACTLY
that stupid.
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wet1
Date: February 12, 2005 @ 10:40 PM
You know what the problem is here? This
boycott is working. Sales are down. Yet at
the end of the quarter, miracously, there
will also be stock holder returns. Dividends
they call them.
The boycott site here and other sister sites
are seeing a lot of attention. Attention
that the majors would really rather avoid
preferring instead that the RIAA take the
heat while they rake in the profits. The
result are these "pro RIAA sites" to try and
put the genie back in the bottle. The fact
that "alternate" viewpoint sites are
springing up is a sign they see where the
hurt is coming from. That too, is good news.
Only reason such sites would exist was if
they precieve a threat from those that use
the internet AND THEY DO! It will most
likely be masked under the "education" part
of the budget. Make no mistake, would not be
on the net if they didn't view the net with
the ablitily to affect so many at once. It
would in stead be on tv or the radio or
elsewhere. It is only at the net because
this is where folks are getting "untainted"
educations. Those sort of eductions must be
stopped at all cost to protect the holy
grail profit.
No one guarentied that because they had a
copywrong or millions of them that it would
lay profit, much less how much profit at the
feet of the owner.
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zxilton
Date: February 13, 2005 @ 9:36 AM
They want young people to feel sorry for
them by using the "poor" artist as
scapegoat. Thing of it is...as we've always
said...the artist is the one who creates all
the stuff..but is the one less likely to be
the one benefiting from the cash rolling in.
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CodeWarrior
Date: February 13, 2005 @ 2:34 PM
I used to have amicus briefs...then I found
boxers
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gdZiemann
Date: February 13, 2005 @ 8:59 PM
lol, Code.
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independentm...
Date: February 13, 2005 @ 11:34 PM
"So many lies. I suggest we jump on What's
the Download with a little truth-telling
squad."
we are already there.
CodeWarrior
independentm...
gdZiemann
carla60626
RobuteGuilliman
ShadowMom
