JK Wedding Entrance Might Save Chris Brown’s Career

If you listen to groups like the RIAA, they will tell you that people using songs in their videos with express written consent and a high license fee will be the death of music.  RIAA and labels like Universal Music have gone out of their way to police sites like YouTube and block or ban anything using a copyrighted song they can claim to own.

Of course, this sort of behavior actually results in endless negative impacts including pissed off fans and even pissed off artists who actually like to see their music used and shared and recognize the huge potential upside of not behaving like a law-suit junkie.

The most recent proof of this comes thanks to the biggest web meme of the month, the JK Wedding Entrance (below) featuring, without permission, Chris Brown’s song, “Forever.”

Instead of doing what, say, Universal Music does, which is to force YouTube to mute the music track, it appears that Chris Brown and his label, Zomba (a part of Jive Records) has instead embraced the video and created a direct link to the buying of the song on iTunes.

The result?

The wedding video now has a direct link to buy “Forever,” which, despite being released last year, is now in the iTunes top 10. Brown’s own attempt at a viral video, a recently released apology video for the Rihanna “incident” which he calls “inexcusable,” has been viewed more than 2 million times. As BlogPulse shows, July buzz about Brown and “Forever” reach almost as high as blog discussion that occurred around the time of the assault.        LINK

Kuroshio Sea plus Barcelona Equals Serious Win-Win

One of the big video hits making its way around the interwebs the past week or so is something called “Kuroshio Sea – 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world – (song is Please don’t go by Barcelona)” and it is a gorgeous few minutes:

The video has garnered more than 2,000,000 views, which is great for the filmmaker and the aquarium but it turned out to be even better for the band, Barcelona:

This effect comes because of its perfect synthesis of music and images, making it a proud showcase for the band Barcelona, whose haunting track Please Don’t Go not only scores the video, but dictates its length. And by allowing its use, Barcelona has found itself flooded with new attention.

According to a post on the band’s Myspace blog, “Thanks to this video, and Jon Rawlinson, the director of the video, our album has been pushed back up the iTunes Rock Album charts and is holding strong thanks to all of you who watched the video and then purchased the album.” And in this response video, the band says that people have already begun showing up at concerts because of this piece. (Score one for Chris Anderson’s theory about the power of free.)

There are a couple of very important take-aways here.

First does not appear that Rawlinson asked permission to use the song, yet the band did not start firing out take-down notices or DMCA complaints.  Instead, they have done nothing but support the existence of the video and thank Rawlinson for providing immense amounts of free publicity.

Second, it’s a good thing Barcelona wasn’t signed to Universal Music or their song would have been muted from the video and the band would have gotten absolutely no free publicity.

Yesterday, I was meeting with some fellow “new media” producers.  One of them had come up through the very traditional TV route and commented that the biggest difference he feels working in the emerging digital media universe is the overwhelming degree of support and openness where, in the TV world he had experienced almost exclusively distrust and competitive antagonism.

This is a great demonstration of the new way things work.  Welcome to the Digital Age.

Universal Teams with Virgin UK to (almost) Give Away Music

Lots of reports out there about the Universal Music deal with Virgin UK’s ISP:

The service — a world first — will enable any Virgin Media broadband customer to both stream and download as many music tracks and albums as they want from Universal Music’s entire catalog, in return for a great-value monthly subscription fee. Downloaded music will be theirs to keep permanently and to store on any MP3 compatible device.  LINK

I haven’t seen firm pricing but I have heard something in the range of $15-$40/month.  Now, this is by far the cheapest offer so far from a major label especially when you consider that a really dedicated subscriber could easily download a few thousand songs in a month without breaking a sweat.  Remember, this isn’t just unlimited streaming, it is unlimited download-to-own forever MP3’s.

There are still a few big problems, however,  While Universal is a huge label it is not clear that just getting access to their catalog is enough to put a dent in P2P file-sharing.  Even if all the labels join, it is still a deal only going out to users of Virgin’s ISP service.

Still, this is one big step closer to an ever more likely result – a blanket subscription fee that we all pay via our ISP in exchange for the free and legal right to download all the music we like.  For this sort of deal to truly compete with the current option (i.e. free piracy) it will have to be much cheaper than I imagine the labels will be able to swallow and it will have to make all the music easily and quickly accesible.

This might solve the problem of everyone downloading music for free but it will never come close to replacing the revenue lost from traditional album sales. So, at best, these sorts of deals are just bandaids over bullet wounds.

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NH Woman Fights RIAA

Someday we will look back on the actions of RIAA and the rest of the music industry and laugh, or maybe cry.  For now, however, we will have to continue hearing stories like this:

The woman, Mavis Roy of Hudson, has called on legal clinics at the state’s only law school to represent her as she fights the charges in federal court this year.

The lawsuit brought by UMG Recordings, Interscope Records, Motown Record Co., and BMG Music alleges that Roy violated copyright infringement laws by downloading and distributing 218 audio files on April 24, 2007.

Roy’s defense team questions how that could be when she did not have a computer in her house at the time in question.

Why RIAA is allowed to behave in this manner is confounding.  Nearly every suit they bring reeks of intimidation and weak evidence.  Not only that, but going after grown women for allegedly downloads a few songs from a pirated source is simply not going to help save an industry that is built on a collection of obsolete business models.

(via)

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Eisner Suxxor at the Web – Foreign Bodies = EPIC FAIL

So, the word is not good for Michael Eisner run Vuguru and their latest entry into the high end of webisodic entertainment, FOREIGN BODIES:

“The first 9 episodes of the show, which started airing May 27, have drawn fewer than 10,000 views. YouTube has recently given the series a push, showcasing it as a “featured” video, but it’s still not burning up the charts: On Sunday, it racked up 43,000 views, but then fell back to 20,000 on Monday. To date, the show has genereated about 140,000 views, according to TubeMogul.” (via SAI)

Ouch.  I have done better with videos shot on a whim.

Why has FOREIGN BODIES failed so miserably?  Well, for starters, there was virtually no wide-reaching publicity.  Over the past week I was able to find only 2 or 3 people who had even heard of the show and nobody I know has watched it.

I watched two episodes and I’ve got to say it was less than engaging.  Sure, there was a hot girl and I think I saw a boob, but really, on the internet that’s not much of an offer. The story was sort of muddy as was the general tone.

But I still think it wouldn’t have been quite this much of a flop if it had some kind of marketing behind it.  NBC would never launch a brand new series without a major PR push.  And even then networks still fail all the time.

Why Eisner thought he could somehow beat the system and just start putting out average looking TV on the web with no marketing and think it would be a hit is beyond me.

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Bebo and Universal UK Team for Real Fiction Web Series

As brands and broadcasters continue to find ways to transmit both entertainment and an overwhelming desire to consume material goods and services to the viewing public, there is an ever-increasing presence of brand-intergration into original entertainment.

Not surprisingly, the web, where traditional advertising has never worked, is a laboratory for this sort of content.  Next up to the testing grounds is courtesy of jolly ol’ England…

“In a first between social network and music company, “The Secret World of Sam King” revolves around a junior ’facilities’ employee at Universal Music who secretly founds his own start-up label in the post room. Producers will draw on real-life experiences along with cameo appearances from Universal artists to bring additional authenticity to the setting and story.”

What’s worth noting is the complete transparency of the integration between brand and story.  Nobody is being tricked or deceived about where at least some of the money is coming from.  Whether or not the actual show will be entertaining is a whole different kettle of fish.

Did I just say “kettle of fish?”