That Story About Warner Music Paying For A Rappers' PhD? Well... Not So Much

from the fact-checking? dept

We keep seeing claims by newspaper people that bloggers don't fact check and that newspapers do. In fact, in a recent discussion, Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi seemed to blast bloggers for not being able to live without newspaper reporter fact checking:

"I can't imagine a world (or an internet) without the raw factual material that newspapers provide every day, but I guess the bloggers don't really care about any of that. They're mostly about themselves and their opinions, with little thought given to where they're getting their basic facts."

Fair enough. But, as we keep finding out, it seems that newspapers aren't all that concerned about where they get their "facts," either. And sometimes we "bloggers," who are mostly about ourselves and our opinions, have to step in and do some fact checking ourselves.

Case in point: last week, I wrote a post here on Techdirt about how Warner Music helped a famous 80's rapper get a PhD in psychology. The post was based on an article in the NY Daily News by Walter Dawkins. It seemed reasonable to assume that such a professional news organization had fact checked the story. Yet, even before I hit publish, some questions were raised. The article noted that she had received her PhD in psychology from Cornell -- my alma mater. And when I wrote the post up, I initially mentioned that fact (school pride is fun). Yet when I asked some people I know who also went through Cornell's psychology program and would have likely been in a position to have known (or known of) Roxanne Shante, I was told that they hadn't heard of her. Also, multiple attempts to find her dissertation in databases like PsychInfo turned up nothing. Oh yeah, and then there's this: Cornell doesn't offer a clinical psychology degree, and the article clearly states that her work is in clinical psychology.

So, I went searching, and found (first) a video interview where she claimed to have attended Cornell Medical -- which is still Cornell, but is a separate organization based in New York City, rather than up in Ithaca with the rest of the school. So... perhaps her degree was from there. But, then I came across another report claiming that she only got her masters at Cornell, and then returned to Marymount Manhattan College -- where she went as an undergrad -- for the PhD.

I thought that this made some amount of sense, and let the post go out. I figured that perhaps the Daily News reporter got confused about where she got her PhD, but he must have at least fact checked the rest? I should have known better.

After the post went up, some additional comments came in highlighting some other problems with her story, and so I decided to do some of the fact checking it appeared that the big professional reporters at The Daily News did not do. I contacted the administration at Cornell, and received the following response:

We've had everyone from the Graduate School to Alumni Affairs and Development to the Psychology Department search their databases, using every possible configuration of her names, and no one has found any evidence that Ms. Shante ever attended Cornell University.

Oops. Still, others pointed out that there were two references in two separate publications, The Cornell Chronicle and The Cornell Daily Sun, both to a conference held on campus that Shante took part in, though both seemed to be based on her own statements. The Daily Sun is independent of the university (though run by students), but the Chronicle is an official school publication. It's quite telling that the Chronicle article does not follow the established style guidelines of Cornell official publications in referring to an alum: it does not provide a year. It's typical to say things like "Ph.D. '08." That's done for others in that same article. But Shante's Ph.D. claim is not accompanied by a date, suggesting that the reporter was unable to confirm it. There's also an odd list of "Notable Cornell alum" that lists her, but the link is for "Class of '91," which she certainly didn't attend. Also, once again, her listing doesn't include a date.

From there, I contacted the administration at Marymount Manhattan College, and specifically contacted Dean Marguerita Grecco, who is named in the original Daily News article as supporting Ms. Shante, and sending the tuition bills to Warner Music. Despite multiple attempts to reach Dr. Grecco, she refused to respond at all. However, I was able to get a rather curt response from someone else in the administration, claiming that the only information he would give me is: "Roxanne Shante attended classes at Marymount Manhattan College during the fall semester of 1995." That did not answer my questions about what degree(s) she obtained (if any), and only seems to raise more questions. Did she attend classes there beyond that one semester? The school won't say.

Oh yeah, it's worth mentioning: Marymount Manhtattan College does not offer a PhD program in psychology. Only a bachelors.

So, the original article claimed that Warner Music spent over $200,000 on this woman's education. I reached out to Warner Music to ask them who they sent that money to. Admittedly, all of this happened back in the '90s, when Warner Music was owned by Time Warner. It no longer is. It's got new ownership and new management. Yet, despite the fact that folks at Warner Music aren't particularly big fans of this site (I have no clue why), they went digging through all sorts of records to see what they could turn up. From that, they sent over the following statement:

"Roxanne Shante's story is a compelling one and we wish her all success in her good works. With respect to the specifics of her recording agreement, we are not in a position to comment definitively because her agreement was with an independent record label known as Cold Chillin' Records, and the transactional file is more than 20 years old. Our examination of that file however has not revealed any evidence of any 'education clause' in any agreement. That is not a commentary on Ms. Shante's label or on the existence of such a clause. In fact, our view is that artists' compensation can be put to many good uses; if Cold Chillin' guided this artist's compensation to education expenses that would certainly be a worthy one."

So, even if there was an "education clause," Warner Music can't find any record of it. Instead, it appeared to just have a rather typical distribution deal with an indie label that she was signed to. Next up, the article claims that Shante is running "an unconventional therapy practice focusing on urban African-Americans." Unfortunately, searches of the NY database of such professionals has yet to turn up any evidence that she's listed. Admittedly, the interface for that system is not particularly user friendly, but various attempts to find her under various names (both her stage name and her birth name) turned up nothing. In searching around, I could find no business listing for her therapy organization.

Also, I could not find ways to contact her. I did try via a MySpace page that is supposedly hers, but it's not clear if it's really her page, and I have not heard back. Finally, I contacted the NY Daily News, and asked either for additional backup material, an explanation, or to let me speak with the original reporter, Walter Dawkins. As of publishing this, I have not heard from either of them.

I should note that this is yet another great example of how wonderful the Techdirt community is. It was via the comments that many of these questions were raised, and it allowed me to go in search of the details (or lack thereof). I've said before that what makes this site so much fun is the discussion we have in the comments, and this is yet another bit of proof. Update: Looks like friend of the blog Ben Sheffner was doing similar research over the past few days as well, and got Shante to admit the PhD doesn't exist, but she fails to explain pretty much anything else.

Filed Under: fact checking, recording industry, roxanne shante
Companies: warner music group

Major Record Labels Sorta, Maybe Embracing Direct-To-Fan Projects

from the but-it's-more-than-just-the-platform dept

While we definitely knock the major record labels for their legal strategy and occasional business blunders, in the last two years or so, there has actually been some recognition within the record labels that finally they need to focus on giving fans what they want, rather than just suing them and hoping that the old CD business model magically returns to its former highs. There have been hints and glimmers of hope from the major record labels -- though, even those inside the labels who seem to get it will quietly admit that it's sometimes a struggle to get some of this through to "the old guard."

The question, though, is how much of this is real, and how much of it is the old guard putting on a show, picking up on a buzzword and insisting that this time, they've got it. A few years ago, all the talk was about "360 Deals" and how that would get the labels off of the CD revenue IV drip. But, many artists (smartly) balked, seeing such deals not as an industry adapting to change, but one looking to just get a larger piece of the pie -- and doing so without adding much value, and after decades of screwing over the artists. So that hasn't worked out so well for the most part.

It appears that the latest buzzword that the majors are picking up on is this concept of the "direct-to-fan" model. This is a bit of an offshoot of my own mantra of getting creators to connect with fans. And, for more independent artists, a number of platforms and companies have sprung up to help them more easily connect with fans, whether it's MySpace or BandCamp or TopSpin or TuneCore, or whoever else. And, of course, most of those companies also have relationships or deals with the major record labels, but it seems that the majors are realizing that they need to have a real "direct-to-fan" strategy themselves.

Just recently, we saw Warner Music sign a deal with Cisco to use Cisco's EOS platform for direct-to-fan efforts. And, more recently, Universal Music announced that it was working with Echospin to provide direct-to-fan offerings. I have no doubt that EMI and (probably way way way at the end of the line), Sony will get around to making similar announcements.

While I think it's a great thing that the labels are experimenting with smarter models that actually do focus on bringing the musicians closer to the fans and providing a much more compelling offering that goes beyond brochureware, I'm a bit skeptical that they'll really pull it off successfully in the short term. Direct-to-fan offerings is more than a platform. It's an actual business model and marketing strategy and it's unclear if the labels have actually figured that part out yet. Yes, they're adopting platforms and they're taking steps in the right direction -- so let's give them some credit. But until they really understand what fans want and how to better help musicians provide it, setting up a "direct-to-fan" platform won't make a big difference.

Filed Under: direct to fan, major labels
Companies: universal music, warner music group

Music Reviewer's Blog Suspended For Promoting Music

from the left-hand,-meet-right-hand... dept

It's really funny to watch the old record labels try to understand the whole music blogging culture. The folks in the promotions department send music bloggers mp3s and encourage them to post them, knowing that it'll get the musician attention. That's a good thing. But the folks on the legal side go the other way... often sending takedowns to the very same bloggers. Rafi Kam points us to a ridiculous situation involving Warner Music Group, who hired a firm called Gray Zone to help "deal with" unauthorized tracks being shared online. Apparently Gray Zone tracked down a song by Gucci Mane that was on well-known music reviewer Andrew Noz's website and sent an angry cease-and-desist to both Noz and his hosting company using all capital letters, including the phrase: "IMMEDIATELY REMOVE ALL LINKS, REFERENCES, DOWNLOADS, VIDEOS, STREAMING AUDIO, AND MP3 FILES ASSOCIATED WITH GUCCI MANE."

Noz didn't see the email, which his filter assumed as spam, but his hosting company did and suspended his entire site. Nice of them. When Noz contacted them, they told him that, based on the above sentence, he needed to go through his blog and remove every reference to Gucci Mane (after all, that's what letter said). Apparently, Noz had written about Gucci Mane quite a bit, so that was a lot of work. Of course, the letter is wrong. While there may be a copyright issue with downloads, it's difficult to see where there would be any copyright claim at all when it came to links, embedded videos (hosted elsewhere) or references. That's actually copyfraud by Gray Zone, on behalf of Warner Music Group, by claiming copyright on things that it does not have rights over.

Either way Noz scrambled and spent hours deleting everything on his site about this particular artist. After all of that, he spoke with a VP at Gray Zone who said that Gray Zone and Warner were really only demanding that he take down a single track. But, of course, that's not what the takedown notice said. Noz points his anger at Warner Music, asking why folks from Warner Music email him tracks all the time... but then get his entire site taken down for those very same songs? This isn't just the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, it's the right hand shaking someone's hand, and the left hand smacking that guy in the face for shaking the right hand. And people wonder why the big labels are so hated?

I actually spoke with both Warner Music Group and Noz to try to find out more about this. Noz says that he's not sure if the one particular song was actually sent by someone from WMG, but that he gets hundreds of songs a week, many of which come from WMG, and he helps promote many of those tracks, so he finds it pretty ridiculous that rather than just contact him and politely ask him to take down the song, they had his entire site taken down. WMG noted that it, as a corporate entity, wasn't directly involved with this, but that it was handled by a subsidiary, Asylum Records. Asylum then sent over a statement:

Apparently, unauthorized copies of the unfinished and unreleased track "I Got All Of That" by Gucci Mane have been stolen and sent out to certain websites by parties unknown to us. In cooperation with the artist and his manager, we instructed our third-party vendor to notify websites to take down the unauthorized track from their sites immediately. We appreciate the cooperation of sites that recognize that this unfinished song does not represent the artist's complete vision and may have been obtained illegally.

Of course, that doesn't really address the issue. The complaint from Gray Zone didn't just target that one song, but all content related to this artist, and because of that, it forced the guy's blog offline -- all the while he's receiving plenty of songs directly from the record label. You can understand where there might be some confusion there. At the very least, someone should have just contacted the guy directly with a friendly request, rather than sending the immediate ALL CAPITALS cease-and-desist threat.

Filed Under: andrew noz, gucci mane, music blogs, promotions, reviews
Companies: asylum records, gray zone, warner music group

Recording Industry Helps Rapper/Single Mom Get A PhD, Though It Tried To Weasel Out

from the see,-sometimes-they-do-some-good dept

Update: Further reporting on this suggests that almost none of this story is true. The Daily News appears to have done no fact checking whatsoever.

Michael sends in this excellent story of a major record label actually doing right by one of its (former) artists... though, the story really doesn't reflect that well on Warner Music. It's the story of Roxanne Shante, one of the first female hip hop stars, who came out with a hit song in the 80s (when she was 14-years-old), leading the way for other female rappers. Of course, like so many other artists, she found out that the big record labels weren't so great after all. After two albums, when she realized that her label was basically stealing from her, she called it quits from music. At age 19, however, she remembered that Warner Music has put a clause in her contract, promising to "fund her education for life." She figures they put that in as a "throwaway, never believing a teen mom in public housing would attend college." But, attend college, she did. She didn't just get a bachelor's degree, but went all the way through to a PhD. in psychology.

Of course, Warner Music, already having done plenty to try to cheat her out of her contract, worked hard not to pay. But the dean at, Marymount Manhattan College, where she attended for some of both her undergraduate and graduate degrees, read over the clause and simply kept sending bills to Warner Music. Warner (so nice of them, as per usual) ignored the invoices until Shante threatened to go public with the story of Warner Music Group not living up to their contract promises on something so basic as funding her education. In the end, Warner Music had to pay up around $217,000 for Shante's education, and she's put the doctorate to good use, launching a therapy practice focused on urban African-Americans, experimenting with new ways to get them over the taboo associated with therapy. It's nice to see how Warner Music actually did some good in the world, even if it had to be dragged there kicking and screaming.

Filed Under: recording industry, roxanne shante
Companies: warner music group

Copyright Conundrum: Was 'Public Domain' Music Silenced On YouTube?

from the it's-in-the-recording... dept

Mark Guertin writes in with an interesting situation that he's dealing with, which I think highlights some of the problems with copyright law today. Guertin put together a YouTube video of some swimming pugs as part of a promotion for a charity he's involved with. Knowing that music on videos is a potential copyright issue, he went to Wikipedia to find some public domain music, and chose Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries to accompany the swimming pugs.

Except... he got blocked. YouTube's content ID system told him that the song was owned by (who else?) Warner Music Group, and thus the soundtrack was muted. Guertin filed a counternotice, and the music was reinstated, but then muted a second time as apparently someone (Google/Warner?) didn't agree with the counternotice. Without knowing the details, my guess is that the situation has to do with the different types of copyright coverage. While the song Ride of the Valkyries is public domain, each individual recording of it is covered by copyright. It seems likely that whatever recording was used is still under copyright.

Guertin is reasonably upset about the situation, especially the whole concept of having the music blocked until WMG has a chance to weigh in on it, noting that "guilt before innocence" seems incredibly unfair.

But the bigger issue may be how this (once again) shows how out of sync copyright law is with what people think is reasonable or fair. If you found out a piece of music was in the public domain, it's natural to assume that a recording of that same piece of music is in the public domain. And to make things more confusing, that's absolutely true (in the US at least) of a photograph of a public domain painting. But making a new recording of a public domain song? Bam. A new monopoly created.

Unfortunately for Guertin, the track he used probably is not in the public domain, even if the music is (yes, that's confusing). That's why, these days, it's probably more reasonable to search out Creative Commons-licensed music than public domain music -- because you can't be as sure whether the PD part covers the recording as well as the music. To some of us, that seems like a problem with current copyright laws, while others appear to view it as a feature.

Filed Under: copyright, music, public domain, recording, ride of the valkyries, videos, youtube
Companies: google, warner music group, youtube

YouTube, Warner Music Spat Killing Viral Videos

from the that'll-help dept

The ongoing spat between Warner Music and YouTube over music licensing payments has already been pissing off both musicians and consumers. But apparently now it's gone too far. People are up in arms that the ongoing "silentification" of music in videos has destroyed a popular viral video involving (seriously) a cat playing a piano. There simply is no logical argument for claiming that leaving this video alone harms the music industry in any way. No one is using this video as a substitute for the music in question -- and, if anything, it helps make more people aware of the music. But, thanks to Warner insisting that any and all value comes from Warner and Warner alone -- and anyone must pay for the privilege of promoting its music... fewer people now get to hear the song and enjoy a silly viral video.

Filed Under: music, viral videos
Companies: google, warner music group, youtube

Suggestion For Warner Music: Maybe Look At How Much You're Paying Your Execs

from the might-save-some-money dept

It's no secret that Warner Music has been struggling -- employing a highly questionable strategy of shutting down or suing all sorts of useful services that make its music more valuable, and then demanding ridiculous payment terms or equity in any company that might help them survive... all while the company slowly goes bankrupt. Following what can only be called a disastrous 2008, the company has shown a minor improvement in 2009, but it has all the indications of a dead cat bounce. The company was in desperate need of cash, and was able to get a loan of $1.1 billion last week to ease some of those concerns... but at a staggering 9.5% interest. Meanwhile, the guys over at Hypebot are wondering why WMG's top two executives were given $6.25 million in bonuses last year as the company was collapsing. And with some back of the envelope calculations, they note that the company could save hundreds of millions of dollars by dropping the bonuses and using the money to pay back the debt earlier, saving on some of the massive interest payments that are on the way.

Filed Under: bonuses, debt, edgar bronfman jr.
Companies: warner music group

Can Anyone Explain Why Any Warner Music Artist Or Website Still Embeds YouTube?

from the do-they-not-know? dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in the BoingBoing post about how the various YouTube videos on Warner Music Group subsidiary Sire Records are all broken due to "copyright claims" from WMG. This isn't a new story, as we've been among those covering the YouTube-Warner Music dispute since December when it became public. Plenty of Warner artists have been screwed over by this move, having their official videos pulled down because Warner demands YouTube pay it for the free service of hosting those videos. You would think, with bandwidth costs being what they were, WMG would be thrilled that a company like Google is willing to host them totally free and manage the infrastructure.

So, this particular story isn't new or surprising, and doesn't involve (as the original implies), WMG accusing itself of piracy. However, it does raise a separate question. How backwards are Warner Music and its various sub-labels that they still have taken down YouTube videos embedded on their official sites. After all, it's been more than four months since this dispute began. You would think that whoever is in charge of running these websites would have stopped using YouTube embeds a long time ago. It's really not that difficult to replace a YouTube embed with a locally hosted one. However, the fact that Warner hasn't done so pretty much makes the point, doesn't it: the company apparently doesn't have the tech talent to host its own videos. That's a lot sadder a statement than having just taken the officials videos down in the first place. Update: Ethan from Warner shows up in the comments to say that this was just an honest mistake, and the company had taken YouTube embeds off of all their sites, but somehow missed Sire Records. I'm still not sure how this goes on for four months with no one noticing it... You'd have to think that someone would visit those sites during that time and noticed.

Filed Under: copyright, embeds, videos
Companies: google, warner music group, youtube

Not Smart: Warner Music Issues DMCA Takedown On Larry Lessig Presentation

from the this-is-going-to-hurt dept

If there were anyone out there to whom you would not want to send a random takedown notice for an online video, it would probably be Larry Lessig. Given that Lessig has become the public face for those who feel that copyright has been stretched too far, as well as being a founder of Stanford's Fair Use Project, and who's written multiple books on these issues, you would think (just maybe) that any copyright holder would at least think twice before sending a DMCA takedown on a Larry Lessig presentation.

Apparently, you'd be wrong.

Lessig has announced that Warner Music issued a DMCA takedown on one of Lessig's own presentations, in which his use is almost certainly fair use. Lessig, of course, is a lawyer, and a big supporter of fair use, so it's no surprise that he's also said he's going to be fighting this.

The thing that I can't understand is who at Warner Music would decide this was a good idea? We've seen Warner make a number of highly questionable moves over the past six months, but this may be the most incomprehensible. Warner Music may claim it was an accident or that it didn't mean to send the takedown, but that's hard to fathom as well. The DMCA rules are pretty clear, that the filer needs to clearly own the content, and previously lawsuits have said they need to take fair use into account. I'm guessing we haven't heard the end of this yet...

Update: Some people have been asking which Lessig presentation was taken down. It's been reposted elsewhere, so you can check it out, and then explain how Warner Music has any claim to a takedown.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, fair use, larry lessig, takedown
Companies: warner music group

Amanda Palmer Asks Fans To Upload Her Anti-Record Label Song To YouTube

from the nice-going-warner... dept

You may recall (of course) that Warner Music and Google are in a fight over YouTube. Warner Music is demanding that Google pay more than Google thinks is reasonable, so now all Warner Music Group videos have been pulled from YouTube. Of course, this is actually pissing off numerous Warner Music musicians, who realize that YouTube (even if not paying directly for their videos) benefits their careers greatly. One such artist is Amanda Palmer -- who is signed to Roadrunner Records, a subsidiary of WMG. She was one of the first to complain about Warner pulling her videos from YouTube. Now she's going even further. Rose M. Welch sends in a link to a YouTube video of a recent Amanda Palmer concert where she first tells the camera operator to make sure he puts the video on YouTube so she can watch it, and then sings a song to her record label, demanding they drop her: Yup. That decision to demand a few extra pennies from Google while pissing off your artists, sure makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Filed Under: amanda palmer, videos
Companies: warner music group, youtube