Thin-Skinned Chinese Govt. Declares Media War On Lady Gaga For Meeting With The Dalai Lama

from the how-to-look-small-and-petty dept

It's pretty common knowledge at this point that the Chinese government spends a great deal of time and effort attempting to censor the internet at its own whim. And, while the walls of censorship erected are penetrable with enough effort, it still results in much of the population being unable to search out information that might be embarrassing to the Chinese government, such as references to the Tiananmen Square incident, for instance. But while examples like that can make some measure of sense to outside observers, even as they still decry the censorship, the fact is that the Chinese government's application of this censorship has been managed so erratically and unpredictably that the result is everyone watches where they step for fear of a takedown.

Which naturally brings us to Lady Gaga, whose meeting with the Dalai Lama recently resulted in the Chinese government attempting to wipe her off of the China-facing interwebz.

Hong Kong news outlet Apple Daily reports that China’s Ministry of Propaganda and SARFT, the regulatory body that oversees media, ordered China’s broadcast and websites to stop offering Lady Gaga songs. They also ordered media outlets not to publish anything (link in Chinese) about Lady Gaga’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, other than what prominent state-media publications have written.

“[Media outlets] must resolutely struggle against Tibetan independence, and closely follow reports from CCTV, the Global Times, People’s Daily, and other reports and commentary from central media outlets,” the directive reads, according to Apple Daily.

The Tibet issue is one that China regularly regulates in terms of coverage, of course, and the Dalai Lama is the worldwide person of focus for the cause of Tibetan indpendence. Even so, reacting to a meeting with an American pop singer by attempting to scrub the internet of news of the meeting and her music seems delightfully ham-fisted, even for Chinese censorship. And, as per usual, it isn't working particularly well.

A search on QQ Music, one of China’s most popular music streaming sites, shows there’s still plenty of Lady Gaga music available.

Which makes, as usual, the attempt at censorship come off as both petty and the wild flailings of an ineffective government agency. That, I would assume, is not the perception that the Chinese government was hoping to achieve. There will come a day when this particular government finally understands that these censorship attempts don't work in any way other than to supply a great deal of egg on its collective face, but that day is apparently not today.

Filed Under: china, dalia lama, lady gaga, music, tibet

Now That Alicia Keys Is No Longer Blackberry's 'Creative Director' Can We Stop Using Pop Stars As Fake Creative Directors?

from the please? dept

Three years ago, we called out the stupid trend of big tech companies pretending that they'd hired some pop star as "creative director" after Intel had named Will.i.am to that role and Polaroid had done the same with Lady Gaga. A year later, we repeated what a dumb idea this was when Blackberry named noted iPhone user Alicia Keys to the same role. As we said, if this was, say, an actual music service, and the person was really involved, it might make sense. But the truth of all three of these situations was that they were little more than a promotional sponsorship deal pretending to be a "hire." And, this really discounts the hard work that actual creative directors do for these companies.

Either way, it should come as little surprise that Blackberry -- a company on the verge of not existing -- is now admitting that Keys is "leaving her role" exactly a year after it started. Let's be frank here: she's not "leaving her role." She had a one year endorsement/promotional contract, and that deal is now ending. The idea that she was actually employed as a creative director is clearly bogus. What did she do?

She appeared at numerous corporate events throughout the year and in some promotional material.

Right. Same exact thing as a typical celebrity endorsement deal.

For whatever reason, tech companies always seem to announce these things in January (often in conjunction with CES, which is taking place next week). Hopefully, this year, we can avoid such silliness. I don't want to hear about Justin Bieber becoming "creative director" at IBM or Miley Cyrus' new "job" as "creative director" at Microsoft.

Filed Under: alicia keys, creative director, endorsement, lady gaga, will.i.am
Companies: blackberry, intel, polaroid

Still A Dumb Trend: Pop Star Endorsements Pretending To Be 'Creative Directors'

from the how-often-will-she-be-at-the-office dept

Almost exactly two years ago, we mocked the ridiculous trend of big companies hiring famous pop stars as "creative directors." Polaroid had hired Lady Gaga to be "creative director" while Intel had named Will.i.am as "director of creative innovation." The latest example of this trend is Blackberry (they're no longer RIM!) announcing that known iPhone user Alicia Keys has been "hired" as "Global Creative Director." She claimed that she'll be working with app developers and providing various ideas.

As we said two years ago, it is a good thing that celebrity endorsers actually become more involved with the products they're endorsing, but it's somewhat insulting to suggest that these pop stars are actually being hired on as "creative directors." In fact, it's insulting to actual creative directors and the amazing work that they do on a daily basis. The value from a Lady Gaga, Will.i.am or Alicia Keys is in the publicity they bring, not in any sort of creative direction they provide (if any). It's also insulting to the intelligence of the public and the press who follow these things. If these were, say, music services, the position might be real, but in the three most high profile cases, it seems abundantly clear that this is just a way to make an endorsement seem like a bigger deal than it really is.

Filed Under: alicia keys, creative director, endorsements, lady gaga, will.i.am
Companies: blackberry

Lady Googoo Gone Gone After Lady Gaga Gets Injunction Against Parody

from the Gaga-goes-Googoo dept

Lady Gaga is notoriously protective of her image. So much so, that it often seems that, to her, copyright is not about her music but her image. This attitude has led her to go on the offensive over random things that she (or her people) see as attacks on her image or brand -- such as ice cream. Now, she has taken to task parodies of her songs. While parody is protected in the US under fair use laws, the same cannot be said about the UK.

According to a Guardian report, Lady Gaga has won an injunction against Moshi Monsters developers, Mind Candy, over a parody character name 'Lady Googoo'. Lady Googoo is one of many parody characters in Moshi Monsters. Mind Candy had planned to build upon this character and had gone as far as creating animated music videos parodying songs by Lady Gaga (I have embedded one below for those feeling adventurous and/or masochistic). Unfortunately, Lady Gaga doesn't have a sense of humor about the situation and it appears that neither do the UK courts.

Justice Vos has ruled that Mind Candy cannot play or offer for sale any Lady Googoo songs. However he did rule that the character, Lady Googoo, herself is safe to be included in the game as long as it is not associated with any of the songs.

Lady Gaga stated that this move was to protect her image as people may be confused and think that these parody songs and videos have an official connection to her. In response, Michael Action Smith, Mind Candy's founder, said, "It's pretty obvious that kids will be able to tell the difference between the two characters." I can certainly tell the difference, but Lady Gaga and the courts couldn't.

What is really troubling about this is that it exemplifies what damage can be done when fair use is limited. As UK copyright law is currently written, parody is not legal and many artists are limited because of it. As Alastair Shaw, counsel at law firm Hogan Lovells said:

Tribute bands and parody songs have been around for years but what this case shows is the potential power of registered trademark law to put a stop to some of their activities.

This may be particularly important for tribute acts or characters with names which are similar to the original acts, as they frequently are, who want to comercialise a track parodying a well-known song.

Without parody protection in copyright law, artists like Weird Al would have never become successful. Based on proposed changes to UK copyright laws, this type of parody could be protected in the future. Until the government of the UK takes action, more artists and companies will be harmed through lawsuits such as this. Not only will artists be harmed, but consumers and fans will be as well. As Smith says:

The shame is that millions of kids fell in love with Lady Goo Goo's debut single on YouTube and now won't be able to enjoy her musical exploits. It was all done in the name of fun and we would have thought that Lady Gaga could have seen the humor behind this parody.

So much for humor when faced against copyright laws.

Filed Under: lady gaga, lady googoo, moshi monsters, parody, uk
Companies: mind candy

Lady Gaga Tries To Seize Fan Domain... But Fails

from the you-don't-get-everything dept

While we've noted that Lady Gaga seems to be really on top of things when it comes to copyright issues on her music, in other areas of her operations, she's pretty aggressive in pushing intellectual property claims. We've noted, for example, her attempts to aggressively use trademark claims to stop "Baby Gaga" ice cream and copyright claims to control her image by photographers. As we noted, to Lady Gaga, intellectual property seems to have nothing to do with her music, but everything to do with her image.

It's too bad she recognizes the benefits of being open in one aspect of her business, but not in other areas. Of course, the constant overreaches aren't always successful. Take, for example, her recent attempt to gain control over a fan site at LadyGaga.org. Rather than embrace the fan site and be happy for the support, Gaga and/or her management, went to the National Arbitration Forum and argued that this fan had registered the domain in bad faith:

The owner of the site then responded that it was merely a non-commercial, unofficial fan site for Gaga that "does not have any sponsored links or links to third-party websites which market and sell merchandise bearing Complainant’s trademark.”

The owner added that her fan site supported Gaga's fame and was giving the singer free publicity. In other words, the site owner (identified as "Miranda") loves Lady Gaga so much that she's willing to erect a digital shrine to her, and lawyers shouldn't interfere.

Of course, it's quite a fan who's willing to still erect a digital shrine to an artist who goes legal to try to seize their domain. However, the NAF wasted little time in siding with the woman who owned the domain and against Lady Gaga. The ruling made clear that such a fan site is a perfectly legitimate purpose for the domain name.

Filed Under: domain name, fan site, fans, lady gaga, music, trademark

Lady Gaga's Manager Would Like To Give Her Next Album Away For Free... If He Could

from the not-up-to-him dept

It's been clear for a while that Lady Gaga understood the power of free music, using it in a variety of promotions, saying she didn't care if people downloaded her music, because it only got more people to go see her live and emphatically saying she thinks albums cost way too much. She thought that $0.99 was a better price for an entire album, rather than per song.

Now, as Robw was the first of a few of you to point out, her manager has said that, if it were up to him, he'd give her next album away totally free -- with the focus on getting it as much exposure as possible, knowing full well that he'd make that up through greater fan support elsewhere.

"If it was up to me, I'd give away the next album and put it on every handset that I can put it on, to get that scale," he said. "You can't be scared to fail. Sometimes we're going to get big results, and sometimes you learn a lesson, make an adjustment and move on."

Of course, some will immediately point out that since it's not up to him, such comments are meaningless. He can say that and "pander" to fans, even if he doesn't really believe it. But, of course, there's no reason to believe he doesn't mean it. And in an era when so many top musicians are being pressured to toe the industry line about how evil "free" is, it's certainly nice to see one of the biggest (if not the biggest) pop stars in the world, and her management, recognizing publicly that the business model these days isn't in selling music directly.

Filed Under: album, free, lady gaga

Record Label Execs Suddenly Upset That False Copyright Claims Can Take Down Videos

from the shoulda-thought-of-that-before dept

We already wrote about how a prankster used bogus copyright claims to takedown the videos of Justin Bieber on YouTube. It turns out that the mysterious prankster didn't just target Bieber, but also got videos by Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Shakira taken down. But what's funny is how some (anonymous, of course) record label execs are suddenly concerned about this process that involves taking down first and asking questions later. The article is a little strange in that it suggests a user needs to have "YouTube Partner status" to make a copyright claim. As far as I can tell that's not at all true. If it were, you'd see tons of copyright holders complaining that YouTube made them jump through hoops to be able to issue takedown notices. Either way, I'm still interested to see if the the labels actually decide to go after this guy. I'm guessing they won't, because the last thing they want to do is set a precedent over the filing of bogus DMCA takedowns.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, justin bieber, lady gaga, pranks, rihanna, shakira, takedowns
Companies: youtube

YouTube Kills Lady Gaga's YouTube Channel For Copyright Violations

from the the-moden-world dept

YouTube has a pretty strict "three strikes" rule on accusations of copyright infringement before you lose your account. But whoever thought that Lady Gaga would lose her account because of it? Apparently she (or her people) uploaded some video of Gaga appearing on a Japanese TV show, and a company called Media Interactive issued a takedown. Media Interactive has quite the reputation (search the YouTube help forums) for issuing somewhat questionable takedown claims. And, it may be true that Gaga violated the copyright of the TV show (and perhaps earlier uploaded works), but it does seem pretty ridiculous. But, alas, this is the state of copyright law today. Of course, between this and 50 Cent's website being declared dedicated to piracy, it should make people realize that figuring out what is infringing isn't always so clear cut. Of course, it would be nice if one of these music stars used incidents like these to speak out about the over aggressive nature of copyright enforcement, but that seems unlikely to happen.

Filed Under: copyright, lady gaga, three strikes, youtube

Weird Al Denied Permission To Parody Lady Gaga... Releases New Song For Free Anyway [Updated]

from the fair-use-doesn't-need-permission dept

Updated this story to make it clear that it was Lady Gaga's manager who apparently failed to forward the song to Lady Gaga for permission.

A few weeks ago, in discussing the takedown on Dan Bull's "Death of ACTA" song, some of the discussion in the comments turned to parody in music and whether or not Weird Al has to get permission for his parody songs. What was noted is that he does ask for permission, but almost certainly doesn't need it. He appears to have now put that to the test somewhat. A bunch of folks are submitting the news that Lady Gaga's manager snubbed a permission request from Weird Al, but since she had asked to first hear the song before giving her permission, he already had it done and released the song anyway... for free, on the basis that he was protected by fair use. As a side note, the report (from his agent) notes that this is only the second time he's been refused, with the other time being (you guessed it) from Prince:

Justin wrote to me last night: "You're going to love this. Lady Gaga denied Weird Al the right to release his parody of BORN THIS WAY, only the second time in his career that he's been denied [ed: the other refusal came from Prince]. But he recorded the track at her request as a part of the approval process... the first time any artists has made that request. She summarily passed without comment. So instead of selling a couple hundred thousand or a million copies... he gave PERFORM THIS WAY away for free to his 2 million followers on Twitter."

Of course, it's nice to see him stand up for his fair use rights. The post script to the story is that after this got so much attention, Lady Gaga's manager finally caved and got Lady Gaga to grant permission. But it's really unfortunate that we still live in "permission culture" where people feel the need to ask permission to create culture.

Filed Under: fair use, lady gaga, music, parody, weird al