50 Cent: Piracy Is A Part Of The Marketing

from the they-end-up-at-the-concert dept

Famed rapper 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) was apparently on CNBC recently talking about his "business acumen." I have to admit that having three different people all trying to interview him at once is rather annoying -- as they almost never let him complete a thought. However, when they ask him about piracy, and whether or not it makes him angry (around 2 minutes), he responds that: he sees it as a part of the marketing of a musician, because "the people who didn't purchase the material, they end up at the concert." He says that people can fall in love with the music either way, and then they'll go to concerts. He notes that you can't stop piracy either way, so why try to fight it? He also talks about other business opportunities for musicians.

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Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Nov 21st 2008 12:15pm

Dear 50 Cent: Did I Just Violate Your Trademark?

from the morons-in-a-hurry-eating-a-chalupa dept

A bunch of readers submitted the story about the ongoing lawsuit between the rapper 50 Cent and Taco Bell. Taco Bell started running an ad campaign, where they jokingly sent a public letter to 50 Cent asking him to change his name to 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent to help publicize a Taco Bell promotional menu. 50 Cent then sued, claiming a trademark violation. This case fascinates me for a few reasons, as it raises some interesting issues. First, you can sort of see where 50 Cent is coming from -- as Taco Bell is using his brand in commerce without his permission -- but I'd argue that it's pretty clear that 50 Cent isn't involved and hasn't endorsed the product (and, yes, even a "moron in a hurry" would hopefully recognize that). Since it's just an "open letter" to the rapper, rather than anything involving him, it should be clear that he's not necessarily involved. If any commercial website (say, a blog) wrote an "open letter" to a celebrity, would that be a violation of publicity rights or trademark? Unlikely. So why would it be so in this case? Even more interesting, of course, is that the lawsuit only served to draw a lot more attention to this whole thing, meaning that Taco Bell is probably pretty pleased about it. Of course, if I were Taco Bell, I might think about adding a single item to the menu that actually costs 50 cents... After all, you can't protect a price.

36 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Say That Again

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Dec 10th 2007 12:52am

50 Cent Is The Latest Artist To Understand The Economics Of Music

from the not-so-hard dept

More and more musicians seem to be recognizing what fans have been trying to tell them since Napster first came on the scene nearly a decade ago: it's not file sharing that hurts the music business, it's treating your fans badly that hurts the business. We've been seeing more and more musicians recognize this over the past few months, and the latest to join the pack is Curtis James Jackson III, better known as 50 Cent. In an interview, he noted that while file sharing may hurt record labels, it doesn't seem to hurt artists or any other part of the music business: "What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn't hurt the artists." He notes that shows are still packed and fans are fans no matter how they first hear the music. He says that the labels need to learn to adapt and embrace the technology while noting that the thing labels should be doing is making money on the scarce goods that are made valuable by the music: "The concerts are crowded and the industry must understand that they have to manage all the 360 degrees around an artist. They, (the industry), have to maximize their income from concerts and merchandise. It is the only way they can get their marketing money back." This isn't that surprising or new, and we've noted recently that hip hop stars seemed to implicitly realize this well before most of the rest of the industry. However, it is yet another big music industry name saying this. Yet, why is it that the RIAA is still out there insisting that suing fans is the right strategy? Why is it that the RIAA claims it's trying to protect the artists, and even getting new legislation moved forward, when the very artists it's trying to protect are arguing against those policies?

36 Comments | Leave a Comment..

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50 Cent: Piracy Is A Part Of The Marketing

from the they-end-up-at-the-concert dept

Dear 50 Cent: Did I Just Violate Your Trademark?

from the morons-in-a-hurry-eating-a-chalupa dept

50 Cent Is The Latest Artist To Understand The Economics Of Music

from the not-so-hard dept

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