Wow, talk about coincidences, Prince has a deal with Verizon. LOL!!
Besides the great info I just found at Art Biz Blog put down below, I looked up Alyson's blog and found this:
The following is from the Washington Post article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/arts/music/22pare.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=c0039dca7d82289d&ex=1342756800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
"Prince’s priorities are obvious. The main one is getting his music to an audience, whether it’s purchased or not. “Prince’s only aim is to get music direct to those that want to hear it,” his spokesman said when announcing that The Mail would include the CD. (After the newspaper giveaway was announced, Columbia Records’ corporate parent, Sony Music, chose not to release “Planet Earth” for retail sale in Britain.) Other musicians may think that their best chance at a livelihood is locking away their music — impossible as that is in the digital era — and demanding that fans buy everything they want to hear. But Prince is confident that his listeners will support him, if not through CD sales then at shows or through other deals.
This is how most pop stars operate now: as brand-name corporations taking in revenue streams from publishing, touring, merchandising, advertising, ringtones, fashion, satellite radio gigs or whatever else their advisers can come up with. Rare indeed are holdouts like Bruce Springsteen who simply perform and record. The usual rationale is that hearing a U2 song in an iPod commercial or seeing Shakira’s face on a cellphone billboard will get listeners interested in the albums that these artists release every few years after much painstaking effort.
But Prince is different. His way of working has nothing to do with scarcity. In the studio — he has his own recording complex, Paisley Park near Minneapolis — he is a torrent of new songs, while older, unreleased ones fill the archive he calls the Vault. Prince apparently has to hold himself back to release only one album a year. He’s equally indefatigable in concert. On the road he regularly follows full-tilt shows — singing, playing, dancing, sweating — with jam sessions that stretch into the night. It doesn’t hurt that at 49 he can still act like a sex symbol and that his stage shows are unpredictable."
Prince knows that good stuff comes back around. Lars Ulrich, the drummer for Metallica? Not so much. He freaked out and took Napster to court for ripping off their music and fans reacted strongly to it--- not buying the CD's, not going to concerts. For years they didn't do so well.
The popularity contest concept wins out again... now??? They're giving away CD's with concert ticket sales. Could he have come to the same conclusion through a misstep? I bet he did.
Alyson's B. Stanfield's other writings on the subject is included below. (Please see her website, you won't believe the wisdom it contains!)
Warhol and copyright infringement? LOL
"DO THIS: CONSIDER IT A COMPLIMENT Most artists are eager to protect the copyright of their images online--and rightly so. The ease with which one can swipe photos and graphics from the Internet is enough to scare the daylights out of anyone working in the visual arts or communications.
Judy Vars, Snow Angel. Oil. ©The Artist
http://www.cabinfeverinalaska.com However, a couple of things should ease your mind:
►There are SO many digital images around, the likelihood of yours being the target of widespread image theft is minimal.
►If your image is relatively small and posted at no higher than 72 screen resolution, anyone wanting to print it would get a copy of very low quality.
Instead, I implore you to protect your images with a copyright notice and, when they are downloaded, consider it a compliment. Gasp . . . yikes! Did I really just say that? You bet.
You could waste many precious hours worrying about people stealing your images, but isn't the point of your promotions and marketing efforts to get them in front of people? You'll scare yourself into a point of inaction if you dwell on all of the "What ifs".
Protect yourself as best you can by:
1. Making your images are no sharper than a 72 resolution -- small enough to load quickly, but large enough to show the detail in your work.
2. Posting a copyright notice on all of your pages. If it makes you feel better, post a © under each one of your photographs, as I have done for the artists featured in this online version of the newsletter.
3. Giving your files an obscure name. Web guru Pat Velte suggested that if you name your files with the actual title (e.g. Naming "Rocky Mountain Sunset" rocky-mountain-sunset.jpg), they are more likely to be indexed by a search engine like Google and, therefore, more likely to be downloaded. Something like 01Gf32.jpg would be safer. Likewise, she says, you can decrease your chance for inclusion in search engines by leaving the alternate text field blank. Then, as we talked about it further, we thought, "WHY?" Why would an artist want to have images on the Web and then try to hide them from search engines?!
Jacqueline Myers-Cho, The Space Between Us. Mixed
mediums, 12 x 16". ©The Artist
http://www.myerscho.com If you want to know what the alternate text function looks like, go to http://www.artbizcoach.com/about and mouse over the painting at the bottom. It doesn't work in all browsers, but Internet Explorer users should see "Kurt Christian, 'Dumb Campers'." By the way, Pat specializes in helping artists get on the World Wide Web. You can email her at pvelte@cox.net.
4. Remembering why you have images online in the first place. For heavens sake, please do not print a watermark or other text on top of your images. You might as well not even have a Web presence as this completely ruins the experience of your art.
5. Keeping track of your Web statistics. Once you learn how to find and track your usage statistics, you'll see which pages are being viewed and the rate at which they're being viewed. Any abnormalities, such as a large increase in image downloads, will be easier to notice.
6. Making sure people know how to contact you if they want to use your images. Wouldn't it be great for people to use pictures of your art in their publications and Web sites? Just think: They'll give you credit for it and provide a link to your site. Make it easy for them by including your contact information on each page. You can even go so far as to include the following text with your images: "Please contact me if you're interested in using my images on your Web site or in your publication." This serves notice that you're open to the possibilities.
KNOW THIS The Internet is for the sharing of information. While you must protect yourself as best you can from copyright infringements, you can't waste too much time worrying about it. Too much protection will defeat the purpose of having a Web site. THINK ABOUT THIS Why are you online in the first place? DO THIS Stop worrying about someone stealing your images from the Web and consider it a compliment when they do. If you use Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, you can forward this page to a friend by going up to your menu and, under "File," select "Send" or "Send Page." Or just copy and paste this URL into a message: http://www.artbizcoach.com/dothis "
