Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 March 22

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March 22

advetising and marketing

we are a newly established company in africa Zambia in perticilar and we are lacking international markrting strategies. how do we go about it and how can we get intouch with people who can market our company. —Preceding unsigned comment added by John jamani (talk • contribs) 09:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure the Entertainment reference desk is the best place to ask this. Have you read our articles Marketing and International marketing? They contains some useful links and cite some publications that might help you. Your strategy will depend very much on variable factors such as your marketing budget, your product and your potential customers, so there's little in the way of more specific advice that we can offer. Googling "international marketing advice" brought up a large number of results, including some articles available to read free of charge, and various firms who specialise in this area who you could contact directly. Karenjc 11:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

We'd need to know what you're selling and what kind of marketing budget you have to give the best answers. However, I'd guess that you lack the financial resources for TV/radio ads abroad. That leaves print ads and the Internet. I suggest you place ads in magazines related to your product, which direct people to a web site with full details. Do you have a tourist resort ? Then advertise in tourism magazines. StuRat (talk) 14:34, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Legal issues of covering a song for a one off video for my own entertainment?

I want to bribe my favourite new band (who are fantastically talented with their own songs, and I am creating an HD Blu-Ray archive of all their live shows) to do a cover of the Bunnymen's lost classic "Flaming Red." and video it for my own private entertainment. Assuming they were prepared to do this(?), what fees would be payable for a "one off" disk for myself, or if enough people were interested, commercial copies of the resulting video? What if it was put on national TV or You-tube? I intend to keep to the letter of the law so that all parties are rewarded for their work,and to avoid any possibility of legal hassles for me or the band. Apparently Warner Brothers own the rights to this song, which I have never seen performed live and no videos exist of it being performed either. Just how complicated is it to do this? My only interest is from a cultural/artistic perspective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.1.88.9 (talk) 13:26, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

This will obviously vary be location, but, in general, I'd think it works like this:

1) You can record it for your own use, without any need to get permission or give credit.

2) Once you sell it or distribute it via TV or the Internet, you'd need to get permission from WB, and they are likely to demand royalties. StuRat (talk) 16:18, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

In the US, when a band performs a song that was written by someone else, the band has to pay a license fee. The original author usually is represented by ASCAP or BMI, who collects the money and gives the author his or her cut. The original author doesn't need to agree contractually to allow any of this; you can record the song without permission, as long as (a) the song has already been commercially released, and (b) you pay the author as above. For a DVD disc of the performance, I am way less sure about the rights. There are people whose job it is to tell you what you have to do to be all "zippered up" with the payments, and they will do any clearances for you that are needed; google music rights clearance. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:13, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Yep -- if you think about it, why are TV commercials and movie soundtracks full of covers of Beatles songs, rather than the original Beatles recordings themselves? The Hero of This Nation (talk) 19:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

They still need to pay royalties for that, but less than for the original artists, typically. StuRat (talk) 19:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding local laws, I am in England, UK. The band(s) I want to perform the song (Rozi Plain with her full band and Francois and the Atlas Mountains) are mistaken for twee folkies so they are cheap when in reality they are better than The Velvet Underground. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.1.80.7 (talk) 08:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The Performing Rights Society in the UK is the organisation to contact for the full legal position on this, but IIRC you don't need permission to use a song for performing to one person - otherwise, people who record a cover version as a demo and send it to a record company would need to pay royalties. Once this gets into the public domain, you would need permission and to pay royalties to the rights holder. As I say, contact the PRS [1]. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

An omission from Category:Musical groups from Illinois

I happened to catch what I think is an omission in the category Musical groups from Illinois. I'm not familiar with how Wikipedia works or how to input any data, so hopefully this method is OK.

The band Styx, on your own Wikipedia site, states the band was originally formed in "1961 in the Roseland section of the south side of Chicago." Originally the band was named "Tradewinds." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styx_(band)

I didn't get to see it, but the story is that Styx performed years earlier at the high school I went to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.170.31.188 (talk) 14:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

But they are listed in Category:Musical groups from Chicago, Illinois. There's probably some bureaucratic rule somewhere that states that bands from Chicago should only be listed in the Chicago category, not the Illinois category. The Illinois category would be for bands from elsewhere in Illinois than Chicago. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:38, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Category:Musical groups from Chicago, Illinois is a sub-category of Category:Musical groups from Illinois. Articles should normally be included in the deepest possible sub-category, instead of appearing in both the sub-category and the parent category. DuncanHill (talk) 15:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles

Our article doesn't explain WHY there was controversy in the UK over the use of "Ninja" which led to all references to ninjas being removed. We also got the Hero Turtles in the early 90's (late 80's?), but some years/seasons later it flipped over to Ninja Turtles for no apparently obvious reason. I've tried Googling but all I pick up are WP mirrors; everybody knows that there was censorship, but no-one seems to know why. WHY were ninjas controversial in the UK at the time? Zunaid 15:55, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Ninjas were basically terrorists, sneaking into an area to assassinate people or perform sabotage, so I'd expect that the UK authorities thought they were not appropriate heroes for children. But, of course, the kids who watched that show probably had no idea what real ninjas were, so it seems like a silly objection, to me. StuRat (talk) 16:13, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know much about it. When I did a tour with some Royal Marines back in the late 80's or early 90's (don't remember well), they often joked about McQuaid censorship. I assume they are referring to extreme censorship pushed by John Charles McQuaid. Hopefully someone from that side of the pond can shed some light on how this might be pertinent to censorship of "ninja" over there. -- kainaw™ 17:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

It might have been due to some moral panic over the possible use of nunchaku (supposedly a favourite weapon of ninjas) by small children. See Nunchaku#Legality for some detail. Astronaut (talk) 18:11, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense. Michelangelo actually used nunchucks, so I don't think they wouldn't remove the name "ninja" in the title because of association with that particular weapon. —Akrabbim^talk 18:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

In the "hero" version, he used grappling hooks and most of the fight scenes were removed. -- kainaw™ 20:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Hansard searches only go back to 1988, which is a bit late; what they reveal is concern about kids, as a result of the cartoon, buying turtles but having no ability to care for them. I'm not sure I remember any controversy about the name. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Request permission to use clip of "King of the Hill" episode in a training presentation.

Can anyone direct me to the correct source to request permission to use an episode of "King of the Hill," in limited and not-for-profit training? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 1RKrieg2 (talk • contribs) 21:00, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I would start with 20th Century Fox. 310-277-2211 is one phone number. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:58, 22 March 2010 (UTC)