LOYALTIES AND ROYALTIES
Artistic identity questioned in unlicensed ads JJ Brewis × Editor-in-Chief
×× Tiare Jung
For many musicians, ad placement is a lucrative way to promote their music. This is not a new concept, but with declining record sales this is now artists’ easiest route to monetizing their work. While many musicians have been criticized for “selling out” in lending their music to companies for use in advertising, it’s actually a smart endeavor. But a dark side exists to the whole process – a side where businesses and politicians scoop up music
and haphazardly apply it to an ad campaign without consent. Taking the artist’s cultural identity without their consent is detrimental and uncouth. Manchester, England post-rock group WU LYF (World United Lucifer Youth Foundation) posted to their Facebook page about a recent car commercial that uses their music for advertising without approval from the band. The statement fixates on a tasteless social element in the advertisement that the band doesn’t condone. “To anybody interested as to why we are featured in a Toyota Advert,” the band wrote, “we have not consented to this, we have not earned a penny from this and on behalf of the band I am fucking angry about this.” The two-minute clip, White Trash Beauty created by the ad group Happiness Brussels, promotes the Toyota GT86. The commercial shows a series of men arriving home with brand new GT86s. The men appear brash and unruly, enjoying brand new expensive automobiles while their respective wives and girlfriends throw emotional fits and have breakdowns. It’s an exercise in gender dominance, coyly using stereotyped power schemes – all for the sake of car branding. Throughout the video, WU LYF’s “Heavy Pop” plays in the background. While the initial shock for the band was likely that their artistic output was used without permission (see: not getting paid), the fallout was more in the video’s content itself. “We too are interested to know why our music is featured in a sexist sports car advert that encourages men to live out their “inner chauvinist,’” the band continued. While using music to endorse ads has become common practice, sometimes an artist will never get a chance to see the ad their creative work is being lent to. In 1987, “Revolution” became the
first Beatles song to be used in an ad. Despite the fact that it had gone through the proper licensing, the three surviving Beatles attempted to sue Nike for the commercial. More recently, Ian Curtis of Joy Division was used in a Converse ad alongside Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day. Long-time Curtis fans were outraged suggesting he’d never have agreed to such a thing. The will of late Beastie Boy Adam Yauch revealed, “In no event may my image or name or any music or any artistic property created by me be used for advertising purposes,” an attempt to legally withhold his artistic output and personal image from future business maneuvers. While it’s one thing for artists to get recognized for selling their song to an iPod commercial or for Lana Del Rey to lend “Born to Die” to a benign Nespresso ad, the stakes are higher here. For those who don’t look too far into the story, they’re going to wrongly assume WU LYF is glorifying the act of being a chauvinistic pig. With only one album to their credit, WU LYF is still relatively unknown in the mainstream music scene. An ad such as this is detrimental to their cultural identity. They may end up getting paid for the usage of their music in the clip, but the fact will always remain that their music provided a backdrop for a tasteless macho advertisement that does not match with their philosophy. The Guardian’s Sean Michaels reports that the band may not even have a say about whether their song is used in advertising, despite the negative ad content or its relevancy to the music. “Wu Lyf might not have to consent for their music to be used in an ad. Months before the Manchester group released their debut album, they had already signed a publishing deal with Universal Music, and some deals allow the publisher to license songs.”
The world of politics has also applied the business model of sheepishly using unlicensed music in its campaigns. This summer, Silversun Pickups sent a cease-and-desist order to Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney for using the band’s song “Panic Switch”. The band’s singer and guitarist Brian Aubert released a statement saying: “We don’t like people going behind our backs, using our music without asking, and we don’t like the Romney campaign,” continuing, “We were very close to just letting this go because the irony was too good. While he is inadvertently playing a song that describes his whole campaign, we doubt that ’Panic Switch’ really sends the message he intends.” The political realm is in some ways an even more detrimental battleground for unlicensed music placement. While most artists can end up citing lost earnings in court for unlicensed ads, in the world of politics, the public is likely to associate an artist’s music to the campaign it accompanies, whether it has been cleared with the artists or not. John McCain’s 2008 campaign used a half dozen artists’ work without permission including Heart and Foo Fighters, and Michele Bachmann’s failed presidential platform got into hot water with its usage of Tom Petty’s “American Girl”. Whether it’s in the selling of cars or political promotion, music licensing is a multi-million dollar industry. Artists have every right to promote their music and earn money from endorsing products. But when an artist loses the artistic right to discern which organizations use their creative output for branding purposes, it’s time to change the entire scope of licensing laws. The music sphere has a lot to deal with before it blindly signs itself up for something even more detrimental.
Cloud #10 Pavel Bure’s jersey retirement overdue Charlie Black × Staff Writer
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back 60 goal seasons, Bure belongs in the rafters. Anything less is an insult. The “Great Debate” about Bure’s number being retired comes from him being amazing when he played here, and yet Vancouver wanted him to be even more. Canucks fans set incredible expectations that sometimes cannot be met – true of any player these days, from Roberto Luongo to Alex Edler and everyone in between. Recently, reports surfaced that Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini had flown to Florida to visit with Bure, reportedly to tell him of plans to fly #10 in the Rogers Arena rafters. The weeks ahead will tell how this endeavour goes, if indeed this is the case. Bure was a spectacular player in his short time in Vancouver, where he spent most of his career. The team should honour him for how spectacular he was, not pull him down for how much more spectacular he could have been.
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12. 16. 19. Anywhere else, these might be arbitrary numbers, but in Vancouver, they are hallowed by what they represent. To any hockey fan worth their salt that follows the Vancouver Canucks, these numbers stand for the on-ice heroics of past captains Stan Smyl, Trevor Linden and Markus Naslund, respectively. If any number should join them next, it should be #10, Pavel Bure, the Russian Rocket, member of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s class of 2012. Since making a splash in Vancouver even before he played his first game for the team in 1991, Bure solidified himself as one of the most electrifying
he landed in North America, September 6, 1991). When Bure asked for a trade, the team agreed to make it happen but never did until he had to take drastic measures. Bure kept mainly to himself, in contrast to Smyl, Linden and Naslund who, as captains, each performed great feats both on-ice and off-ice with community and charity work. However, retiring a player’s jersey number is not contingent on community service. Boston Bruins legend Phil Esposito recently said about Bure: “You’ve got to play seven to 10 years and do some big things – including winning.” Understandable as it is that Esposito, a two-time Stanley Cup winner among Art Ross and Hart trophy decorations in nine seasons with the Bruins, would say so, this simply doesn’t work for every team. As each team sets its own precedents for honouring players in their organization, what works for Esposito and the Bruins does not necessarily work for the Canucks. Despite never winning a Stanley Cup, the Phoenix Coyotes have retired six numbers, three of whom played during the team’s time in Winnipeg as the original Jets. Much to the chagrin of reminding Canucks fans about the lack of a Stanley Cup to their name, they have come amazingly close. Stan Smyl led the Canucks to their first Stanley Cup final in 1982. Bure, along with Trevor Linden and the 1994 squad, brought the team within a goal of winning the Stanley Cup in New York. 2011 saw the Canucks within one game of a fierce battle for the Cup, propelled onwards by Daniel and Henrik Sedin, who themselves are a lock for jersey retirement when they end their careers. For the double overtime goal in 1994 to bury Calgary, for the lightning-fast rushes up the ice, for his record setting points totals, for his back-to-
the capilano courier
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players in the NHL. His speed, scoring ability and work ethic brought legitimacy to a fledgling Canucks team’s Stanley Cup dreams in 1994. So why isn’t his number flying in the Rogers Arena rafters? Bure’s exit from Vancouver was a storied one. In the offseason prior to the 1998-99 season, Bure told the Canucks he would not play in Vancouver despite having a year left on his contract. Rumours told that he had demanded a trade and wanted out of Vancouver, finally culminating in being dealt to the Florida Panthers in 1999. More rumours flew about his rocky relationship with then-head coach Pat Quinn. Even wilder rumours surrounding him suggest ties to the Russian Mafia, with many defected Soviet hockey players at the time linked to reports of extortion attempts on players’ families still in Russia. As time went on, Bure was linked to Anzor Kikalishvili, a suspected Russian mob boss. Though Bure had long denied Kikalishvili was involved in criminal activity, he did not refute that they were indeed business partners. Simply enough – Bure was a private person, taken out of his element by his superstar status. He can hardly be counted as a selfish person, in regards to his trade requests, when one considers his reluctance to defect from the Soviet hockey system, for fears that if he left, they would come down hard on his little brother Valeri (now married to Candace Cameron of Full House fame) in the junior system at the time. Under Pat Quinn’s control, the Canucks organization had been condescending to Pavel in regards to renegotiating his entry-level contract, insisting on paying him in Canadian dollars, and to a lesser extent, refusing him his preferred jersey number of 96 (to commemorate the day
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