The Licensing Plate

Green Day Bassist Donates Royalties to Soles4Soles

Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt will donate all the proceeds from his 45 RPM shoe, created in collaboration with Macbeth Footwear’s Studio Project, to Soles4Soles.

© 2009 WWD (full story)

Michael Kors and Heidi Klum Speak Out for Breast Cancer

Michael Kors and Heidi Klum, “Project Runway” collaborators, are extending their rapport to a charitable cause.

The duo has been tapped by Saks Fifth Avenue and The Breast Cancer Research Foundation for Saks’ 2009 Key to the Cure campaign — with Klum serving as this year’s ambassador and Kors designing the limited edition T-shirt that benefits the cause.

© 2009 WWD (full story)

Anti-Piracy Raids Over Italian Charity Song

Italy’s piracy problem appears to have reached new depths with the news that the Guardia Di Finanza (Fiscal Police) have uncovered a P2P group that was illegally uploading the charity single “Domani 21/04/09.”

© 2009 Billboard.biz (full story)

Music Pirates Steal From Earthquake Victims

According to Variety:

In Italy, piracy knows no charity.

In the wake of the recent earthquake, 56 popular local artists and musicians recorded a six-minute song to raise reconstruction funds. The uplifting collaboration, titled “Domani 21/4/09,” features turns by top-selling Italo pop performers Jovanotti, Ligabue, Zucchero and Elisa, among others. The song was distributed online for e2 ($2.70) per download, before going out to record stores for e5.

But filesharing sites put a damper on the fund-raising, registering more than two million illegal downloads of the track.

“I feel frustrated and dismayed,” lamented prominent Italo music industryite Caterina Caselli, who produced the song for free with Universal Music. “This time (the pirates) aren’t going against the interests of the hated music majors, but against tens of thousands of citizens who have to start from scratch after having lost everything.”

I’d like to hear from the defenders of file sharing.  Of “free” music.  Of giving away Mp3s as a loss leader in order to upsell other merchandise.   I’d like to hear from those people who say “don’t sue your fans.  They’re not doing anything wrong.”  I’d like to hear how this situation is all okay.  How nobody is getting hurt.  How the people who won’t even pony up $2.70 to help others rebuild their lives are all good people.

Is this how fans support there favorite artists?  By taking without giving anything back.  There is no upsell here.  There is no tour or t-shirt or premium behind the scenes footage on some website.  There is no attack on a record label that you feel robbed you of your hard earned dollars.

There are artists who donated their time and their talent to try and help out people in need.  And there are people who took that work without donating a dime.  They took it simply because they wanted it and because they could.   And because they are to selfish to care.  There is very little middle ground when you steal from a charity.

It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this.  Not surprising.  Just unfortunate.

Pet Shop Boys asked to change their name by Peta

How far would you go for charity? It used to be considered gallant to sit in a bath of baked beans to raise money, but Pet Shop Boys have been asked to go one step further. Animal rights group Peta have approached them, requesting that the band change their name to the Rescue Shelter Boys, as a protest against the cruel conditions of many pet shops.

© 2009 The Guardian (full story)

‘Heroes’ cast artwork up for auction

Artwork created by cast and crew members on NBC’s “Heroes” will be auctioned off April 19 at a benefit for Autism Speaks to be held at the Avalon in Hollywood.

© 2009 Variety (full story)

Live Nation And The Mysterious Charity Fee

Via Pollstar:

First a little background though: A couple of weeks ago, in a story about “parking fees” being charged by Live Nation at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J., New York Daily News writer Jim Farber offhandedly raised the issue of a $.25 “charity fee” that was also being charged.

Since the story was about charging everyone the $6 parking fee whether they drove to the show or not, the “charity fee” barely registered on my radar. Then a reader named Wildthing alerted me to the fact Live Nation was adding a similar “charity fee” to tickets in California.

© 2009 Pollstar (full story)

Red List Live festival cancelled due to economic crisis

The Zutons, British Sea Power, The Wombats and were due to play the festival, which would have taken place at the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent on June 19-21.

Organisers of the event, which was aiming to raise £1 million for animal charity The Aspinall Foundation, said the “unacceptable risk” offered due to the economic crisis proved too much.

© 2009 NME (full story)

Messages With a Mission, Embedded in TV Shows

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently spent $2 million to expand Internet access in Latvian libraries, $90 million to help African cocoa and cashew farmers and $11 million for further research in the Philippines to help produce higher-yielding rice crops.

And foundation money was used for another cause: it helped develop the script for a recent episode of “ER” that featured the return of George Clooney.

© 2009 The  New York Times (full story)

The Who’s Roger Daltrey seeks charity successor

Some of the country’s biggest rock stars are not returning Roger Daltrey’s calls. The Who singer is searching for someone to take over the Teenage Cancer Trust charity gigs, with members of both Oasis and Stereophonics smiling and looking the other way.

© 2009 The Guardian (full story)

Special YouTube Ads Earn Nonprofit $10,000 In A Single Day

Earlier this week YouTube launched a new feature for non-profit organizations called “Call to Action”, allowing these organizations to place special overlay ads on their videos free of charge.

© 2009 TechCrunch (full story)

Agencies in Action markets to the marketers

Bill Oberlander, chief creative officer of Cossette Communications, and director of Agencies in Action (www.hungervolunteer.org), is using the language of marketing to recruit ad agency personnel to join the war against hunger.

The organization is asking each NYC ad agency to commit a team of six volunteers to work for three hours a month at a local soup kitchen.   To date, five agencies have signed on: Arnold, DiMassimoGoldstein, Gotham, Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners and TBWA\Chiat\Day.

I like the idea of re-purposing these iconic images to market back to the marketers.   They speak to ad agency personnel where they live…through their creative.

Marketing works.  Everybody wants to own the latest greatest music player or a top-flight athletic shoe.  But those who own hunger want nothing more than to give it away.  To rid themselves of it.  Hopefully these ads will be as successful in removing something from the world as they have been in creating a demand to add things to it.

Music to the ears of hospital patients

Patients in hospitals and healthcare facilities are often too sick to attend musical concerts, so a charity is bringing the music to them.

Musicians on Call, a non-profit organization, has organized bedside performances of live or recorded music for 125,000 patients since it was formed in 1999.

© 2009 Reuters (full story)

Harmonix and MTV Games Give Big to Starlight Foundation

Among the things that seriously ill children need are money for research and entertainment to take their minds off the condition of their health and pain they may be feeling. One way to do this for many kids is through donations and video games.

© 2009 DailyTech (full story)

UNICEF uses celebrities to counteract compassion fatigue

The problem is called “compassion fatigue.” If you see a photo of a suffering child, you may be moved to help. But if you see many photos of many suffering children, do you grow numb, or imagine the problem is so huge, an individual’s effort is fruitless?

© 2009 pdn (full story)

Will.i.am writes song for Aussies

The front man of the Black Eyed Peas has taken up another cause.

© 2009 AP (full story)

Related Story:

Billboard.biz: Barnes Responds To Aussie Bushfire Crisis

Thoughts on the Celebrity PSA: Sean Penn for the World Food Program

Some people resent the sanctimonious celebrity.  They’re tired of listening to them tell us what we should and should not be doing, be believing, be fighting for, be donating to and for whom we should be voting, all from the bully pulpit afforded them by their wealth and fame…and not necessarily their knowledge of the issues.  Read the comments on YouTube about the below video and you’ll see what I mean.

Winning an Academy Award may affirm your talent as an actor but it doesn’t confirm you as an expert in anything other than acting.  I get that.  And I appreciate the sentiment.  But for whatever reason, people pay more attention when actors say things, whether related to their profession or not, than when the rest of us try to say those same things.  And actors do believe in issues just as the rest of us do.  And they have a right to discuss those issues.  How we choose to react to that discussion is on us…not them.

If an actor appearing in a PSA can draw attention to a problem so be it.  It’s usually a problem because enough of us aren’t paying attention.

This PSA for the World Food Program presents our current economic, political and social inequities using a simple visual vehicle and few words.  Just enough to tap into the realities we are all aware of and the frustration we all feel.  Kudos to Sean Penn for trying.

Elton John launches range of crystal-encrusted iPods for charity

Elton John has launched a range of crystal-encrusted iPods to raise money for his AIDS charity.

© 2009 NME (full story)

Starbucks enlists MC Yogi for cause related campaign

Starbucks and California rapper MC Yogi have teamed up to create “Are You In?”, a new cause related marketing campaign from BBDO, New York.  The launch spot is similar in look and feel to two charity spots we recently featured in this section, Toms Shoes and Oxfam.

Graphic treatments and licensed music seem to be coming de rigueur for these types of endeavors.  They are certainly less expensive to produce than live action pieces, and when they work, the music and imagery serve to entertain and elucidate.

In this case, Starbucks is using MC Yogi to ask viewers to sign on to President Obama’s call for national service.  And just to make sure that MC Yogi’s record label gets a little bit of love, the track, “Grassroots Movement”, is also available for free download at whiteswanrecords.com.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s watch deal will benefit green charities

Leonardo DiCaprio will wear a $4,000 (GBP2,600) Carrera Day-Date watch in new print ads for TAG Heuer this spring (09) – after replacing fellow movie star Brad Pitt as the watchmaker’s celebrity “ambassador”.

© 2009 contactmusic.com (full story)