A Place Called DC9

The blog post I am about to make hits pretty close to home in my community. And how this relates to the entertainment industry is a big domino effect. And a story that you will probably never again like it.

First lets start with this article to sum up a few things:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/11/05/charges-dropped-against-dc9-five/

Above is an article about a venue that I am familiar with in terms of the employees and the clientele that have attended this venue. Apparently on Oct. 15th, one owner and 4 employees were accused of killing an Ethiopian man after he was thrown out of the venue for his overly intoxicated behavior. The man came back with a brick and threw it through the window. The 4 employees and one of the co-owners present caught the man and subdued him until DC Police came handled the situation. The man dies in police custody and accusations are being thrown around that the man was beaten to death by the media, Chief Lanier of the DC Police Department, and others. The medical examiner concluded no evidence showed that the man was beaten at all. As the article indicates, the charges were dropped from accusing the 5 men who were allegedly responsible for this issue. Eventually, the charges were dropped after no evidence was found. The Ethiopian community has protested as a result because no direct answers have been given by the police department. The tragedy has affected a family who has not received any answers that they are seeking. However, the investigation continues and charges could be brought back if any new evidence or information has been found. The autopsy of the body is supposedly going to take up to 60 to 90 days.

The key point that has been made has been what the media and Chief Lanier has stated before evidence was examined: that the accused men were guilty without examining the facts.Ever since the incident happened, the police department close the venue until further notice. And the liquor license was removed. However, charges were dropped and a hearing with ABRA (Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration) was held on November 17th denying the re-opening of DC9 even though charges were dropped. ABRA claims that they would like to know if "their spouses would be safe at a venue" as this. Until the autopsy of the victim comes out, ABRA did not grant them their liquor license and DC9 will remain closed. This has placed the booking company that works with DC9, Hood Booking, in a particular hole to move performance acts to different venues to perform at. The employees have had to get other jobs to make ends meet when they are available. The general managers and owners have lost investments on their profits as a result of this incident. There has not been any estimates of how much this has costed the business but, rent on the space is still being paid without any income that has been received. The employees who worked for DC9 who were not involved with the incident have been able to find work at different venues that have been connected with DC9.

The point I am making is that something as violent as throwing a brick a window caused this big of an issue. It has now involved a community of people who are dealing with the loss of their own and a community of people who care for a well-respected bar/venue in the music scene. Hopefully, answers will be given within the next few months or so and issues will be resolved. With that said, only time will tell.

Creative Commons: The Fair Game Of Licensing

Two things that have concerned the music industry have been sampling and distribution of unauthorized work. In my line of business, this would be important in getting the word out with USB distribution. And the musical content that would be on these flash drives. My company would look to expand to other artists beyond the local area and connect with those different areas. However, some of these artists would use associations that would allow it. Therefore, we take a look at Creative Commons; a non-profit that is based on the use of sharing copyrighted work.

Creative Commons describes their organization as the following:

Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

We provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

With this in mind, the legal tools to for others to re-use and re-mix music or any other art forms is endless. My company would not go as far as providing this an option to the patrons that we would deal with. We would basically reach out to this non-profit association to see if there's any artists linked to it that would like to have their music distributed through the service we provide.

Also it seems that Creative Commons not only deals with the works of artists. It also deals in the world of education and science. The association is fairly new and started in the early 2000's. Here's a timeline of how the who organization and its different branches were divided for usage:

Founding
Founded in 2001 with the generous support of the Center for the Public Domain, CC is led by a Board of Directors comprised of thought leaders, education experts, technologists, legal scholars, investors, entrepreneurs and philanthropists.

Creative Commons licenses
In December 2002, Creative Commons released its first set of copyright licenses for free to the public. Creative Commons developed its licenses — inspired in part by the Free Software Foundation’s GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) — alongside a Web application platform to help you license your works freely for certain uses, on certain conditions; or dedicate your works to the public domain.

In the years following the initial release, Creative Commons and its licenses have grown at an exponential rate around the world. The licenses have been further improved, and ported to over 50 jurisdictions.

Science
Since 2005, Creative Commons has undertaken projects to build commons-based infrastructure for science through identifying and lowering unnecessary barriers to research, crafting policy guidelines and legal agreements, and developing technology to make research, data and materials easier to find and use.

Education
Creative Commons also works to minimize legal, technical, and social barriers to sharing and reuse of educational materials, with dedicated projects in this field since starting in 2007.

Global infrastructure for sharing
Creative Commons licenses, public domain tools, and supporting technologies have become the global standard for sharing across culture, education, government, science, and more.

I think its safe to say that Creative Commons definitely bridges the gap of sharing work with others. Hoping to achieve some sort of middle ground between people who want permission to use others works and people who grant that permission. This could be the result of having a level of respect amongst peers who want to avoid illegal use of copyrighted works. I would definitely like to connect my company with this organization in order to gain some sort of knowledge on working with different artists and gaining their permission for distributing their work.

Inspirational by connecting people.

I was looking around on this www.TED.com trying to find a particular speech from a inspirational speaker with their thoughts and ideas. I saw a few good ideas that I figured were not bad but nothing that I could see that reflected my vision. Until I saw this video:

Very inspiring to see this come together. And it spoke it to me because it is the very innovation of music that I have been witnessing over the past few years. The conductor, Eric Whitacre, was not formally trained to be a classical music conductor until he was 18. Now he is a ranked one of the best composers of all of our generation. I feel kind of odd not knowing who this person was beforehand. Its probably due to my in-depth knowledge for hip hop and etc. but, the fact that he has connected with technology with classical music is very motivational.

A choir over the internet is something you wouldn't have been able to tell me about before. Its almost as if he didn't even need to speak on his shortcomings, struggles, and etc. to become one of the most well-known composers. Its all in the music he is presenting in this video. A peaceful sentiment of gathering melodic voices. Visuals that show togetherness in a shape or form that we never thought we would see in this manner. Its almost like Eric Whitacre is saying that after the hard work he has done and continues to do, he is at peace with himself with what he has accomplished. Or it could interpreted as something that he has always wanted to do as far bringing others together to share the experience of music with him. Who knows. But The one thing that speaks high volumes about this video is that he has truly made an art out of his goals and accomplishments. It has been recognized and by seeing this proves how powerful his motivational has been to have people join him in his creative process.

There are already collaborations taking place via internet. The producer will send a track to the vocalist and the vocalist will the track back with the vocals and await for a mix and final product of the song. This shows the ability to have a live connection at the same time. Having everyone in sync to have one voice. I think thats what really speaks to me about this. The fact that this can be the future of musicianship. A virtual world where everyone is logged into the internet to collaborate on a project at the same time. I hope to see more of this in the future.