Nostalgia and discovery. That’s the simple answer for Capitol/EMI Record’s “From the Capitol Vaults” series that began just a few months ago.

A&R and Creative Vice President Jane Ventom says it’s an answer to a resurgence brought on by two separate generations.

“There are the Baby Boomers who are revisiting for nostalgia purposes,” she says, “And it’s the iPod generation discovering it.”

“From the Capitol Vault” is a series of repressed vinyl records. There are older re-issues by bands like The Beach Boys and Jimi Hendrix, and contemporary pressings by bands like Radiohead and Coldplay.

In a market that is fleeting in CD sales, and consistently rising in digital sales, vinyl would seem like the least likely medium for a a major label to invest in.

Ventom says it’s not just the consumers’ demand, but the major distributors that are wanting to stock the units, not to mention an increase in record player sales.

When walking into Barnes and Noble and Best Buy locations, there’s a greater possibility now of a consumer finding a twelve-inch piece of wax along side a silver disc, less than half its older brother’s size.

NUMBERS AND PRICING

In the past ten years, one would think the old medium of twelve-inch grooved wax would become obsolete to an electronic box that holds up to a 100,000 songs, and can be taken anywhere – but the numbers don’t lie.

In 2006, the Year to Date (YTD) sales of vinyl, according to Neilsen Soundscan, was 640,000 and in 2007, as of November, peaked to 782,000.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America’s 2007 Year End Shipment Statistics, vinyl sales increased by 36.6 percent from the previous year, as opposed to a 11.7 percent drop in CD sales.

Virgil Dickerson is also seeing a good year with his company Vinyl Collective, an online store that distributes vinyl and presses original prints through Dickerson’s label Suburban Home Records.

Vinyl Collective is also carrying older reissues with their contemporary pressings.

“With the resurgence of vinyl, there is going to be a demand for other classic records that have been out of print for awhile,” he says.

He says carrying some of the reissues have been great, and many of the Web site’s customers have been pleased with the new pressings.

Dickerson cites price and the number of reissues a significant crack in nostalgia’s road though. While some records are harder to find then others, some reissues are cheaper out of a used bin.

“Take for example a Dire Straights album,” he says. “The reissue may be priced around $20 to $25 dollars. You have fans saying, ‘I saw that in the used bin for $2, why would I pay $25 for it?’”

Dickerson says he doesn’t think it’s collectors looking for used copies, but the retail price being much higher than a record’s worth.

He also says some reissues are getting extreme in number to collect. He cites the many different colored repressings of Alkaline Trio’s back catalog his site has carried this year. “It’s harder for collectors to keep up with it based on the price [of collecting all of them.]“

THE WAY THINGS USED TO BE

Flea markets are a copious, outside shopping center containing novelty items for low prices and plenty of bargains. Some flea markets attract consumers looking for deals on collectable items such as comic books, baseball cards and general vintage items.

John Hill has been selling used movies and CDs for five years from a flea market in Prairieville, Louisiana. But in the past five years, a younger generation has been stopping at his table to sift through the six milk crates of old vinyl as well.

Though most of the records Hill has are original pressings, there is one hidden in one of the crates, new, wrapped in cellophane. It is a repressing of Jimi Hendrix’s live record Band of Gypsys, put out by the “From the Capitol Vault” series.

Six crates sit in a flea market in Prairieville, La. every weekend. Hill says his customers have been younger over the past five years.

Hill says he used to be a part of vinyl record conventions, much like baseball card conventions, but those slowly fizzled in the 90′s. For the past five years, he’s been doing fine with selling and trading from the flea market every weekend.

Finding the original copy, opposed to the newer pressings is something, Hill says, is adamant to many of his shoppers who ask for mostly the same bands: Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Pink Floyd, and of course, The Beatles.

Ventom says this is just a small niche market compared to the newer pressing sales.

“These repressings are appealing to those buying for the first time,” Ventom says. “There’s also those consumers buying because their originals aren’t in great condition anymore.”

A COMBINATION OF MEDIUMS

Reasoning for the medium’s new demand may be both a backlash and brotherly bond with the rise of music’s new contender – digital.

“I think a lot of people who have gravitated back to the vinyl format, have gravitated to the aspects that vinyl have to offer,” Dickerson says. “If you get an iPod and fill it up with 1,000 song, it makes music almost feel valueless.”

Dickerson also says vinyl has brought back the intention of an album as a whole, as opposed to picking and choosing songs through digital singles. “When you buy a record, you sit through it the way the artist intended you to listen to it.”

While there’s an embrace of the old medium being more tangible than the contemporary compact disc (bigger artwork and more liner notes), Dickerson says the record companies that are packaging vinyl with digital download cards are satisfying two wants: the physical, intimate enjoyment of music when listening to a record, and the ability to take the music and listen to it anywhere.

“If you see a CD for $15 and a vinyl with a digital coupon for the same price, to me, it’s no contest,” he says.

While Vinyl Collective has seen great business in the past year, Ventom says Capitol/EMI has gotten a very positive response from both consumers and distributors. “All around people are happy with the quality of the record and the quality of the artwork.”

Story: Adam Pfleider
Photos: Adam Pfleider

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR) is an African country of breath-taking landscapes and exquisite wildlife. Despite its beauty, this country- rich in natural resources such as diamonds, oil, uranium, and gold- is riddled with violence from rebel groups within the country and troops from neighboring countries. Due to the ongoing internal conflicts, Congo’s potential wealth has been all but drained, and its citizens are paying the price.

Conflict is nothing new to the people of Congo. The country has a long history of violence and civil unrest that began in the late 1800’s as a result of European exploration and exploitation of Congolese people and resources.

Although conflict has been present throughout the history of Congo, life was considerably peaceful for much of the 20th century. It was 1994’s Rwandan Genocide, a conflict that included the mass killing of nearly one million of Rwanda’s Tutsis by Hutu militia, that life changed drastically for the people of Africa.

The genocide was initiated by the assassination of the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana. Though the incident remains unclear today, at the time of the event, the Hutu media claimed the president’s plane had been shot down by rebels known as the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), a group made up mostly of Tutsis. It was this affirmation that sparked the ethnically charged, mass slaughtering of Tutsis people.

The origins of both the Hutus and Tutsis are unclear and the definitions have changed throughout time. The two ethnic groups are very similar- they speak the same language, follow the same traditions and inhabit the same areas.

In an article for the Journal of Genocide Research, John Hopkins University Professor, Alan Kuperman attributes the two groups’ ethnic definitions to European settlers. According to Kuperman, Europeans designated people as Tutsi or Hutu based on cattle ownership and physical features such as the Tutsi’s “long nose.”

The Tutsis, defined as those who owned more than 10 cows, were considered superior to the Hutus. Unsurprisingly, resentment among the Hutus gradually built up, bursting into a series of riots that began in 1959.

The ethnic tensions between the Hutus and Tutsis were all too familiar in Mbonyikebe’s life; his father, Hubert Nyembo, was a Hutu soldier, and his mother, Agnes was a Tutsi nurse.

“My dad’s mom, my aunties and uncles didn’t like my mom because she was Tutsi, they were prejudice. They didn’t have any love for my mom, [they] always called her stupid and asked my father, ‘why did you marry this woman?’

“[It was] some stupid stuff. If you had a long nose, people knew you [were] Tutsi. We [are] all just people. God makes us different. It doesn’t matter.”

The Rwandan Genocide began right after Mbonyikebe’s father passed away. Mbonyikebe was 9 years old. His mother, now a widow of six, had to keep the family together during what would become a most unstable time.

“I can remember, one month after my father died, the war started. We couldn’t go outside, we couldn’t go to school. It was so bad for my mom because she couldn’t leave the house [for work] and so we couldn’t eat. It was horrible.“

Mbonyikebe’s father’s brother came soon after the conflict began to bring Mbonyikebe and two of his siblings to his uncle’s house in Kimanga, a village town east of the Congo. The three children were separated from their mother who, because of her occupation as a nurse, traveled with her three youngest children to East Congo to help those wounded in the cross fires of the genocide.

“My uncle on my dad’s side came to my mom’s house and told me and my brother and my older sister to go with him. We couldn’t argue. We went to his house to be safe. I was frightened and so worried because they were separating us and I couldn’t do anything. It was scary.”

Though Mbonyikebe was safer at his relative’s house, life there was unkind. The three siblings shared a small bed at the back of his relative’s house. Said Mbonyikebe, “We didn’t have mosquito netting. It was easy to get malaria, I got sick.”

“Sometimes we couldn’t eat. Sometimes we would get a piece of bread for a meal for the night. All we could do was drink lots of water and that’s it. You go to sleep,” he said.

The few meals provided consisted of leftovers from his aunt’s cooking. “They would eat first and give us their scraps. We were treated like dogs,” he said. “My mom sent us money for groceries when she could and sometimes they would keep the money and not give us anything.”

Unable to leave the house or, much less attend school, the three siblings spent their days laboring inside their uncle’s home. “They would make us clean all day. It was hard- almost slavery- but I am thankful for it because it makes me who I am today. [It taught me to be] independent, to work hard and to be grateful,” he said.

Mbonyikebe’s life as a second-class citizen gratefully came to an end when the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) rebels overthrew the Hutu regime, marking the end of the 100-day genocide. Mbonyikebe’s mother, with the help of a priest, snuck out of the shaken Congo countryside to rescue her children. The reunited family traveled south of the Congo to Mungala.

“When she came for us, we were so grateful,” he said. “Because every night, it seemed like there was no hope. When she came, we knew we would have food. We [were] so happy.”

Mbonyikebe and his family spent two peaceful years at their home in Mungala. They were able to go to school and their mother had a stable job that helped put food on the table.

“My mom had a garden, we used to plant. We had bananas, sugar cane, tomatoes, vegetables, and two mango trees. After school we would climb the tree and pick [mangoes]. It was so sweet, and when you eat it, the water [would] come out,” he said smiling broadly.

Though Mbonyikebe and his family had regained a sense of normalcy and stability in their lives, it was a vastly different scene in the Congo. Two million Hutus, in fear of a retaliatory genocide, fled from Rwanda, many seeking refuge in the Congo. In 1996, an uprising by Congolese Tutsis marked the beginning of the First Congo War.

The First Congo War quickly escalated into the Second Congo War, also known as the African World War, in 1998. Fueled by ethnic conflict and tensions, the wars involved six countries-the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

From the Rwandan genocide to the end of the Second Congo War, the fight tactics, brutal and bloody, have been described as being both modern and primitive. Through the use of helicopters and aerial bombs, warring factions unleashed unimaginable havoc on the already devastated nation.

It is the loosely organized militia groups, however, that have made the bloodiest mark on the Congolese landscape. Armed with rifles and machetes, these uncontrollable militia groups are responsible for countless executions, rapes, beatings and kidnappings of Congolese civilians.

“I can remember cleaning the house when I heard a soldier come to the house. My mom was outside washing clothes with her hands and had to run and hide. My brother went outside and the soldiers asked him if he was Tutsi. They said they wanted to take him and kill him but they only searched the house and then left,” said Mbonyikebe, his eyes wide with fear at the remembrance of the incident.

Most people who encountered militiamen were not so lucky. The most common and effective weapons used were machetes; its users would unabashedly hack their victims to death.

Often times during the Rwandan genocide, soldiers and police officers persuaded ordinary citizens to partake in the ethnic cleansing. Food and money were given as incentives to do so. Sometimes the militia groups would force Hutu civilians to murder their Tutsi neighbors, killing those who would not comply.

“My mom knew it wasn’t safe,” said Mbonyikebe. “So she worked really hard to get all our passports and visas together. It took a long time to process. Somehow we escaped in the middle of the night.

Riding in a van with nothing but the clothes on their backs, Mbonyikebe and his family fled Mungala. “We went to a family friend’s house and slept three nights there,” said Mbonyikebe.

“On the fourth day we escaped at five o’clock in the morning and went to a refugee camp in the east of Africa- Benin-Togo. We stayed there for six months with 5000 people. Everyone lived in tents and [we ate] nothing but beans, beans, beans and rice, but at least it was a little bit safe,” he said.

At the camp, refugees waited for acceptance to travel to the United States. They were taught basic English phrases and watched movies about what to expect in America.
“It took a long time to find out if you were accepted into the U.S. Some people there had AIDS and they couldn’t leave the country. In [the winter of] 2000, we were one of the first people to be able to go to America. We were so excited because when you think of America, you think it’s a paradise. It was a big thing,” said Mbonyikebe.

“The Catholic Community Center in Baton Rouge sponsored us and paid for us to come to America. When we arrived we [were given] a ticket for food. When we cashed in the ticket, we got five burgers each! It was so much! We couldn’t believe it. We were like, ‘are you serious?’ It was so good and [juicy] and delicious.”

The Catholic Community Center provided Mbonyikebe’s family an apartment in Tigerland and helped to get them on their feet for two years. Said Mbonyikebe, “My mom started struggling with money after the Catholic Center stopped helping as much, so she got two jobs.”

A single woman working as a seamstress, Mbonyikebe’s mother knew she couldn’t afford to support her six children. At the age of 45 she took online courses to get her General Educational Development (GED) degree. She is currently studying to pull up her American College Testing (ACT) score to apply to Louisiana State University and become a nurse at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital.

“My mom is a strong woman,” said Mbonyikebe. “When I see her, I want to be just like her. Even though she struggled in life, she didn’t let obstacles hold her back, it made her stronger. She had no choice! She had a family to take care of. She would come home after work and help my brothers and sisters with schoolwork and then she would study herself. She is amazing, she got us through the tough times.”

Mbonyikebe and his siblings enrolled at Robert E. Lee High School, where they faced struggles of another kind- high school bullies.

“Everything was different, it was hard,” said Mbonyikebe. “The students would laugh about me, call me names because I had a bald head with bumps on my head. People would ask me stupid questions like, ‘were you born in the jungle? Did you wear leaf clothes? Did you shower? Did you have soap?’ They called me names and stuff.”

Tougher yet was learning a foreign language. English was hard for Mbonyikebe to pickup and, as a result, he did not graduate high school with his classmates. Instead, he studied and earned his GED diploma and went on to study biology at Southern University. Currently, he hopes to go to medical school to get his PhD in cardiology and travel back to the Congo to help his people.

“When I came [to America,] I had anger because I saw the way they were mistreating those people. Now I feel I want to finish school and go back and make a change. I read the story of Abraham and he is my role model. I want to go and deliver my people from the wilderness into the promise. They have young girls whose parents send them to have sex and they have AIDS, diseases. I feel they should have a chance, an opportunity, to go to school and have food to eat.”

Despite living a life remarkably different than what it was eight years ago, Mbonyikebe says he will never forget his tumultuous beginning. “Everyday I thank God for bringing us here to America. I could be dead, starving, maybe serving in the army. I could be a member of that cavalry.”

The Second Congo War officially ended in 2003 when the Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo took power, however, warfare continues even today. According to a 2008 mortality survey by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the conflicts have taken the lives of 5.4 million people and continue to leave nearly 45,000 dead every month.

Extraordinary stories of escape such as Mbonyikebe’s are rare. The IRC reports that millions of people have been, and continue to be, displaced from their homes as a result of the ongoing conflict between the local militias.

Story: Jacqueline Mouton

Photos: Google Images

President-elect Obama’s win brings new hope and high expectations for the future. The news story gives personal testimonies about students who attend Louisiana State University. The overall reaction from other countries such as Romania, Nigeria, and Jordan, was a positive one.

The students explain how the change in administration affects their country. Barack Obama’s election process was indeed a worldwide affair, and the common issue that all of the interviewees had was — the economy. Many Americans as well as others from the across the globe are looking forward to the inauguration held January 20, 2008, in Washington, D.C.

For more information about the upcoming inauguration, log on to The Office of the President-Elect’s Website.

For many Americans struggling to pay their medical bills, Obama’s proposed health care plan brings a peace of mind and conjures up thoughts of hope and much-needed change, especially to people like Yadi Mark, who was 37 years old when she lost the ability to walk.

Mark was a young mother with two children and a full future ahead of her when she suddenly became gravely ill in 1987.  After nine agonizing months in the hospital, Mark was finally diagnosed with Lupus, a chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when the body’s immune system attacks its own tissues and organs.  Diagnosis and treatment knowledge was considerably limited at the time and, as a result, she became paralyzed from the waist down. 

“In a flash, my life changed completely.  It was a long time before I regained my [physical and mental] stability and self-worth,” she said. 

In the days following her life-transforming diagnosis, Mark’s situation- already a hard pill to swallow- only became harder when she and her husband, Miles Mark were faced with life-long payments for prescription medicines and doctor’s visits.  This, she said, “was the cost of simply maintaining my health.”

Mark’s illness caused her a permanent reliance on four different prescription drugs and urological supplies.  Adding more burden to the family was the fact that her husband, a practicing attorney, worked for himself. 

“Miles has had to purchase his own health insurance that, in the last year alone, increased from $320 per month to $530 per month plus a $2,800 deductible,” she said.

Because it is difficult to become insured with a serious, preexisting condition, the Marks stayed with the same insurance company from 1974 to 2002.  During that time, Mark said that along with increasing and “outrageous” monthly premiums, her $5000 deductible increased to $20,000.

In 2002, the Marks’ health care bills, the highest item in the family budget, became so exorbitant, they were unable to afford it and Mark applied for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI.) 

Mark said SSDI pays for a small part of her prescription medicine and covers 80 percent of her medical bills.  “It was still so expensive that I took out supplemental insurance to help pay for the remaining 20 percent,” she said. 

Mark’s story, though arduous in its own way, is hardly unique when looking at the large scope of Americans who struggle to pay health insurance, not to mention the estimated 45 million people who cannot, and are currently uninsured. 

According to a Wall Street Journal article by Harvard Economics Professor and Obama Campaign Adviser, David Cutler; University of California, Berkley Economics Professor, J. Bradford Delong; and McGeorge School of Law Professor, Ann Marie, health insurance premiums doubled since 2000, causing employers to “choose between cutting benefits and hiring fewer workers.” 

“Rising health costs push total employment costs up and wages and benefits down.  The result is lost profits and lost wages, in addition to pointless risk, insecurity and a flood of personal bankruptcies.” 

Many argue that the rising cost of health care in the United States was a result of the Bush administration’s market approach to health care.  Alternatively, President Barack Obama has proposed a government approach to health care policy since the inception of his campaign.

Obama’s health care proposal modernizes the Bush administration’s system of employer- and government-provided health care.  As stated in Obama’s proposal, if an American is satisfied with his or her current health insurance, “nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year.” 

Barack Obama on Health Care

For the 45 million uninsured Americans and those like Yadi Mark, who are unsatisfied with their current insurance provider, Obama will provide the option of “new, affordable health insurance” by allowing Americans to choose from a public plan similar to Medicare, or browse private insurance plans.  Additionally, Obama will require employers to contribute to worker health benefits or else pay a tax.

The cost of insurance coverage for low- and middle-income families will be government subsidized by taxes collected from businesses that do not contribute to employee health benefits and by increasing taxes for families earning more than $250,000. 

The private insurance plans will have rules and standards so policies are aligned with the public plan and insurers will have to issue every applicant a policy regardless of pre-existing health conditions.  People like Mark will no longer continue to pay for an expensive insurance plan for fear of being unable to find a company who will insure someone with preexisting conditions. 

Hospitals and providers will be required to disclose measures of health care costs and quality in addition to the percentages of premiums that go toward patient care and to administrative costs. Obama plans to invest $50 billion in a health information technology that will allow people to access such information so they can identify top providers, the best treatments and patient management strategies.

Obama’s plan also proposes to reimburse Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals and doctors based not on performing procedures, but on positive patient outcomes such as lower blood pressure and cholesterol readings.

In addition, Obama promises to guarantee access to preventative services.  In doing so, he plans to expand worksite health promotion programs such as onsite flu vaccinations, work with school systems by increasing funds for clinical services and physical education “to create more healthful environments for children,” increase funding to expand “community based preventative interventions,” and work with federal, state and local governments to assess and improve public health. 

Though the Tax Policy Center reports that Obama’s proposal would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 18 million, the Center also states that the plan will cost nearly $1.6 trillion over 10 years. 

Experts question whether the United States will be able to afford such a reform given the current economic crisis.  When sworn in, Obama will be looking at a budget deficit that many analysts say could reach $1 trillion. 

In an article for USA Today, Associated Press Writer, Jim Dinkard, said the current economic climate severely hinders Obama’s promised tax cuts and spending on new programs.  “Meanwhile,” he said, “the penalty on employers that don’t offer health insurance could increase the cost of operating a business.” 

Though the Economic Policy Institute states that Obama’s plan is superior to the McCain plan “in coverage and efficiency,” many critics point out Hawaii’s recent failure in their universal child health-care program.  The program was terminated 7 months after its commencement. 

In addition, people argue that, in order for Obama’s plan to work, younger, healthier people will need to be persuaded to buy insurance to offset the expenses induced by the older, sicker people. 

In an interview with USA Today press writer, Kevin Freking, the senior vice president for Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Mary Lehnhard said, “[The younger generations] are very price sensitive.  They’re healthy.  They think they’re invincible and getting them to buy coverage is a challenge.  If it’s expensive, they’ll walk away.”

Others, like health-policy and research consultant at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, James Capretta, foresee many barriers to accessing care.  “In time, that means [hospital] waiting lists along with skyrocketing costs to the taxpayer.  That’s the true bottom line of the Obama plan,” he said. 

Despite criticisms against Obama’s health care policy, many Americans, like Mark, remain staunch supporters of the reform.  Though she is fortunate enough to be able to afford health insurance, Mark thinks health care is a basic right and an obligation of the government to the less fortunate. 

“Because I have a background in disability and health care issues, I realize how important it is to have health care stability to take care of you in a crisis.  You don’t realize that your life can change in a heartbeat.  It’s not only dealing with a crisis that’s hard, but also paying for treatment.”  

For more photos of Yadi Mark: http://slideroll.com/?s=hx5g478j

For a critical analysis of Obama’s Health Care Proposal: http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.28881/pub_detail.asp

For a critical analysis of the Bush Administration’s Health Care Plan: http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26768/pub_detail.asp  

Story: Jacqueline Mouton

On Sept 24, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis declared a mistrial in the Capitol v. Thomas case.

The case, if not overturned from its original verdict, would have been the first case won by the Recording Industry Association of America not settled outside of court.

If convicted, Jammie Thomas would have had to pay $222,000 in damages. Three weeks ago, Thomas’ crime could have been a federal felony, and her sentence could have been far serious.

On Dec 13, 2007, a House subcommittee performed a hearing to introduce a new bill. That bill was to crack down on both the counterfeiting of goods and online piracy, both nationally and internationally.

The introduction of the bill was due to the estimated U.S. loss of 750,000 jobs and $200 to $250 billion dollars a year, John Conyers, chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary, said at the hearing.

The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act, or PRO-IP Act for short, was voted on in May by the House, but was later reintroduced as The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act and passed through the Senate and House in September.

On Oct 13, President Bush signed the bill into law.

A month later, the same President whom signed the bill, would not be seeing over the enforcement of that law, or the new cabinet which was to come about from the bill. In fact the new President-elect  never even voted on it.

The House and Senate’s “aye” votes were a majority Democrat though. When passed through the Senate, the PRO-IP Act was even co-sponsored by Barack Obama’s Primary opponent — Hilary Clinton (D, NY).

The Act itself is about protecting intellectual property,  or property resulting from creative thought (patents, copyrights, trademarks), including America’s media, especially films and music, from piracy exported and imported to and from foreign markets. It also combats the national online fight as well.

According to Obama’s campaign Web site, though he did not vote on the bill, he wishes to protect those rights, citing piracy and bootlegging of movies to China, and vows to open up a stronger market both in protection and competition.

By doing this, his next statement on the site wishes to protect “Intellectual Property at Home.” It says, “Obama believes we need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated.”

The PRO-IP Act enacts “a unit to work with the Computer Crime and Intellecutal Property section of the Department of Justice” and appoints the Attorney General to “create a task force to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to investigate and prosecute international organized crime syndicates” and deploy five additional coordinators in foreign countries.

With a clinging economy, just how much money is really being lost through just online music piracy alone? Is the Thomas case even a small byte of a larger gig of a problem?

According to an Institute for Policy Innovation report in August 2007, Stephen E. Siwek wrote a 28 page report entitled “The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy,” a follow-up to an IPI report entitled “The True Cost of Motion Picture Piracy to the U.S. Economy.”

The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy report on losses due to piracy.

Under the August 2008 report, Siwek reported an estimated physical piracy loss at around $1.6 billion and an estimated $3.7 billion loss through online downloads for worldwide losses of “U.S. sound production and distribution and related industries.”

The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy report loss in retail.

He also estimated a loss of another billion dollars in music retail industry alone.

The PRO-IP Act isn’t the first to try and tackle the online privacy issue. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act put a strain on online medium content. The Act states that any legal complaints sent to hosting sites for media such as video, music or pictures, must immediately take down said content, or face legal ramifications.

Mass Communications professor Emily Erickson says this puts a strangle on the fair use doctrine, and doesn’t give the uploader of the content proper due process to fight the content’s presence.

Erickson says many of these bills began and are pushed by the media industry.

“I hope that what Obama means when he says that [he wishes to revise the laws], is to give a more balanced system,” she says.

Changing the copyright and patent laws are already happening, says Erickson, “What’s difficult is to get something passed to bulk up the protection of fair use.”

What makes Erickson even more mad about online content control doesn’t fall under the DMCA or PRO-IP acts, but in fact under the bundled provision of the Higher Education Act of 2008, which asks universities to crack down on online piracy, a place, where she says, “the market place of ideas is more important than ever and where almost everything should constitute fair use.”

With that same youthful, possibly collegiate, turnout in favor of Obama (MSNBC reported a 68 percent favor with voters ages 18-29), Erickson hopes that the President-elect’s cabinet member overseeing the enforcement of these bills, as well as the administration below within the branch, will follow the laws and not the media’s lobbying strings.

She says the Federal Communications Commission has been failing for years to keep up with the laws because of the following of such lobbying.

The keys to intellectual property are in the Constitution, she says.

“[Obama] is a Constitutional scholar,” she says. “I’d imagine if I’d put anybody in charge, I’d put a Constitutional scholar in charge. He might get what the whole copyright thing is in terms of the original intent of it.”

Story: Adam Pfleider
Figures: Institute For Policy Innovation

An unstable economy forces some college graduates to make other plans after graduation.

The graduate and professional school fair took place in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center Thursday, October 30, 2008. This year’s event attracted more than two-hundred fifty students and had about eighty schools from all across the nation seeking students to be members of their graduate or professional programs.

The school fair was organized by Associate Director Joan Gallagher of Career Services. She, along with other staff members of Career Services, wanted to give students and opportunity to network and find out more information about higher educational programs.

The national economic crisis taking place causes more students to think about back-up plans, instead of entering the work force. Kinesiology Senior Toni Ester-Zubowski and Political Communication Senior Annie Kaufman both decided applying to graduate school and law school was the alternative to entering the work force. Theresa Mysing said, “Students should consider graduate school to give [students] a year to wait out the situation and, it will put them at a higher level when they decide to enter.”

Raimy Living reports on how students like Ester-Zubowski and Kaufman were once interested in entering the work force and are now looking into graduate programs.

]]> http://theimmovableforce.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/economy-and-grad-school-fair/feed/ 0 theimmovableforce http://theimmovableforce.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/millennials-bring-about-new-technology-market/ http://theimmovableforce.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/millennials-bring-about-new-technology-market/#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:57:31 +0000 theimmovableforce http://theimmovableforce.wordpress.com/?p=78 ]]> The “tweenage” trend growing, shifting marketing demographics, but not traditional models

High School Musical 3: Senior Year opens in theaters October 24, and is said to be the highest grossing family film of the year.

There are about 43.6 million results for “High School Musical 3″ when typed into Google.

The movie, Disney’s third (but first big screen) installment of the “High School Musical” franchise, hits theaters October 24.

According to a Reuters’ report on October 19, the film’s advance ticket sales in the United Kingdom are looking to blow past “Harry Potter and the Goblet of FIre” which made its mark in the books in 2005.

With speculation of being the highest grossing family film this year, as well as one of the highest grossing films of the year, the “tweenage” demographic is about to stimulate the economy.

The term “tweenage,” is slang for children ranging from pre-teen to sixteen years old.

The “tweenage” demographic have also embraced new outlets of advertising, which are now used by large companies like Disney, says Guy Golan, assistant professor at Seton Hall University. Amongst those outlets are Internet vehicles which include blogs, social networking and viral marketing, he says.

All these are linked to new technologies, including the expansive use of the Internet through cell phones instead of computers, as seen with the popularity of iPhones and Blackberrys.

At Central Middle School, principal John Cashio Jr. says 75 percent of the students at his school have a cell phone.

“The students are much more in tune to the latest technology than adults,” he says.

When asked about having a Myspace.com or Facebook.com page, a small class of about 25 students at Central Middle School all raised their hands in unison, some claiming to check their respective sites up to six times a day, and many say they checked their profiles as soon as they got home from school– before turning on the the television.

Golan says within the field of viral marketing, there’s a sub field of viral advertising– online ads that are extremely funny and/or shocking and are able to be forwarded through e-mail or posted on blogs or social networking sites, reaching thousands instantly.

Golan works for Keta Keta, an online ad agency that puts together viral marketing for other companies. He says in the beginning, companies would pay anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000, but just recently his company signed a client for half a million dollars.

Lance Porter, Louisiana State University assistant professor of mass communication and former Disney Movie Studio executive, says Disney was hesitant to harbor viral marketing with the financial failure of the Go.com network, which was meant to compete with Yahoo.com.

One movie came along to change all of that, he says, and created a demographic marketing shift.

“‘Pirates [of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl]‘ changed the Disney brand,” says Porter. “Before, Disney was a much younger brand. The company’s core was about 6 to 12.”

Prior to the release of the “Pirates” franchise, he says, Disney would hold back branding on some motion pictures until a week before release to get markets older than 12 years old interested. With the “Pirates” franchise, Disney had to brand it from the start because of the movie was based on the company’s theme park ride.

As the first PG-13 Disney film, it simply changed what a Disney film could be, he says, and who the brand could reach.

Porter says the shift into the “tweenage,” or what the market calls “Millennials,” happened a few years ago with Disney Channel shows like Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens. “The Lizzie McGuire Movie,” which Porter was involved with, was a beginning spark of where the company was shifting some new focus.

According to Boxofficemojo.com, “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds” is the highest grossing movie to run on the fewest theaters and debut at #1 in its opening week, exceeding the “The Big Chill” at the #2 spot by almost $30 million dollars. “Best of Both Worlds” also opened on fewer theaters than any other movie below it on the list.

The movie went on to gross around $65 million dollars.

Source: Boxofficemojo.com

Four girls in the small Baton Rouge sixth grade class saw the film opening weekend, while the rest of the class has seen it either in following theater showings or on television and DVD.

When asked about “High School Musical 3: Senior Year,” the entire class was excited, girls citing they enjoyed the music and boys saying they enjoyed the sports side of the film’s franchise.

While it’s understandable that the demographic now targeted are using these viral channels of marketing and sharing of ideas and discovery, will there exist an immediate shift of funds to viral campaigns?

Porter says Disney, while putting finances into the new medium, still is much more invested in traditional marketing campaigns through television and print.

Thomas Karam, Louisiana State University marketing professor, says viral marketing is proven effective, but very young.

“It has the potential to appeal to [that segment],” he says. “But is it the only way? No. Will it become the dominant way? Depends.”

Karam says that television is still a dominant vehicle, especially with kids, because they still take advertising as the package part of the viewing process. “You can still entertain kids with commercials.”

During the Olympics this year, he also noticed the use of cell phones playing a major role of advertisement consumption as well.

“It’s a nice alternative, and has a big potential,” he says. “The Internet is growing and it’s figured out how to reach a younger generation, and I think now advertisers are focusing on grabbing the older generation.”

With the Presidential election weeks away, viral marketing and campaigns have been more dominant than any other election. YouTube.com played a large role especially in the primary elections, as well as numerous online political polls through CNN.com and NYTimes.com.

Kids under 18 years of age, and unable to vote, more than likely won’t pay attention to the facts, says Karam, they’re focused on the entertainment.

Porter says Disney was just fortunate to have the market come to them. “That shift in demographic really played right into Disney’s mill-house in terms of what they can offer,” he says. “With recognizing that, they have broaden their appeal of what it is they are going to offer.”

The Walt Disney Company did not comment in time of print.

Story: Adam Pfleider
Pictures: Disney/NYPost.com
Graph: Adam Pfleider

WORDPLAY TEEN WRITING PROJECT

Literature, poetry and spoken words…Baton Rouge teens give a new twist to these old art forms.

Wordplay is a program sponsored by the Big Buddy Program under the direction of Teen Programs Director Anna West and Program Manager Chancelier “Xero” Skidmore. The staff members spend countless hours with the young teens to help them improve in their school work as well as helping them express themselves through spoken words. The students learn the craft of poetry and self-expression and a space is created where artistic voices can be amplified.

Wordplay makes it possible for these young poets to transform traditional poetry into new forms of artistic and cultural expression.

ANNA WEST, DIRECTOR OF TEEN PROGRAMS

Anna West further explains the financial aspect of Wordplay. This program is made possible by generous support of JPMorgan Chase Foundation, Louisiana Division of the Arts through the National Endowment of the Arts, the United Way and many other individuals and organizations who support the ongoing work of the Big Buddy Program.

If you are interested in volunteering, donating or writing for Wordplay, please contact Anna West at 225-388-9737 or through Wordplay’s website.