Frank Ocean

Copyright 

On Oceans debut album ‘Channel Orange’ released on February, Ocean would write lyrics that complimented Malay’s keyboard and guitar playing, Malay is not only credited as a songwriter but also a producer. Ocean collaborated with Odd Future Collective for Channel Orange and Tyler the creator, Pharrell Williams and danger mouse for Blondie however he had creative freedom on both of his albums. Mo a Danish singer in collaboration with Major Lazer covered Frank Ocean’s song ‘lost’ from Channel Orange. 

Although no charges were pressed Frank Oceans newest album ‘Blondie’ was said to have been leaked onto goggle drive soon after it was made available to buy, however  universal did not press charges instead using scare tactics to shut the file down. Although Ocean has never released a statement about copyright he has been accused by musician Joel McDonald that alleged the Watch the Throne track "Made in America" by Jay Z and West and featuring Ocean had ripped off one of his songs however the court ruled that it was not a copyright violation and therefore ocean didn’t have to pay. 

Blonde Frank’s second album, was initially an Apple Music streaming exclusive when it was released on August 20. However, it later was released on Spotify on September 9th.However after a week the album had been removed from Spotify, with fans unable to play the record through Spotify. The album however was released again after Spotify explained that there was a small tech error.

Ownership 

Frank Ocean was originally signed to Def Jams which is under Universal however his new album Blondie was released on the artists own label called ‘Boys don’t cry’. The controversy over this album was that it was released under Franks own label ‘Boys don ’t cry’ which goes against his contract negotiations with ‘Def Jam’ (Which is under Universal studios) however Ocean got around his contract by releasing ‘Endless’ under their name, the company threatened to sue but found they had no legal ground considering Ocean paid back all the production fee’s. Boys dont cry is an independent label which mean that is owned by Frank Ocean and is relatively new meaning that no artist are yet signed with the label. The label has only released Oceans new album along with a zine, ocean is Known for his idiosyncratic musical style, however this is likely to change over time as Frank states he would like to work with a more experimental sound. His “Boys Don’t Cry” magazine credits David Bowie, Kanye West, Jamie xx, Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, the Beatles, André 3000, Brian Eno, Pharrell, Elliott Smith only his Visual album Ocean credits Wolfgang tillmans, Jonny greenwood, Om’mas keith, James blake, Sampha, Jazmine sullivan, Arca, Christophe chassol, Buddy ross, Troy noka, Joe thornalley, Ben reed, Rita zebdi, Alex g, Sebastian, Michael uzowuru, Austin hollows. On Blondie Ocean credits Pharrell, Tyler the Creator, Lil B, Danger Mouse, Tame Impala, King Krule, Bit-Boy, Rodney Jerkins, Happy Perez, Charlie Gambetta, Kevin Ristro, Jay Z ( signed to universal showing convergence) , Kanye West (also signed to universal which shows synergy) , Martin Gore, Malay. The new album is only being distributed online and frank is yet to realise a physical copy of the album and is searching for a distribution deal. 

Promotion and Target audiences 

Ocean had a large growing fan base that built of his first album and due to his association with Tyler the Creator and Kanye West he has adopted their audience, Ocean mainly used tumblr and his website to promote his new album which is very below the line as the audience had to actively search for the music. He used very little above the line promotion such that he didn't used posters or appear on tv, his new album was very sort after and he built anticipation by giving very little information to the audience meaning that you had to actively search for very little information such as release dates, tracks and collaborations. Ocean used several different types of media during the release, through this he was able promote and build on the album.Such as during the album release he also set up several pop-up shops which sold both the album, the magazine and different merchandise.   A day before Ocean released his 45 minutes visual album which also shows examples of using two forms of media for both promotion and distribution, the album is available both online and physically showing different forms of distribution.

Some advantages of cross-media convergence in this case is that Ocean was able to promote his album across several forms of media, by selling merchandise he is able to both increase profit but also promote the album.  The audience also gets lots of access and extra material, therefore creating a buzz and more social media coverage. Some disadvantages to cross-media is that the message or product could become distorted, therefore the audience could get confused or misinterpret the product.

SHINee

SHINee

SHINee is a South Korean contemporary boy band formed under the label S.M. Entertainment in the year 2008. The group consists of five members: Lee Jinki (Onew), Kim Jonghyun (Jonghyun), Kim Kibum (Key), Choi Minho (Minho) and Lee Taemin (Taemin). The group was introduced as a R&B boy group by their company with the goal to become trendsetters in all areas of dance, music, fashion, etc. They first made their debut with the single “Replay” on May 25^th 2008, on SBS’s Inkigayo (a popular music show in South Korea).

The group’s songs are mostly written and composed by the member Jonghyun but on some occasions, all the members take part in writing the lyrics to most of the songs in their album. As each of them have a different role in the group e.g. Jonghyun being the main vocalist composes their songs, and rappers Key and Minho write the raps in their songs. However during their early stages, the company that they were under were the ones who wrote the songs and composed them for the group. As they are now considered as one of the senior groups in the K-pop industry with 8 years of experience, they are also one of the most respected groups around. This makes them to be Sunbae-nims (a term in Korean which means a person who is more experienced in a field of industry longer than you) and with this comes the fact that groups that are younger than you would cover your songs. EXO are hugely known Internationally and in Asia, they are also under the same label as SHINee and are 4 years younger than SHINee in the music industry. They once covered “Why So Serious?” by SHINee in 2013 as well as having the opportunity to perform a SHINee song on stage with them during their debut era, the song they covered was called “Lucifer.” Furthermore a group that have recently debuted called NCT127 (also under the same label as SHINee) covered SHINee’s debut song – “Replay.”

Since they are under a highly protected company, the chances of having any of their music leaked online is very unlikely. S.M Entertainment is one of, if not the most popular and well known company in K-pop who hold great power, and it is always their duty to keep safe all the music that their artists are working on, until they are deemed to release it for the public. Their music can be found on Spotify if it were to be searched, pretty much all their songs and albums can be found here. It is not clear exactly how much SHINee make through Spotify as their record label are not the ones who upload the albums, and because of this, this information is hard to find.

SHINee are under the label S.M. Entertainment since 2008 and still currently are, and in addition to this, they made their Japanese debut in 2011 under EMI Records Japan which is linked in with Universal Music. S.M. Entertainment is home to many of South Korea’s legendary bands that have formed over many years. These include boy groups such as: H.O.T, SHINWHA, TVXQ/DBSK, Super Junior, Girls’ Generation, SHINee, BoA, F(X), EXO, Red Velvet, NCT, NCT127 and NCT Dream. All of these groups as very well known in the general public in Korea as well as being known internationally over the years in which K-pop has bloomed.

To be specific, there is no certain genre that the label produces music in, this is due to the fact that there are many artists signed to their company, all who have a different style musically. The genres that the label produces are k-pop, electropop, dance – pop, pop, R&B, hip hop, EDM and trot.

The member Taemin collaborated with his best friend and label mate Kai from EXO in his solo debut for his mini album that was released in 2014 with the track “Pretty Boy,” the lyrics for it were written by Taemin’s band member Jonghyun and was a huge hit as the two – referred to as “Taekai” by fans are known to be amazing dancers, and with Taemin’s vocals and Kai’s rap in the upbeat song, it was hugely famous. Another collaboration would be Jonghyun and Chen of EXO, who released a single trach called “A Day Without You,” as one of S.M. Ballads. In addition to this, there was a time when SHINee collaborated with their label girl group mate F(X) for a single that was called “Lollipop” with a funky and upbeat tune. There has also been instances where Key collaborated with many of the Girls’ Generation members for their solo debuts.

SHINee’s records are distributed by KT Music and Naver (a social media website that is used in South Korea to view new music releases. They also have a Vevo channel on Youtube which is called SHINeeVevo - https://m.youtube.com/user/SHINeeVEVO?

They have not been promoted or collaborated with any other company within the Vivendi group. However they have appeared on many adverts for different brands to promote the product. These include “Nature Republic” which is a very famous brand in South Korea known for their amazing skin products. “The Saem” is a popular cosmetics store that is both affordable and good quality for the public. Another one would be “Shilla Duty Free,” which sells the widest range of cosmetics and perfumes, mostly in Asia – Pacific airports. Moschino is an Italian luxury fashion house who specialize in ready-to-wear, fashion accessories, leather, shoes, luggage, perfume etc. One of their all time famous brands was “Ppusyeo Ppusyeo,” which is a noodle brand that quickly became well known after SHINee filmed an advert for it in 2010 and have recently filmed another one in 2016. Not to mention that member Key is one of Jill Stuart’s model and has helped modelling for their bags. SHINee have been filming CFs since their debut and are still doing so.

When they first debuted, their target audience were girls that were older than them (during 2008 all the members were teenagers) this quickly attracted a lot of people’s attention as the culture in Korea is different, and older women being fans of younger boys is viewed as something odd, in fact it is the total opposite. It also helped that their debut song’s Korean name was “Noona Neomu Yeppeo.” “Noona” refers to an older girl, “neomu” means very and “yeppeo” means pretty, so the phrase translates to “Girl, you are very pretty.” The fact the SHINee are a contemporary band means that they change their music style each time they have a comeback, this would result in them targeting many different types of audiences of various music styles and ages.

Their last two albums were called “Odd” which came out in 2014 and “1 of 1” that was just recently released – October 5^th 2016. Ways in which they promoted their albums was very wide ranged. These included things such as TV show appearances, interviews during music shows and photoshoots, live performances on many music shows such as Inkigayo, Music Bank, Music Core, MCount Down, Mnet, Melon etc. They also made appearances in live and viewable radios. In fact Jonghyun himself hosts a radio show called “Blue Night” that airs at midnight and goes for a hour. The whole team have come to Jonghyun’s radio show 4 times now, as well as Sukira, ShimShimtapa and KBS World. Their photoshoots were to help promote their albums more as they were released as magazines with little snips of their interview. S.M. Entertainment has established billboards for SHINee as this is a compulsory way for promoting.

Other ways in which they promoted SHINee’s albums was through S.M. Entertainment’s Official website : http://m.smtown.com  They also have an official Twitter page that allows fans to follow in on the new updates that the group would be having. In addition to this, Onew, Jonghyun and Key have social media accounts that include Instagram and Twitter which allows them to post or tweet about their new album.

Since SHINee are a group that mostly promote in either South Korea or Japan, their way of promoting is very similar. They usually release a music video teaser in Korea, this is a short clip that consists of maybe 15 seconds of the actual music video which would be released probably in the following day or two on the company’s Youtube page. Soon after that, they perform in music shows which allows the fans to vote for their favourite band, and at the end of each day, there would be a winner, this would carry on for a maximum of 5 weeks. However in Japan, it’s a bit different. This is because even though they release a teaser video, the full music video would never be released on Youtube for fans to view. The reason for this is to make sure that the fans buy the physical album. There are many concerts that take part in both South Korea and Japan that SHINee get to perform for 3-5 days each year, either in the Tokyo Dome, or in Seoul.

50 Cent

Copyright

50 Cent’s career has spanned over 16 years, he has released over 100 songs in this timeline. 50 Cent’s songs are mainly wrote by himself because usually puts them on mix tapes or albums. He also writes for other people ranging from Ciara to Eminem, who is his artist.50 Cent’s songs are very popular; on average getting over 1 million views on ‘VEVO’; because of his fame on YouTube, there are many covers of his by random people but by signed artist there is only one that is shown which is Post Malone’s cover of ‘window shopper’.50 Cent has kept a tight ship when it comes to albums and what is released, this may also be the reason for why there isn’t a case of 50 Cent’s songs being leaked. Although many artist do not like copyright infringement on their music, it seems they are happy to do it to others; 50 Cent is one of these artists. Rapper 50 Cent stole some of the lyrics for his 2003 hit "In Da Club" from a song by former 2 Live Crew frontman Luther Campbell, an attorney claims in a lawsuit. Richard C. Wolfe filed the copyright infringement lawsuit against Curtis James Jackson, aka 50 Cent, in Miami federal court last week on behalf of Lil' Joe Wein Music. 50 Cent is a very important and popular artists, to keep his status he has to release music on many platforms; Spotify is one these platforms.  Spotify admits the average "per stream" pay-out to rights holders lands somewhere between $0.006 and $0.0084.

Ownership

50 Cent was signed to Interscope for most of his careers until he left in 2014 and later signed to Capitol Records. Feud over albums and money forced him to leave. Interscope have many artists, ranging from Tory Lanez to Kendrick Lamar. Their focus genre is mainly hip-hop and pop. Capitol Records artist’s range from Jimi Hendrix to Rod Stewart, because of their wide range of artists it is no surprise that their    main genre is varied. In Interscope 50 Cent collaborated with most artists but the most famous collaboration was with the game, this is probably the most famous because this later turned into a viscous ‘beef’. In Capitol however, he hasn’t had any problems with artist butt mainly collaborates with his group ‘G-Unit’.

Convergence and Synergy

50 Cent’s music career is only a fraction for why 50 Cent is still in the top 10 earners of the music business, his many features in films and TV shows has accumulated great wealth. He regularly does soundtracks for films and TV shows but mainly his shows. He not only is in entertainment; he has his own headphone ‘SMS audio invests in platinum and has his own alcohol ‘EFFEN’.

Promotion and Targeting audience

50 Cent’s mogul platform has widened his range of audience on a global scale but started out with teenagers as the main audience. 50 Cent is very smart in the way he promotes his music and his products, he uses both under and over the line promotion. He is a household name and voice because if regular appearance on radio and talk shows showing his quirky personality and likeable attitude, and he also uses Twitter and Instagram to view his opinion on things while slyly promoting his products or songs in a hashtag or in the final clips of the video.
Hardware and content

50 Cent's most recent latest ep/mixtape had many delays in its release date but it was promoted and released within a month. His busy schedule meant that he had to record it in his spare time, he was mainly working on promoting and starring in his TV show;Power. In this short ep/Mixtape only seven tracks were featured in this. Although there were only seven tracks they were all used in background music for his TV show, but also available for digital download via datpiff and thisis50 which is his website.For the production of these songs, Laptops and electronic platforms were used for this mixtape; this is usually used for hip-hop beats. Mainly this mixtape was for his TV show from clear indicators in the lyrics and the title.

Audience behaviour and consumption

50 Cent's record sales have declined dramtically over is decade in the music business,both his mixtapes didnt reach over 300,000 record sold, compared to his 2005 album which sold over 11 million records.in the US 50 Cent charted 38 but in the UK he didnt chart, 90% were downloaded while the other 10% were CD sales. It is very hard to get facts and figures for illegal downloading because of many ways to do it through different sites.

Coldplay has five band members, firstly the lead singer Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Johnny Buckland and Will champion which all came together in 1996- 1997. All five boys attended the Collage of London and were all music influenced as kids. Chris Martin who is the lead singer is also a songwriter necessary for creating all the groups singles. Their songs have been covered by many successful artist including Ellie Goulding who sang don’t panic, Alicia keys who covered clocks and Noah and the Whale who performed Paradise. Coldplay have previously been accused of copyright which they later admitted since then the allegation has been cleared up without any negativity from fans. They stated “We’ve so directly stolen off anyone before. We’ve never paid for our plagiarism” This emphasises that They have been using inspiration from artists to create all their songs and some are more noticeable than others, we can argue they believe its necessary s that is what they have grown up on and where they get all of their creativity from. Coldplay are also on Spotify and earn quite a lot of money from sites like ITunes. However, they decided not to distribute their album ghost stories onto Spotify.

When Coldplay first started out they got spotted in Camden by Fierce Panda Records who gave they a one of offer which they took. Later on they got signed by the Universal music group, Emi, Warner music group, Atlantic records, Capitol records and their main label Parlophone. Parlophones main genre is rock however Coldplay are more alternative rock. Parlophone has many artists including the Beatles, John Lenon, David Guetta, Radiohead, Queen, The verve, Iron maiden, Freddie Mercuary and the two door cinema club and many more. Coldplay have collaborated with Kylie Minogue who is also from Parlophone. Chris Martin has appeared in a number of her singles and also shared the stage for a duet in 2014 ‘Where the Wild roses grow’ and ‘can’t get you out of my head’. In addition, Avicci who I s also signed to Parlophone co-wrote and and produced the bands 2014 hit ‘A sky full of stars’ which is the precursor to the bands current single ‘adventure of a lifetime’ Chris Martin returned the favour by co-writing and appearing on ‘true believer’ from Avicci’s 2015 stories Album and turning up again on the track ‘Heaven’ In December 2013 Coldplay announced future releases will be distributed by Atlantic Records in the US due to complications. Coldplay has an official Vevo account, there YouTube has also got 7533994 subscribers and 4542022412 video views.  They are estimated to make £24.8K-£396.2K monthly and £297.1k-£4.8m On a yearly basis.

Coldplay has been in several movies and TV shows which has definitely helped promote their music, this includes The Hunger Games: catching fire, boyhood, the amazing Spiderman and unbroken these are all major movies and big hits. On top of this Apple has also helped Coldplay with the costs of Adventure of a lifetime. In return Coldplay promoted apply headphones by allowing apple TV to feature their music video of adventure of a life time but having the monkeys grabbing Beats headphones. However, Apple went further and included Coldplay on an electronic billboard in Times square, New York.

Coldplay has a large target audience which varies from about 14-48 they make their music modern and change it with the current time period. They vary their lyrics and often change topics. They have used above the line promotion including using Electronic billboards, Apple, and featured on Magic radio. Plus, they have also performed live at the superbowl, Brit awards and most recently Glastonbury. On the other hand they have also used below the line promotion such as Skype celebrating ‘A head full of dreams’ with exclusive Coldplay mojis, meaning they helped bring to life and create Coldplay’s animations. They have also used Twitter where they have huge amount of followers to announce albums, tours and dates and also to promote their new product- rainbow pencils. Lastly, they also tour all around the world gaining more popularity and followers. They use a variety of ways to promote themselves to other countries such as the radio, TV, YouTube Social media and definitely when they perform in a different country.

                           Coldplay has five band members, firstly the lead singer Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Johnny Buckland and Will champion which all came together in 1996- 1997. All five boys attended the Collage of London and were all music influenced as kids. Chris Martin who is the lead singer is also a songwriter necessary for creating all the groups singles. Their songs have been covered by many successful artist including Ellie Goulding who sang don’t panic, Alicia keys who covered clocks and Noah and the Whale who performed Paradise. Coldplay have previously been accused of copyright which they later admitted since then the allegation has been cleared up without any negativity from fans. They stated “We’ve so directly stolen off anyone before. We’ve never paid for our plagiarism” This emphasises that They have been using inspiration from artists to create all their songs and some are more noticeable than others, we can argue they believe its necessary s that is what they have grown up on and where they get all of their creativity from. Coldplay are also on Spotify and earn quite a lot of money from sites like ITunes. However, they decided not to distribute their album ghost stories onto Spotify.

When Coldplay first started out they got spotted in Camden by Fierce Panda Records who gave they a one of offer which they took. Later on they got signed by the Universal music group, Emi, Warner music group, Atlantic records, Capitol records and their main label Parlophone. Parlophones main genre is rock however Coldplay are more alternative rock. Parlophone has many artists including the Beatles, John Lenon, David Guetta, Radiohead, Queen, The verve, Iron maiden, Freddie Mercuary and the two door cinema club and many more. Coldplay have collaborated with Kylie Minogue who is also from Parlophone. Chris Martin has appeared in a number of her singles and also shared the stage for a duet in 2014 ‘Where the Wild roses grow’ and ‘can’t get you out of my head’. In addition, Avicci who I s also signed to Parlophone co-wrote and and produced the bands 2014 hit ‘A sky full of stars’ which is the precursor to the bands current single ‘adventure of a lifetime’ Chris Martin returned the favour by co-writing and appearing on ‘true believer’ from Avicci’s 2015 stories Album and turning up again on the track ‘Heaven’ In December 2013 Coldplay announced future releases will be distributed by Atlantic Records in the US due to complications. Coldplay has an official Vevo account, there YouTube has also got 7533994 subscribers and 4542022412 video views.  They are estimated to make £24.8K-£396.2K monthly and £297.1k-£4.8m On a yearly basis.

Coldplay has been in several movies and TV shows which has definitely helped promote their music, this includes The Hunger Games: catching fire, boyhood, the amazing Spiderman and unbroken these are all major movies and big hits. On top of this Apple has also helped Coldplay with the costs of Adventure of a lifetime. In return Coldplay promoted apply headphones by allowing apple TV to feature their music video of adventure of a life time but having the monkeys grabbing Beats headphones. However, Apple went further and included Coldplay on an electronic billboard in Times square, New York.

Coldplay has a large target audience which varies from about 14-48 they make their music modern and change it with the current time period. They vary their lyrics and often change topics. They have used above the line promotion including using Electronic billboards, Apple, and featured on Magic radio. Plus, they have also performed live at the superbowl, Brit awards and most recently Glastonbury. On the other hand they have also used below the line promotion such as Skype celebrating ‘A head full of dreams’ with exclusive Coldplay mojis, meaning they helped bring to life and create Coldplay’s animations. They have also used Twitter where they have huge amount of followers to announce albums, tours and dates and also to promote their new product- rainbow pencils. Lastly, they also tour all around the world gaining more popularity and followers. They use a variety of ways to promote themselves to other countries such as the radio, TV, YouTube Social media and definitely when they perform in a different country.