Artist/producer Pharrell Williams sits down with Cornerstone co-CEO Rob Stone to discuss a number of different topics including how artist can engage their fans in the digital era, as well as his semi-new property Artst.com (Artist without the i cause its about you not me – Pharrell Williams) .

Pharell also mentioned that no one was catering to the 12-18 year olds, so he also announced Kidult.com. Kidult, according to Pharrell, will engage young kids by their favorite celebrities and inviting them to discussing topics that are most interesting to kids.

The deck seems to be stacked against singer Chris Brown, or maybe its all in his head. Apparently the disgraced performer went on a celebrity rant on Twitter last weekend and ultimately ended up deleting his account. The tantrum was thrown over the perception that he was being blackballed by major retailers, whom he felt were not stocking his newest album “Graffiti”.

Mashable posted some of the  meltdown.

(That’s the clean portion of the rant. It goes on to degrade into an expletive-laced monologue, that I chose not to post.)

According to CNN, fans responded to Brown’s tirade with reports that store managers informed them that there were no plans to ever carry Brown’s music in light of his recent domestic violence incident with ex-girlfriend Rhianna. Once the larger media outlets got wind of the story, they went to the horse’s mouth — the retail stores to see if Brown’s claims were true. According to Billboard, they weren’t. In fact Wal-Mart representatives had this to say.

We are surprised at the comments on Twitter, since all Walmart stores carried the CD since its release, including the Wallingford store mentioned in the post. This store had in fact sold through their copies over the weekend. The majority of our stores are showing today they have copies on hand.”

Hmm, seems like the artist might be buckling under the pressure of the aftermath of celebrity scandal. It sounds like he might have gone to one store, got scared when they didn’t have “Graffiti” in stock, and went on a Twitter rampage. Unfortunately, the fans out of sympathy and probably more than a few haters, fed his increasing paranoia with reports of Brown-bare shelves and talk of banishing him and his music into pariah-land.

So here are the facts:

• Major retail chains are in fact, carrying Brown’s album.
• The album is not doing well compared to his pre-scandal releases. First week sales were an abysmal 102,489 copies, putting him at number seven on the Billboard charts. Not bad, but not great.
• Rhianna came in at number three with 181,000 copies sold.
• Susan Boyle of Britain’s Got Talent is number one on the charts with 582,000 sales.

In his last tweet, Brown bid his followers a fond farewell saying, “I WANNA THANK MY FANS FOR ALL THE SUPPORT. I LOVE YALL. GOODBYE!!!!!!!!!!!!”

So in light of all that unnecessary and unprofessional twittering, where does this leave the embattled entertainer? Well, he’s not exactly up a creek without a paddle, but it just goes to show that a baby blue bowtie with matching sweater vest will not swing the tide of public opinion in your favor when it comes to domestic violence. In 2010, Brown’s handlers need to have an extremely tight rein on what the singer says, when he appears, and what he tweets if he decides to reopen his account.

As much as the public at large loves celebrity scandal, they love a comeback story even more. Instead of doing all this touring and saying he’s sorry for what happened why not take some action? Really take stock of the incident and pledge to change the behavior. Try reaching out to one of the many organizations trying to stop domestic violence and ask how he can use his incident to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. Make a viral campaign and live it. In the business of spin every action helps and right now, whining about how Alicia Keys’ album is everywhere is not endearing you to the public.

Jermaine Dupri has really been focused on social media as of late. We discussed the launch of his web property in March, and his appearance at the Blog World Expo this past October. This week JD sat down with Fox Business to discuss social media’s affect on the music industry, as well as how social media helped him discover his latest artist, social media sensation Dondria (aka phatfffat).

I read a great write up on Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson’s AVC.com about the release of Lupe Fiasco’s new mixtape, Enemy of the State. I know you’re asking, why would a VC blog about a mixtape? Well unlike most mixtapes, Lupe’s new album included a brief 31 second Hewlett Packard commercial entitled “HP skit”. The commercial, I’ve included the video version below, is one of those headless voice over commercial with cool animations that HP has become known for as of late. Now without knowing, the particulars of the compensation agreement between Lupe and HP, Wilson goes on to speculate about what an advertising based model could mean for an artist and advertisers:

So Lupe included an HP advertisement on the Enemy Of The State mixtape. Let’s say Enemy of the State is downloaded a half million times. And let’s say that the average downloader listens to the mixtape all the way through five times. Then that HP ad would be listened to 2.5 million times. At a $10 cpm (high but not crazy high), that would be worth $25,000 as an audio ad buy. If Lupe could put out one of these mixtapes a month, then that’s $300,000 per year.

A win win for both advertisers and the artist if you ask me. The advertisers win because instead of hoping a Lupe fan watches the HP commercial, you’re placing the commercial in an album that Lupe’s fans are sure to listen too. This will lead to a better brand engagement. Lupe wins because he gains awareness, spreads new material that could potentially draw more fans to his show, and oh yeah he gets a little change in the process. So if having to suffer through a few ads means that my favorite artists releases more material, then I wont mind suffering through a few commericals.

Now of course this model is not without its faults. The first one that comes to mind is, the stiffiling of creativity. If you think about it, the mixtape market has in the past been known as the place for creativity and  innovation. Artist used mixtapes to experiment with new styles and discuss content that they would not normally release on their album.  If the artist’s goal is to align themselves with a major brand, the artist might soften up their content, or stick to their traditional musical roots in order to align themselves with a “good brand” (this could be good or bad depending on what side of the fence you’re on.).

So the question is, would you mind a few ads in your favorite artist’s mixtape if it meant more music? Do you think brands can align with mixtapes?

Maybe Jay-Z got it wrong. Mayhaps there’s no such thing as T-Painin’ too much. The king of Auto-Tune continues to make some serious change of the voice distortion gimmick. His “I Am T-Pain” app for iPhone has been a huge success since it became available back in September. To date, there have been approximately 10.2 million Auto-Tune recordings created using the app.

And it’s seriously viral. Thanks to the SNL funnyman Adam Sandberg’s video, “I’m On A Boat” (which strangely enough was just nominated for a Grammy Award) and appearances on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “The Ellen Show”, T-Pain has been racking in the app dough. App developer Smule and the artist have wisely leveraged all this attention and created a contest where app users create video spoofing “I’m On A Boat” or getting creative with the app and creating something totally new and just as viral in the “Show Us Your PAIN” contest. The grand prize winners receive $5,000 and a Big Ass Chain (eye roll).

The Auto-Tune movement shows no signs of stopping. In fact T-Pain and Smule are reupping. Instead of being limited to a set list of songs, now Auto-Tune aficionados can add the effect to any song in their iTunes library. There are also six new tracks of previously unreleased T-Pain beats along with three holiday songs to distort. Which begs the question, how would an Auto-Tune version of  “O Holy Night” sound?

Last night, the 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards’ nominees were announced in 20 different fields. Among some of them were urban music powerhouses Lalah Hathaway, Ledisi, Maxwell, Eric Roberson, and Foreign Exchange. What’s special about these nominees though is how each has used the popular social networking sites, online video, blogging, and podcasting to both increase and interact with their respective fan bases.

Hathaway and Foreign Exchange are no strangers to the online video realm. Hathaway is regularly featured on Rahsaan Patterson’s YouTube channel as part of the “LAH! and RAH! Show”. Foreign Exchange’s YouTube account shows all their videos, as well as behind-the-scenes and concert footage. Eric Roberson, Ledisi, and Maxwell also have official YouTube channels with similar content.

All the aforementioned artists are also very active on Twitter and Facebook, where they can reply back to their fans and mention when they’ll be in their city for their next performance. Eric Roberson’s blog chronicles his journey as an independent artist since February 2007, and includes photos and video from his travels. Phonté — ½ of Foreign Exchange — does a frequent podcast called Gordon Gartrell Radio, where he talks about Foreign Exchange, spins tunes with DJ Brainchild, and answers viewer questions about a number of topics.

And not be outdone are the GRAMMYs themselves. Aside from live tweeting the nominees, they also brought in reactions and retweets from followers and GRAMMY nominees and had Twitter lists for nominees, performers, and “community bloggers”, which included tweets from ten of the web’s top music bloggers. Their Facebook page includes videos and behind-the-scenes photos from the nomination concert. The Academy has also launched “WE’RE ALL FANS”, a site with user-generated content that loads in tweets, YouTube videos, and Flickr photos submitted to the site. This content will also become part of the GRAMMYs ad campaign and will be featured on the night of the event.

Click here for a full list of this year’s GRAMMY nominees. Check out the GRAMMYs Sunday, January 31 at 8pm EST on CBS.

Musical icon Michael Jackson is still topping the charts from beyond the grave. It’s not the music charts though — this time, it’s the Internet. In Google’s annual Zeitgeist report, the King of Pop came out #1 in the fastest rising search terms globally for 2009. Google’s not the only website where Jackson led the pack — Internet search giants Microsoft (with Bing) and Yahoo both reported Michael Jackson as their #1 search terms of the year in their respective reports:

Top Bing Searches in 2009
Yahoo’s Top 10 Searches

Jackson also came out on top for Yahoo’s top 10 celebrity farewell searches.

On another note Comedian and Philanthropist Bill Cosby also made waves recently with a push into social media in October 2009 to promote his new album, “Bill Cosby Presents the Cosnarati: State of Emergency”, which featured rappers Super Nova Slom and Jace the Great.

Cosby’s virtual town hall/album release party generated 1.3 million views for him on Ustream, placing behind only President Obama’s inaugural address. Cosby also has over 28,000 fans on Facebook and over 700,000 followers on Twitter. Cosby also partnered with online music giant Amazon for a special $1.99 download of his album; as a result, it peaked at No. 7 among all of Amazon’s MP3 downloads sold.

Rapper 50 Cent is suing the popular website WorldStarHipHop.com for using his image/likeness without his permission.  Basically, the website used the rapper’s photo on its home page…like a banner.  50 cent claims the site’s use of his image resulted in increased traffic for the site and the public perception that 50 cent was affiliated with site due to his image prominently placed on WorldStarHipHop.com’s home page.

Do blogs, websites, or online magazines have to get permission to use every celebrity’s image or likeness before posting images of that celebrity?  Well it depends on for what purpose the site uses the celebrity’s image.

The use of one’s image or likeness is covered under the Right to Publicity law.  This law drives from the Right to Privacy.  There are four basic Rights to Privacy:

1. Protection from unreasonable intrusion upon the seclusion of another. For example a home or a car,

2. Protection from appropriation of a person’s name or likeness (Right to Publicity). For example using a person’s name or image on a product or service without their permission,

3. Protection from publication of private facts. For example, income tax data, family quarrels, medical treatment, school records, etc.,

4. Protection from publication of information that places a person in a false light.
Prosser, Restatement 2nd of Torts.

The Right to Publicity is triggered where commercial speech is involved, i.e, when a company has used a celebrity’s “name, likeness, or voice” in connection with a product, thereby creating a false and misleading impression that the celebrity is endorsing the product. See, e.g., Eastwood v. Super. Ct., 149 Cal. App. 3d 409, 417 (1983).

In 50 cent case, he claims WorldStarHipHop.com used his image like a banner ad, therefore created the false impression that he was affiliated with the site.  The use of his image resulted in increased traffic to the site and therefore increased ad dollars. If 50 cents claims are proven to be true, WorldStarHipHop.com will have to compensate 50 cents for using his image to endorse their product, i.e., their website.

But there are instances when a website can use a celebrity’s image without their permission.  Under the First Amendment exception to the Right of Publicity rule, if the image is used in connection with reporting a newsworthy article that is a matter of public interest, then the site does not have to get the celebrity’s permission to use their image or likeness.  Gionfriddo v. Major League Baseball, 94 Cal. App. 4th 400, 409 (2001); see also Perfect 10, Inc. v. Cybernet Ventures, Inc., 213 F.Supp.2d 1146, 1182-83 (C.D. Cal. 2002).

For example, when a gossip blog reports breaking news that X celebrity was in an altercation or was caught drinking and driving, use of the celebrity’s image without their permission is permissible.  However, if a gossip blog simply has images of celebrities on its site as a banner or as part of the site’s graphics, use of the celebrity’s image is not permissible without first obtaining the permission of the celebrity.  In this instance, the site is using the celebrity’s image to promote their blog or site.

Bloggers and websites that report on celebrity news should take note and be very careful when using celebrity images.  If the use of the celebrity’s image is not associated with breaking news or “newsworthy”, ALWAYS get permission.

Kansas City Chief Star Running Back Larry Johnson has landed himself in hot water after making an anti-gay comments on his Twitter account. The incident ,which occurred during an exchange with one of his Twitter followers, was exacerbated after Johnson used the same anti-gay slur to  brush off reporters a day later. The comments were  recorder by the Kansas City Start, and later released to the public. Johnson, who’s no stranger to controversy, prior to this incident used Twitter to call into question his coach Todd Haley’s football credentials. Johnson, who has not been offically suspended, has been barred from practicing with the team or participating in team activities until the matter was resolved.

Johnson joins a growing list of athletes who have been reprimanded for statements made on Twitter. This list includes San Diego Chargers’ Cornerback Antonio Cromartie, who’s  infamous tweet about the the “nasty” team food cost him $2500 in fines. Basketball Forward, Charlie Villanueva who’s tweet from the locker room during halftime of a critical game, banned tweeting during NBA games, and New York Jets receiver David Clowney, who was benched after his Twitter message riled up his coach. And who can forget Celtics Guard Stephon Marbury’s social media escapades using Twitter and Justin.tv.

Many YouTube stars have websites of their own where they can direct their audience for more information, merchandise, and much more. With the viral success of radio personality Ed Lover’s “C’mon Son!” video series, (the series reached over half a million viewers in under two months), it seemed that the next step for the video blogger would be his own website.

That step was interrupted when an online opportunist bought the CmonSon.com domain in hopes of selling it to Lover or the highest bidder on Ebay. The owner of CmonSon.com states, “Ed is a wildly popular NYC radio show host and his mention of this site is certain to draw traffic for quite some time. If you know anything about internet marketing then you know that obtaining traffic is the hardest part.”

In Lovers latest “C’mon Son!” video blog he responds to the domain owner by bragging about his CmonSonOnline.com site that is parked but has not yet been updated.

CmonSon.com has generated some interest as the site’s hit counter reads 7,949 visits to date. There is no official launch scheduled for CmonSonOnline.com but this can be a lesson to all: If you have an idea, purchase the domain. It’s certainly better to be safe than sorry.