JULY 2007
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Mark Vinet website
TRADEMARK - Apple Files a Trademark for Podcasting - the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple’s new trademark which is that of a new symbol filed under application number 77235043. Apple simply describes the mark as “consisting of a stylized person or antenna surrounded by concentric circles/broadcast waves.” Apple’s new symbol is currently being used in context with podcasting and can be viewed at the US Trademark website.
BOOKS - Harry Potter publisher sues over breach - BBC News 19jul07 -- The US publisher of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is taking legal action against two companies for dispatching copies of the book early. Scholastic sued online retailer DeepDiscount.com for breaking the strict embargo of 21 July. In court papers filed in Illinois, the publisher also named its distributor Levy Entertainment for failing to ensure books were not sent out. It said only a tiny fraction of its 12 million copies had been distributed. "The number of copies shipped is around one one-hundredth of one per cent," said Scholastic in a statement. The company added that they had a list of customers who had ordered the book from DeepDiscount.com and were asking them to put it to one side if they have already received it by mistake. A report in The Baltimore Sun newspaper about a customer who had already received his copy prompted Scholastic to take action. Scholastic is seeking unspecified damages from the two companies for "complete and flagrant violation of the agreements that they knew were part of the carefully constructed release of this eagerly awaited book". A spokesman for Infinity Resources, who own DeepDiscount.com, said: "We take the situation very. The US publisher of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is taking legal action against two companies for dispatching copies of the book early. Scholastic sued online retailer DeepDiscount.com for breaking the strict embargo of 21 July. In court papers filed in Illinois, the publisher also named its distributor Levy Entertainment for failing to ensure books were not sent out. It said only a tiny fraction of its 12 million copies had been distributed. "The number of copies shipped is around one one-hundredth of one per cent," said Scholastic in a statement. The company added that they had a list of customers who had ordered the book from DeepDiscount.com and were asking them to put it to one side if they have already received it by mistake. A report in The Baltimore Sun newspaper about a customer who had already received his copy prompted Scholastic to take action. Scholastic is seeking unspecified damages from the two companies for "complete and flagrant violation of the agreements that they knew were part of the carefully constructed release of this eagerly awaited book". A spokesman for Infinity Resources, who own DeepDiscount.com, said: "We take the situation very. On the same day, another copy was being offered for sale on internet auction site eBay by a seller who claimed to have received a copy ahead of the release date. "I don't work for a bookstore and I don't have a magic wand," the seller wrote. "An online store shipped a copy early." Earlier this week, pictures of what appeared to be pages from the new novel were circulating on the internet. Minna Fry, marketing director of the book's UK publisher Bloomsbury said: "There have been so many fake books going up on the internet over the past four to six weeks. We have no reason to believe that these are anything other than fake either." Scholastic issued a subpoena on Monday to California-based social networking site Gaia Online in connection to user-posted material on the book. In a statement, the website said the link had been immediately removed and that the user in question had been banned for 14 days. Scholastic also ordered photo-sharing service Photobucket to remove Potter-related material from its site.
MUSIC - As album sales dwindle, new threat to music - the 'freebie' AP 17jul07 -- It is, to borrow the title of Prince's most acclaimed album, a sign of the times for the music industry. Yesterday, for the first time in the UK, a bona fide rock superstar chose to release his latest album not in the high street record shops, or even online, but as a free giveaway with a Sunday newspaper. At a time when the music industry is already struggling to redefine its market in the face of the seemingly unstoppable demand for digital downloads, the move by veteran US artist Prince raises fresh questions about what value we now place on music. The tactic of giving away an album on the front of a magazine or newspaper - known as a "covermount" - has a pedigree going back to the 1980s when magazines such as Smash Hits would give away "floppy" singles. It has, however, become refined with the arrival of niche rock magazines such as Uncut and Q, and in the newspaper world it forms part of the circulation war which has engulfed the industry. The Prince case is different, however. At issue here is not a classic hits compilation or an assemblage of new bands, but a new release from a major artist which should, by rights, have been on sale in high street shops and supermarkets across the UK. Instead, Prince's label Sony BMG shelved the UK release of the album, Planet Earth, which goes on worldwide sale on 24 July, after the star's representatives used the leeway allowed by his highly customised contract to strike a deal with a newspaper. The decision to give the album away free has deeply angered the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), the trade body for shops who sell music. Paul Quirk, co-chairman of the ERA, said Prince's decision to give away the album "beggared belief". "It's an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career," he said. "It is yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music." High street retailer HMV also initially voiced unhappiness with the move, branding it "absolute nuts". However, it relented and offered the paper for sale in its stores. Prince advances a lofty argument for his UK newspaper deal. In a statement, a spokesman said: "Prince feels that charts are just music industry constructions and have little or no relevance to fans or even artists today. Prince's only aim is to get music direct to those that want to hear it." Prince developed a pathological hatred of record labels in the early 1990s when he claimed Warner, his then label, was dragging its feet in releasing his prolific output. Prince is receiving a fee plus a royalty payment of nearly £500,000 from the newspaper for the rights to give away his new album. The publisher picks up the £750,000 costs of printing and promoting the CD. So Prince is certainly getting paid - and arguably more handsomely than he would have done based on the lacklustre performance of his last release, 3121, which sold just 80,000 copies in the UK. he publicity furore has been helpful to Prince Rogers Nelson, who has drifted into middle age with an increasingly patchy musical output after the high-kicking sequinned stardom of the Purple Rain era. The newspaper tie-in has generated widespread publicity for the 49-year-old star - it is unlikely an ordinary release for a Prince album would otherwise have found its way onto national news bulletins. It has also generated wider awareness of the 21 sold-out live shows he is to perform in London this summer, which will prove a lucrative earner in terms of ticket sales and merchandise. The album will also be given away to fans at the concert. The Prince giveaway has provoked strong feelings in the record industry because the issue chimes with a growing concern that fans expect music to be cheap or free. Artists have also entered the fray. Mike Oldfield protested when the same Sunday paper covermounted his landmark Tubular Bells album in April. In a letter to trade magazine Music Week, the composer said: "To group real music with cheap loan leaflets and the other freebies that fall out of most publications is to devalue it. I have no desire to push my music to someone who has not sought it out." While 60 million CD albums were sold in the UK in the first six months of this year, sales are down 8 per cent on last year. A portion of that is blamed on the illegal downloading of music from the internet via song-swapping sites, but legal online music services such as iTunes are also held to have created a culture in which music fans "cherry-pick" their favourite tracks rather than buying a complete album. A second pressure is sales through supermarkets. Big retailers such as Tesco routinely sell chart releases for just under £9 as they are able to sustain more slender margins by selling large quantities. Stephen Godfrey, director of Rough Trade records, said he believed the involvement of a major star like Prince in yesterday's giveaway would hit these mainstream outlets. He said: "It's not really taking sales away from the music industry, it's taking away from the supermarkets, from the online retailers, from non-specialists. From our point of view, we don't mind established acts doing that so much. I just think that it doesn't do favours for the value of music." John Richardson, of Ripping Records in Edinburgh, has sold records in the city since 1975. He said the real issue with giving away music was the fact that it led to less money to re-invest in new artists and a short-term outlook on the part of labels. "There is no profit being made, not necessarily by retailers like me, but by the actual record companies," Mr Richardson said. "My main concern is that there is no reinvestment. In the 1970s acts would be nurtured, but these days if you're not a fairly immediate hit, you'll just get dropped." So is the newspaper industry about to engage in a fresh covermount row? One rival Sunday paper yesterday sought to stage a classic Fleet Street "spoiler" by proclaiming a "world exclusive amazing free Prince CD" offer on its front page. However, what it was actually giving away was 1,000 copies of the artist's classic 1984 Purple Rain album to readers who entered a phone text competition at 25p an entry. Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, said: "I think the music industry has found a new way of releasing their product with at least getting some return. "People are now used to getting music straight off the internet for nothing, so at least this is something going back to the artist," he said. "I don't think we'll see promotions like this every week though, they'll be used sparingly as in the end there is a limited amount of promotional budget in the newspaper industry. I don't think we're about to see some great bidding war." While the rise of the so-called "iPod generation" has raised a question mark over the survival of CDs, more than 95 per cent of music sold in the UK is still on plastic disc. Complete albums in digital form - generally lower in price than the physical counterpart - are starting to sell slowly, but sales for the first half of this year amounted to only 2.1 million units. By contrast, the market for sales in singles is now almost exclusively digital. The 36.4 million downloads sold in the first half of this year represent a near 50 per cent increase on the same period in 2006, and by June digital formats were accounting for just over 90 per cent of all singles sales in the UK. The marketing of a new album has become all the more critical in a fracturing music market. Publicist Mark Borkowski, who represented Prince in the UK for 18 months, said: "It's a fantastic publicity stunt. The guy is a phenomenon in terms of live performance but has always struggled to sell records in the last 15 years. "Prince knows how to create a spectacle about a launch. From Purple Rain to dropping his name, everything has been an event."
MUSIC & COPYRIGHT - Avril Lavigne responds to plagiarism claims AP 10jul2007 -- When Canucks attack, it isn't pretty. Avril Lavigne, who lately has been the bull's-eye for musicians accusing her of ripping off their lyrics and songs, is fighting back against another Canadian singer, Chantal Kreviazuk. Canada's National Post reported on Kreviazuk's being quoted in a June article in Performing Songwriter magazine that she had sent a song called "Contagious" to Lavigne two years ago and how it then appears on her latest LP, "The Best Damn Thing," without any credit to her. "Let it be crystal clear that I have not ripped anyone off or done anything wrong. I have never had to deal with anything publicly like this and surely never wanted to," Lavigne wrote on her blog. "I do not deserve this negative press and attention. I take pride in the songs that I write and appreciate the opportunities to work with some great writers and musicians." The two artists seemingly made up via e-mail, after Kreviazuk apologized. The two co-wrote some songs on a previous album; none was a hit. That led to Lavigne ending their collaborations, according to the Toronto Star. Lavigne is already under fire for another song on the album, the infectious "Girlfriend" (we admit, we can't get enough of that video). The U.S.-based Rubinoos sued Lavigne, alleging that the song is similar to their 1979 song, "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." Lavigne claims she had never heard their song before. Having heard both tracks, hers is a plausible argument. But it's up to the courts -- or the lawyers -- to have the final say.
BOOKS - Montreal Review of Books Issue No. 24, Fall 2007 -- Call for Titles - The Montreal Review of Books is looking for new publications for our fall/winter issue, which will be on the streets after October 19. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, criticism, comics, children’s books, etc – we’re interested in all kinds of books. To have your Fall 2007 titles considered for review, please send eligible books or galleys to the following address: Montreal Review of Books, c/o Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec 1200 Atwater, Suite 3, Montreal, Quebec, H3Z 1X4. Criteria for eligibility: To be eligible for review, books must be either: Written in English by a Quebec author; or Published in English by a Quebec-based publisher; or Translated into English by a Quebec translator (with priority given to translations of books by Quebec authors); or Have a Quebec illustrator. Deadline To be eligible for the mRb’s spring 2007 issue, books or galleys must be received no later than August 15, 2007. For more information, please contact Margaret or Ian at (514) 932-5633 or aelaq@bellnet.ca.
MUSIC - Music fans pack flagship Sam's for one last shop by toronto.ctv.ca 01jul2007-- Shoppers flocked into Sam the Record Man on Yonge Street Saturday, hoping to strike music gold one more time before the store closed its doors. The company's flagship location, a downtown fixture since it opened in 1961, locked up for the last time at 7 p.m. Sam's was buzzing as music boomed and people searched for last-minute steals, but some couldn't help but hear an ominous whisper of inevitability. "I've never been able to find the music that I look for, that I like, any place else but Sam's," one woman said. Music fans pack flagship Sam's for one last shop "Now I'm real sad because I don't know where I'm going to go to buy it." John Fillion managed the downtown store for 32 years. He said closing up shop is hard because Sam's offered patrons much more than material goods. "We're not here just selling shoes...we're not just here selling fashion -- we're here selling pop culture," Fillion said. "People have listened to music just like they've read books, and they've based their real life philosophy and been influenced by the arts." One customer agreed, saying Sam's was a music lover's oasis in a desert of generic music outlets. "This store is not a store, it's beyond that, it's not like the big chains, for a music fan, it's the Mecca." Sam's fans can take comfort in one thing- even though the business is closing, the neon records that grace the front of the building are going to stay. Earlier this month, city council designated the Sam's signs and façade as a part of Toronto's heritage. Future owners will have to sign on for the prime downtown spot - with the icons on location. Council said enthusiastic public campaigns to save the landmark, including an online petition, played a huge role in city hall's decision. The company's 81-year-old founder, Sam Sniderman, began selling records in 1937. In recent years, the company has had to deal with increased competition from big chains such as HMV, and has lost revenue since Internet downloading began cutting into its business.
____________________________________
his blog is available and distributed for free by the offices of Mark Vinet and Wadem Publishing. Information contained herein should not be relied upon or considered as legal advice. This blog may be forwarded, downloaded or reproduced in whole in any print or electronic format for non-commercial purposes provided that its author is acknowledged and that you cc: mark@markvinet.com
© ™ Mark Vinet & Wadem Publishing
Mark Vinet website
TRADEMARK - Apple Files a Trademark for Podcasting - the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple’s new trademark which is that of a new symbol filed under application number 77235043. Apple simply describes the mark as “consisting of a stylized person or antenna surrounded by concentric circles/broadcast waves.” Apple’s new symbol is currently being used in context with podcasting and can be viewed at the US Trademark website.
BOOKS - Harry Potter publisher sues over breach - BBC News 19jul07 -- The US publisher of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is taking legal action against two companies for dispatching copies of the book early. Scholastic sued online retailer DeepDiscount.com for breaking the strict embargo of 21 July. In court papers filed in Illinois, the publisher also named its distributor Levy Entertainment for failing to ensure books were not sent out. It said only a tiny fraction of its 12 million copies had been distributed. "The number of copies shipped is around one one-hundredth of one per cent," said Scholastic in a statement. The company added that they had a list of customers who had ordered the book from DeepDiscount.com and were asking them to put it to one side if they have already received it by mistake. A report in The Baltimore Sun newspaper about a customer who had already received his copy prompted Scholastic to take action. Scholastic is seeking unspecified damages from the two companies for "complete and flagrant violation of the agreements that they knew were part of the carefully constructed release of this eagerly awaited book". A spokesman for Infinity Resources, who own DeepDiscount.com, said: "We take the situation very. The US publisher of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is taking legal action against two companies for dispatching copies of the book early. Scholastic sued online retailer DeepDiscount.com for breaking the strict embargo of 21 July. In court papers filed in Illinois, the publisher also named its distributor Levy Entertainment for failing to ensure books were not sent out. It said only a tiny fraction of its 12 million copies had been distributed. "The number of copies shipped is around one one-hundredth of one per cent," said Scholastic in a statement. The company added that they had a list of customers who had ordered the book from DeepDiscount.com and were asking them to put it to one side if they have already received it by mistake. A report in The Baltimore Sun newspaper about a customer who had already received his copy prompted Scholastic to take action. Scholastic is seeking unspecified damages from the two companies for "complete and flagrant violation of the agreements that they knew were part of the carefully constructed release of this eagerly awaited book". A spokesman for Infinity Resources, who own DeepDiscount.com, said: "We take the situation very. On the same day, another copy was being offered for sale on internet auction site eBay by a seller who claimed to have received a copy ahead of the release date. "I don't work for a bookstore and I don't have a magic wand," the seller wrote. "An online store shipped a copy early." Earlier this week, pictures of what appeared to be pages from the new novel were circulating on the internet. Minna Fry, marketing director of the book's UK publisher Bloomsbury said: "There have been so many fake books going up on the internet over the past four to six weeks. We have no reason to believe that these are anything other than fake either." Scholastic issued a subpoena on Monday to California-based social networking site Gaia Online in connection to user-posted material on the book. In a statement, the website said the link had been immediately removed and that the user in question had been banned for 14 days. Scholastic also ordered photo-sharing service Photobucket to remove Potter-related material from its site.
MUSIC - As album sales dwindle, new threat to music - the 'freebie' AP 17jul07 -- It is, to borrow the title of Prince's most acclaimed album, a sign of the times for the music industry. Yesterday, for the first time in the UK, a bona fide rock superstar chose to release his latest album not in the high street record shops, or even online, but as a free giveaway with a Sunday newspaper. At a time when the music industry is already struggling to redefine its market in the face of the seemingly unstoppable demand for digital downloads, the move by veteran US artist Prince raises fresh questions about what value we now place on music. The tactic of giving away an album on the front of a magazine or newspaper - known as a "covermount" - has a pedigree going back to the 1980s when magazines such as Smash Hits would give away "floppy" singles. It has, however, become refined with the arrival of niche rock magazines such as Uncut and Q, and in the newspaper world it forms part of the circulation war which has engulfed the industry. The Prince case is different, however. At issue here is not a classic hits compilation or an assemblage of new bands, but a new release from a major artist which should, by rights, have been on sale in high street shops and supermarkets across the UK. Instead, Prince's label Sony BMG shelved the UK release of the album, Planet Earth, which goes on worldwide sale on 24 July, after the star's representatives used the leeway allowed by his highly customised contract to strike a deal with a newspaper. The decision to give the album away free has deeply angered the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), the trade body for shops who sell music. Paul Quirk, co-chairman of the ERA, said Prince's decision to give away the album "beggared belief". "It's an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career," he said. "It is yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music." High street retailer HMV also initially voiced unhappiness with the move, branding it "absolute nuts". However, it relented and offered the paper for sale in its stores. Prince advances a lofty argument for his UK newspaper deal. In a statement, a spokesman said: "Prince feels that charts are just music industry constructions and have little or no relevance to fans or even artists today. Prince's only aim is to get music direct to those that want to hear it." Prince developed a pathological hatred of record labels in the early 1990s when he claimed Warner, his then label, was dragging its feet in releasing his prolific output. Prince is receiving a fee plus a royalty payment of nearly £500,000 from the newspaper for the rights to give away his new album. The publisher picks up the £750,000 costs of printing and promoting the CD. So Prince is certainly getting paid - and arguably more handsomely than he would have done based on the lacklustre performance of his last release, 3121, which sold just 80,000 copies in the UK. he publicity furore has been helpful to Prince Rogers Nelson, who has drifted into middle age with an increasingly patchy musical output after the high-kicking sequinned stardom of the Purple Rain era. The newspaper tie-in has generated widespread publicity for the 49-year-old star - it is unlikely an ordinary release for a Prince album would otherwise have found its way onto national news bulletins. It has also generated wider awareness of the 21 sold-out live shows he is to perform in London this summer, which will prove a lucrative earner in terms of ticket sales and merchandise. The album will also be given away to fans at the concert. The Prince giveaway has provoked strong feelings in the record industry because the issue chimes with a growing concern that fans expect music to be cheap or free. Artists have also entered the fray. Mike Oldfield protested when the same Sunday paper covermounted his landmark Tubular Bells album in April. In a letter to trade magazine Music Week, the composer said: "To group real music with cheap loan leaflets and the other freebies that fall out of most publications is to devalue it. I have no desire to push my music to someone who has not sought it out." While 60 million CD albums were sold in the UK in the first six months of this year, sales are down 8 per cent on last year. A portion of that is blamed on the illegal downloading of music from the internet via song-swapping sites, but legal online music services such as iTunes are also held to have created a culture in which music fans "cherry-pick" their favourite tracks rather than buying a complete album. A second pressure is sales through supermarkets. Big retailers such as Tesco routinely sell chart releases for just under £9 as they are able to sustain more slender margins by selling large quantities. Stephen Godfrey, director of Rough Trade records, said he believed the involvement of a major star like Prince in yesterday's giveaway would hit these mainstream outlets. He said: "It's not really taking sales away from the music industry, it's taking away from the supermarkets, from the online retailers, from non-specialists. From our point of view, we don't mind established acts doing that so much. I just think that it doesn't do favours for the value of music." John Richardson, of Ripping Records in Edinburgh, has sold records in the city since 1975. He said the real issue with giving away music was the fact that it led to less money to re-invest in new artists and a short-term outlook on the part of labels. "There is no profit being made, not necessarily by retailers like me, but by the actual record companies," Mr Richardson said. "My main concern is that there is no reinvestment. In the 1970s acts would be nurtured, but these days if you're not a fairly immediate hit, you'll just get dropped." So is the newspaper industry about to engage in a fresh covermount row? One rival Sunday paper yesterday sought to stage a classic Fleet Street "spoiler" by proclaiming a "world exclusive amazing free Prince CD" offer on its front page. However, what it was actually giving away was 1,000 copies of the artist's classic 1984 Purple Rain album to readers who entered a phone text competition at 25p an entry. Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, said: "I think the music industry has found a new way of releasing their product with at least getting some return. "People are now used to getting music straight off the internet for nothing, so at least this is something going back to the artist," he said. "I don't think we'll see promotions like this every week though, they'll be used sparingly as in the end there is a limited amount of promotional budget in the newspaper industry. I don't think we're about to see some great bidding war." While the rise of the so-called "iPod generation" has raised a question mark over the survival of CDs, more than 95 per cent of music sold in the UK is still on plastic disc. Complete albums in digital form - generally lower in price than the physical counterpart - are starting to sell slowly, but sales for the first half of this year amounted to only 2.1 million units. By contrast, the market for sales in singles is now almost exclusively digital. The 36.4 million downloads sold in the first half of this year represent a near 50 per cent increase on the same period in 2006, and by June digital formats were accounting for just over 90 per cent of all singles sales in the UK. The marketing of a new album has become all the more critical in a fracturing music market. Publicist Mark Borkowski, who represented Prince in the UK for 18 months, said: "It's a fantastic publicity stunt. The guy is a phenomenon in terms of live performance but has always struggled to sell records in the last 15 years. "Prince knows how to create a spectacle about a launch. From Purple Rain to dropping his name, everything has been an event."
MUSIC & COPYRIGHT - Avril Lavigne responds to plagiarism claims AP 10jul2007 -- When Canucks attack, it isn't pretty. Avril Lavigne, who lately has been the bull's-eye for musicians accusing her of ripping off their lyrics and songs, is fighting back against another Canadian singer, Chantal Kreviazuk. Canada's National Post reported on Kreviazuk's being quoted in a June article in Performing Songwriter magazine that she had sent a song called "Contagious" to Lavigne two years ago and how it then appears on her latest LP, "The Best Damn Thing," without any credit to her. "Let it be crystal clear that I have not ripped anyone off or done anything wrong. I have never had to deal with anything publicly like this and surely never wanted to," Lavigne wrote on her blog. "I do not deserve this negative press and attention. I take pride in the songs that I write and appreciate the opportunities to work with some great writers and musicians." The two artists seemingly made up via e-mail, after Kreviazuk apologized. The two co-wrote some songs on a previous album; none was a hit. That led to Lavigne ending their collaborations, according to the Toronto Star. Lavigne is already under fire for another song on the album, the infectious "Girlfriend" (we admit, we can't get enough of that video). The U.S.-based Rubinoos sued Lavigne, alleging that the song is similar to their 1979 song, "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." Lavigne claims she had never heard their song before. Having heard both tracks, hers is a plausible argument. But it's up to the courts -- or the lawyers -- to have the final say.
BOOKS - Montreal Review of Books Issue No. 24, Fall 2007 -- Call for Titles - The Montreal Review of Books is looking for new publications for our fall/winter issue, which will be on the streets after October 19. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, criticism, comics, children’s books, etc – we’re interested in all kinds of books. To have your Fall 2007 titles considered for review, please send eligible books or galleys to the following address: Montreal Review of Books, c/o Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec 1200 Atwater, Suite 3, Montreal, Quebec, H3Z 1X4. Criteria for eligibility: To be eligible for review, books must be either: Written in English by a Quebec author; or Published in English by a Quebec-based publisher; or Translated into English by a Quebec translator (with priority given to translations of books by Quebec authors); or Have a Quebec illustrator. Deadline To be eligible for the mRb’s spring 2007 issue, books or galleys must be received no later than August 15, 2007. For more information, please contact Margaret or Ian at (514) 932-5633 or aelaq@bellnet.ca.
MUSIC - Music fans pack flagship Sam's for one last shop by toronto.ctv.ca 01jul2007-- Shoppers flocked into Sam the Record Man on Yonge Street Saturday, hoping to strike music gold one more time before the store closed its doors. The company's flagship location, a downtown fixture since it opened in 1961, locked up for the last time at 7 p.m. Sam's was buzzing as music boomed and people searched for last-minute steals, but some couldn't help but hear an ominous whisper of inevitability. "I've never been able to find the music that I look for, that I like, any place else but Sam's," one woman said. Music fans pack flagship Sam's for one last shop "Now I'm real sad because I don't know where I'm going to go to buy it." John Fillion managed the downtown store for 32 years. He said closing up shop is hard because Sam's offered patrons much more than material goods. "We're not here just selling shoes...we're not just here selling fashion -- we're here selling pop culture," Fillion said. "People have listened to music just like they've read books, and they've based their real life philosophy and been influenced by the arts." One customer agreed, saying Sam's was a music lover's oasis in a desert of generic music outlets. "This store is not a store, it's beyond that, it's not like the big chains, for a music fan, it's the Mecca." Sam's fans can take comfort in one thing- even though the business is closing, the neon records that grace the front of the building are going to stay. Earlier this month, city council designated the Sam's signs and façade as a part of Toronto's heritage. Future owners will have to sign on for the prime downtown spot - with the icons on location. Council said enthusiastic public campaigns to save the landmark, including an online petition, played a huge role in city hall's decision. The company's 81-year-old founder, Sam Sniderman, began selling records in 1937. In recent years, the company has had to deal with increased competition from big chains such as HMV, and has lost revenue since Internet downloading began cutting into its business.
____________________________________
his blog is available and distributed for free by the offices of Mark Vinet and Wadem Publishing. Information contained herein should not be relied upon or considered as legal advice. This blog may be forwarded, downloaded or reproduced in whole in any print or electronic format for non-commercial purposes provided that its author is acknowledged and that you cc: mark@markvinet.com
© ™ Mark Vinet & Wadem Publishing
