Jason Pierre-Paul, now being likened to Lawrence Taylor, wins NFC Defensive Player of the Week. fb.me/1xQ2byLrZ—
Bob Glauber (@BobGlauber) December 13, 2011

Last season through the work of the SNY.tv digital sales team, Metsblog was presented by Verizon. Verizon had placement in the Metsblog header and a banner ad in the right sidebar that was visible without having to scroll down.

NOTE: Metsblog has since changed design however, Verizon is still the presenting sponsor with placement in the header and right sidebar.

As part of the agreement, Matt had to provide video mailbags during the season and shoot video to be shown in-game for the Mets, from the Verizon studio out in Center Field.

The final part of the agreement was for Matt to send out text messages with Mets and Metsblog news to Verizon customers who signed up on Metsblog. The idea being that as soon as Mets news was to break or important information released, Verizon customers would have an advantage and get the news via text message immediately.

With Metsblog averaging 4 million pageviews per month, hundreds of Mets fans who had Verizon for their cell phone service signed up to receive these Mets related text messages. These messages were going to be sent from Matt and not from some automated service like ESPN and other outlets have.

While the idea was good, it was never fully put into practice. Matt nor Verizon could come up with a service that would let him send out text messages to the hundreds of Verizon customers who signed up. Many different programs and styles were used to send out these mass text messages, but nothing go the job done. As an intern in the digital media department at SNY, I along with Matt spent entire days scouring the entire internet and trying the programs we would come across hoping that we would stumble upon a winner.

This was right about the time that twitter was starting to gain widespread use and get into the public eye. Twitter for most people eliminates the need for these text messages but the market was set by the hundreds that signed up that news and immediacy is what they want.

Overall, this was a great idea for Verizon to work into the deal. Metsblog is known to have news as soon as it breaks and Matt would have given their customers who were Mets fans, an advantage on knowing what the team was up too.

Visit Mashable for the story

Read my thoughts on the day and see the poll at SNYRangersBlog.com

All 20 posts from Deadline day can be found by scrolling through the pages.

Once cover music is played there is always a question of copyright and royalties that could or should be paid to the original artist. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is an association of over 370,000 artists, publishers, etc, that deals with these types of issues. It protects its members by “licensing and distributing royalties for the non-dramatic public performances of their copyrighted works. ASCAP’s licensees encompass all who want to perform copyrighted music publicly. ASCAP makes giving and obtaining permission to perform music simple for both creators and users of music.”

ASCAP charges bars and venues that have live music a yearly licensing fee so that the music of their clients can be played or performed legally. This brings up the case that ASCAP recently put forth against Connolly’s Pub And Restaurant on west 45th street in Manhattan. ASCAP claims that on August 9th, 2008 a band, which was unidentified, played two Bruce Springsteen songs, “Growin Up” and “Because The Night” while also playing “You’re No Good” which was written by Clinton Ballard Jr.

Connolly’s Pub has been accused of not paying their license fee for over two years and that is why the suit is being brought against them. Bruce Springsteen was named as a plaintiff in the case and was portrayed as the one bringing the lawsuit out, however it is indeed ASCAP who brought the suit up. Shortly there after Springsteen demanded that his name be taken off the lawsuit saying:

In regards to the ASCAP lawsuit against Connolly’s Pub and Restaurant, ASCAP was solely responsible for naming Bruce Springsteen as a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Bruce Springsteen had no knowledge of this lawsuit, was not asked if he would participate as a named plaintiff, and would not have agreed to do so if he had been asked. Upon learning of this lawsuit this morning, Bruce Springsteen’s representatives demanded the immediate removal of his name from the lawsuit.

Connolly’s is expected to face upwards of $30,000 in fines for this instead of what would have been a yearly license fee of $2700. The license fees are determined by the capacity of the venue.

ASCAP has a long history of this. In 2005 they sent out thirty lawsuits against bars in 15 different states. In the story Vince Abbatiello, ASCAP’s director of general licensing said that lawsuits are always the last resort for venues to comply:

“Taking legal action is always ASCAP’s last step in a long process of contacting, informing and educating business establishments,” Abbatiello says. “With many of these cases, the process has been going on for over a year, so they have had plenty of time to do the right thing.”

It is a tough call to make on this. It is the law to pay the royalties to the artists who originally produced the material. Connolly’s broke the law by not having the license to play ASCAP or other copyrighted related music. The place needs to be held responsible for that and thus I think that the suit that was brought up is justified. It may seem like a case of rich old men demanding every last penny that is coming to them, but they are signed with ASCAP for this reason, so they can be protected and not have their music wrongfully used. This is just one part of the protection plan that artists get when they sign up with ASCAP. This is the type of situation that could have been a Public Relations disaster for Bruce, especially since he always writes and sings about the working man, people losing their jobs and especially on his most recent tour, hard times. Bruce instead took his name out of the lawsuit but certain people say that wasn’t enough, that he should have spoken out against what was happening. The problem is that this bar went out and broke the law and because they played two Springsteen songs, he was roped into it.

I swear, not all are from me.

Click here to read the story at Mashable