Maurice Ali
Joined: 14 Nov 2003 Posts: 7914 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 4:37 pm Post subject: What Is Fortress Of Freedom All About! |
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What Is Fortress Of Freedom All About!
By Maurice Ali, President and CEO:
Fortress Of Freedom Inc.
IAIJ Inc. (Association)
MORE VISION Inc.
IAIJ Inc. (Archiving)
Maurice Ali
No, I am not some egoist with his head stuck up in the clouds. No I am not some sleazy guy taking advantage of people dangling dreams of stardom that will never happen. I am, in fact, a philosopher/businessman offering a dose of social engineering and a plausible business model for the future of the music industry.
We have here at Fortress, a carefully choreographed group of companies that work together to further human creativity and culture, with the economic and business ability to sustain itself in a world that does not value music and entertainment, except at the highest levels. The collapse of the music industry as a result of internet theft is just one part of a general slide of entertainment as value in itself. These days it is not economically viable for all but the most successful artists to have first rate production of their music made and put out there for mass consumption. In this seeming "black hole" or "dark age" of music production, enter Fortress Of Freedom!
Originally a free speech board and media think tank, Fortress Of Freedom has reinvented itself into a viable business model for creative music/entertainment production in a world where a song is only worth the effort of someone to save a file on their computer or Mp3 player.
Shamless advertising on a mug.
Our answer to this problem in the music industry is to get with the times and work with it. The world is now a totally wired in media connected population. Check out your immediate surroundings right now, people on the phone or listening to iPods or watching DVDs in the car. Much of this media saturation includes advertising. More and more, media distribution without advertising will die as entertainment as value in itself becomes a more exclusive thing. Artists and entertainers who work within the advertising industry, may be able to work their careers as creative artists and sustain themselves as full time artists by having some of their material used by advertisers. You see it already, some musicians actually introduce themselves to the world through a catchy song in a advertisement, for example. More and more, I do not see the corrupting influence of advertising as a song I hear on the radio is just as entertaining as watching it embedded in a hair coloring commercial or a candy advertisement. The songs are made firstly, from all the usual creative influences, then if the artist is lucky, that song may be distributed to the world via advertising - the most effective way to reach an audience!
As president and CEO of the Fortress Group of Companies, it is my goal to show, by demonstration, that a traditional media company can sustain itself and the untampered creative abilities of it's artists, while living off the royalties of traditional music venues and through advertising. MORE VISION Inc. is our advertising company. It is separate from FOF and no artist is compelled in anyway to deal with it. But if a client needs a jingle or composition, our first response would be to our musicians so inclined. This material has true value and one can make very real dollars by connecting to advertisers of all forms. But it does not stop there. FOF artists can also involve themselves in projects such as commercials and TV advertisements, and gain valuable experience in this field and get their face and their abilities into the mass media to help further their careers and sustain themselves financially.
FOF radio advertisement that aired on Toronto's CKLN!
That is the general idea. It is not born of exploitation. It is the necessary reality of an industry that can no longer sustain itself as it used to, and if FOF does not embrace this type of income production, then it too will cease to exist. So that is our business plan at Fortress. All our skills and money spent on equipment get reinvigorated with use through advertising. If our business model succeeds, then we will have proved it through demonstration, the only real way people will buy into an alternate way of doing things in the business world. You can download our songs used in advertisements and email them to anyone anywhere as much as you want as those songs are advertisements, and there are the original songs, yours to enjoy by themselves if you wish to purchase those in full resolution.
But please note, that our commitment to the artist and their expressed usage of their creations is paramount. They are in control of their creations and how it is used. This is a rather new way of looking at the media industry, but it may be one of the few ways for small business in the music and entertainment fields to survive. Time will tell, but almost five years into our business plan, we are holding our own and the companies are gaining value in equity. So we are growing and soon we expect concrete income to sustain on-going projects and help in our expansion into the industry. That is where we stand right now on this day 19 of July, 2008!
FORTRESS OF FREEDOM: BRINGING THE MASS MEDIA TO THE MASSES! |
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