POLL - Artistic Grant to Alizée
 

The poll at the top of this thread is anonymous - please answer honestly!

Honest people pay for copies of Alizée's work. But too many people STEAL that work. To help, Alizée America aspires to award Alizée a no-strings Artistic Grant. And it would be such a nice way to say thanks for the recent gift of the half-hour private session in Paris, video footage of which is all of ours to enjoy forever! We hope the recipients of autographed CDs will be especially generous in pledging. Can't they all pledge at least as much as they were willing to pay for a CD? (One of them recently boasted he would do whatever it takes to support Alizée.) For a discussion of why this initiative has merit, see the post <a href="http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showpost.php?p=162154&postcount=42"><i>Artistic Grant to Alizée proposed</i></a>.

When the music video for <i>Les Collines</i> was released on <i>YouTube</i>, Alizée's channel achieved the status of daily most-watched channel of ANY musician in the WORLD! As I write this, the video exceeds 600,000 views. Oh, if only views were dollars! Or even just dimes. Alas.

A cover letter accompanying the Artistic Grant check might read as follows:
<blockquote>Dear Alizée,

You are the favorite artist of we, the many members of Alizée America.

We despair that we live in an age when the difficultly of enforcing copyright means that artists can no longer receive the full monetary value of their honest labor and genius. We hope that in a small way, we can ameliorate this terrible injustice by helping revive the ancient custom of patronage.

To this end, we award you the enclosed Artistic Grant without condition for your past achievements, to encourage you to continue pursuit of your work with the help of your chosen professional collaborators. We hope that by accepting it, you will encourage us and many other patrons to find new ways to expand the help ordinary people can provide to perpetuate the creation of new art by those few among us who have the gift to do so.

We are very honored to make this small palpable gesture and hope it inspires many others to follow our example.</blockquote>

Well, the easiest way to support her is to buy her music legally, like i always did.

Guess i already invested hundreds of bucks for rare Promos, deluxe editions, singles, you name it.
If she can't make enough out of her regular sales, then no Artistic Grant in the world will save her financials.
Ofc you should seriously consider to actually BUY her stuff and not rip it for free if you call yourself a fan. ;)

When it comes to this as a way of thanking Alizée, I feel sending her straight money is not the best way to go. 'Hey, we love you, here's €1000!' That doesn't seem the best. But I would be willing to donate to it, if we decide that is the plan. But I can't afford more than $13/€10. But as a simple no-strings attached Artistic Grant, it is not a terrible idea. But for a gift, which do YOU prefer: cash, or a gift the person picked out themselves? Think about that before you answer. I prefer an actual gift. But Alizée might not. I don't know her personally.

I am not convinced that this is a good way to thanks her. I will be willing to contribute about 20--30 Euros to a cause supporting her, but this is not the way to do so. I feel sending her money is a bit insulting, especially if you relate this with the special session she held for us. That was an invaluable moment for all of us. You can not thank her for that by sending her money.

As Fenris said, the best way to support her is buy her music legally, attend her concerts and all such ways.

1) With every artist people steal their music, but most buy it thanks to downloaders like iTunes, I mean come on, they have sold 10,000,000,000 songs!!!

2) I think most people won't be able to pay since we are even having trouble donating to the site.

3) We support her by spreading her music around, isn't that good enough?

4) We have already thanked her in many ways, (Scruff and Co. saying thanks, Open Letter to Alizee, many fan letters going out to her, etc.)

Edit:

totally agreed!!!

Few thoughts:

1. Although I voted for 2nd choice, but it would cost me same amount to send it.

2. Why to contribute to her that way, when we can do that by buying albums. I think that helps in much better way for her career as well.

3. Even if we arrange that much money, would she accept it?

4. What if she denies it?

My idea is that we buy her albums more, as Fenris has mentioned.

If anyone has more money, buy more than one copy.

What to do with multiple copies? Use it for various purposes. Do you go to parties? Do you give presents to your relatives and friends, then use her stuffs as gifts.

Ask others to buy her stuffs.

Just think about it. I made few people buy her album here, very few in number, which hardly matters. So, if we all try to convince others to buy her albums instead of giving such grants, won't that would effect her in better way. I'm sure that we will get more support by that then. That would increase her area of influence. If people will have her songs, they would certainly listen to it and would ask about her. They would want to know more.

Sorry doc, I may be wrong with it, but your idea will have a small effect. She would think that ok people can spend money for me, but I don't think she would be much happy with it.

We can spend money in much better way for her.

Totally agree with Merci Alizee.

What about we all collect say 1000$ and buy her CDs worth this amount. These CDs can then be distributed to radio channels, or as doc pointed out in one thread, we can give them to people interested in French culture and language. This might be a very small step, but remember how Mexican fans promoted her in Mexico.

Good idea about buying multiple copies.
Give them away to friends or people you like.

It's no big deal, but you boost sales a little and might get others interested in her music.
And everyone can do this on his own as far as his budget allows it. ;)

Best to attract more American ears first...
 

I think Sumi1 has the best idea yet!

I agree with those who wonder whether she'd accept a handful of cash from us. I suspect that Institubes submitted their proposal for grants because they actually need it more, especially faced with lackluster sales of their products.

So I'm with Sumi - If we pool our money, we should buy tons of discs and get them to American radio stations, music mag writers, and other media channels.

Ideally, if we scraped up enough, we'd hire her to come play at Wolf Trap or (your name here)'s Backyard Party, but that's still a pretty long way off. :(

As an artist, I would feel offended if my fan base felt it was necessary to give me money.

Just buy her albums, her merchandise, attend a concert if possible...