Carlo Oddo protests his company’s poor reputation in a post to MI2N this morning (which is odd, since Carlo is writing a letter and MI2N is a press release wire). I can buy the idea that an overzealous salesperson overcommitted to prospects when putting this recent tour together. Same thing has happened to me, and it sucks. But what Carlo MUST do right now is point to some very specific bands who are willing to stand up and say “I got here EXCLUSIVELY because of the work I did with Talent 2K.” If Carlo can’t do that, he can’t hope to win back the trust of working musicians, most of whom right now would be plenty happy to see him dragged past a PETA/Greenpeace convention, chained to the bumper of an SUV with a banner reading “I kill innocent bunnies.” For lack of a better image.
Talent 2K: Back In Action?
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23 responses
Funny how Carlo bitches about something like this. Two years ago, he put up http://geocities.com/songsharks/ which does the same thing to my company. In fact, directly asks people to call sponsors and get in touch with bands we’re showcasing.
What goes around comes around, I guess.
That’s classic. The rotating picture of your head really sells it!
What’s funny is that he’s targeting you in retaliation for the REAL Song Shark Website at http://www.geocities.com/songshark/ (notice, NO ‘s’), the editor of which has posted here a number of times.
Contact http://www.bettyneals.com or http://www.reflectiveinsight.com talent 2k got them both signed. Also the reason they website was built was to fight back against David Hoopers songshark. Also David is a direct competitor.
David own’s all the companies below ask him for one refrence to any of his businesses. He wontget back to you. David so stop talking shit on Talent 2K and get your own under contraol, give me one name of an artist that made 100 grand buying your book or one signed from 2nmc
Here is a list of his companies.
http://www.kathoderaymusic.com/indiebiz/david_hooper/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1930575165/ref%3Dpd%5Fsl%5Faw%5Falx-jeb-9-1%5Fbook%5F4690090%5F1/104-0293892-5270308
http://www.kathoderaymusic.com/indiebiz/
http://www.kathoderaymusic.com/tipsheet/index_f.html
Author Topic: Songshark Database – check it out
David Hooper – IndieBiz.com
Junior Member
Member # 2078
posted May 05, 2003 07:19 PM
http://www.geocities.com/songshark has some great info you guys should check out. It has some good stuff to watch out for.
KR TIP SHEET – Film/TV Music Placement and more…
http://www.krtipsheet.com/
Posts: 7 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: May 2003 |
Obviously David does not like Talent 2K cause he is a direct competitor. He is the one that makes the hate stes but also owns all the competition.
Please email this guy.http://www.artistpro.com/
David stole one of his books and reproduced it as his own title. David did lose the lawsuit.
Oh, boy. At the risk of feeding a troll…
“Jeff,”
Let’s put aside for a second that you’re using a fake e-mail address and forging the name of a respected business writer.
David posts comments here regularly under his real name. Carlo or anyone else is more than welcome to do that, too. I would encourage him to do so, because there are a lot of folks who really want to believe he can help them.
Of the two artist websites you posted, one doesn’t even mention having an album, and the other is signed to Deftone Records, which is a label owned by Talent2K. If David or I or anyone wanted to charge people a few grand to listen to their material and then sign them to our own vanity label, that’d be an easy but cruel business to run.
David’s business does not compete with Talent2K — the services are actually 100% different. David works with artists who want to empower themselves — it’s up to the artists to use the techniques to make things happen. Carlo’s in trouble mainly because he’s overpromising and underdelivering.
David owns the songshark.com domain, which merely points to a Rolling Stone archive page. Nothing that he made up — it’s all on the public record. John Foxworthy has been covering the *real* songshark Geocities site, and we published his findings here:
https://spinme.com/2003/10/guest_editorial.html
Seems like we have about 10-11 artists commenting how they got ripped off. What would you say to them?
And yes, David did inadvertently include some intellectual property from ArtistPro in an info-product, which he promptly removed from the market as soon as he discovered it. It sucks that they decided to sue first and ask questions later, but it did get resolved in a professional manner. David’s been more than open about acknowledging that on his own site.
If Carlo would like to respond to any of these allegations, he’s more than free to do so. I would love to run the other side of the story. He can simply post a comment here, or call my office at 877-654-0409 and we can record an interview. Until then, I can only believe the word of colleagues I’ve known for years over the postings of someone who’s hiding behind fake contact details.
I’d like to add that the bogus tours were not bashed on ANY web sites. In fact, I was emailed by a couple of hundred folks alerting me and asking me to look into them, which I did.
The first tour contained a list of venues and I called every one of them. They reported never having heard of 97 Radio. So I replied to the bands with that information. Then there was a second tour with all new venues … I called them and ended up with the same result. Again I replied to the bands. The third version of the tour was to be held on several beaches … where there were no permits taken out for these events and once again, that’s what I told the bands.
Now for Oddo to claim that an overzealous independent salesperson screwed up is completely ludicrous. The representatives approaching the bands were people who’d been working at 97 Radio under assumed names for at least a year.
As far as the Geocities web site … It was but a small portion of my investigation, rather it gave me direction in my investigation. I think I’m more likely to believe the nearly 7MB of email I have received over the last year.
And as far as the bands Jeff refers to … I have to agree with Joe, that one being signed to Deftone doesn’t count. I mean … come on! To me there is something VERY shady about having your own label come in and make an offer. And I don’t have anyone who’s paid Deftone Records that can say they got ANYTHING for their money.
Back to the tour it is my belief that it was never supposed to happen. Over 70 bands told me the same story … they were to participate with 6 other bands. So, if there were only supposed to be 7 bands on this, then why do I have 70+ victims on my list? I also wonder why, if the tour was cancelled for whatever reason, the money wasn’t returned immediately … instead credit card claims were denied because 97 Radio said they’d provided the services or that the artists had signed promotional contracts that were still active. Sounds pretty illegitimate to me.
If all this doesn’t point to a scam, then I don’t know what does.
Thanx,
John Foxworthy
http://www.laaww.org
You know I thought Mr.Carlo and Talent 2k was a good choice,even after the bad press they were getting and everything.But as God says DON’T PUT YOUR TRUST IN MAN BECAUSE HE WILL LET YOU DOWN!Sure enough that what happen,I didn’t neglect in our contract agreement, but I got a letter threatening to sue me for speaking the truth.Because they reneg on the contract. As God say what you do in the dark will soon come to light,Talent 2k back in action?Why?Have enough inocent artist like myself been hurt enough by scam so-called talent managers who wants to take and not truly give what the artist needs.Remind me of the guy in the movie Phonebooth, just wanted to take,I really thought Talent 2k was on the up and up but you know God show me what they were truly about so if they want to try to sue me for telling the truth go ahead but I hope they ask themselves who rob who.
Is this what you really believe happened? That he was sued first before being asked to remove the property? Does it make sense that somebody would file a federal lawsuit and spend thousands to do so without having ever directed a cease and desist first, and more than once? Hooper didn’t “discover” this property, and he did not “inadvertently” include anything. He did it on purpose because he was wrong about copyright laws and thought he had a right to use something he did not. Then he lied about where he got the library of agreements, waited weeks to take things down, and never gave a way to verify that the info was removed from a private area when asked to do so. I sure hate finding these half-truths from the guy all over the web. Hooper would do himself a world of good if he’d just come clean and stop trying to justify what he did, which was steal from an author, call the work his own, lie about where he got the content from and then when he was caught and sued, he still wants to spin this into a poor picked on David story. Oy vey.
“And yes, David did inadvertently include some intellectual property from ArtistPro in an info-product, which he promptly removed from the market as soon as he discovered it. It sucks that they decided to sue first and ask questions later, but it did get resolved in a professional manner. David’s been more than open about acknowledging that on his own site.”
Well, let’s see, “Mike.” I’ve worked with David personally over the past five years, watched the results he gets for his clients, and been a part of his live events that have actually helped musicians achieve their goals.
As a friend, he helped keep my family’s business running and my family afloat when a severe illness threatened to shut us down.
Not quite fitting the profile of someone that makes a living through theft. But, should I believe David?
Or should I believe you, who leaves no URL where I can learn more about you or your work, and who posts from an IP address at bar/hotel that happens to be SIX MINUTES from the headquarters of Jetspeed Records?
Check the map if you don’t believe me:
http://url123.com/s333n
Thanks for dropping by, Mike. We can always use the extra page views.
P.S.: Ask the guys at YouTube about folks that sue first and send C&D’s later. Or the guy that runs BlogNYC. A lot more common than you think.
Not sure what to say to all that, Joe. I was indeed posting from the Sunset Marquis in Hollywood where I was staying that week when I was down there for meetings, but I’ve not a clue about Jetspeed Records, who they are or why that’s relevant.
Never claimed David made a living through theft. That’s putting words in my mouth. I know what happened with him and my author’s work. I know that I asked him to remove this library via email and on the phone at least three different times before it came off one of the sites as an eBook for sale, which my author purchased and sent to us with a demand to defend his copyright.
He also had the library of documents on another site as a member benefit, which you could only access via paid subscription. He claimed they were gone from there, but offered no way to verify it to us. He continued to tout them as an enticement to pay to access the site for weeks after this started, before the suit was filed, even after he claimed they were removed. If he took them down, why was he still advertising them as a reason to pay him for access to the site for weeks following that, right up until the suit was filed?
I was not about to pay him another subscription fee to find out if he took if down off the the pay-to-access site or not and he offered not access for us to see it, nor an explanation as to why he was still advertising them.
I not only sent C&D’s, but I spoke to him on the phone more than once where he lied to me directly, claiming that he personally assembled the collection of documents from school, friends and working the business. He just happened to have assembled the exact collection from all of those sources, with the exact errors in the them. He vigorously argued we had no right to copyright them. Then he affixed his own copyright to the eBook version and to the website where he sold access to them. This is the truth. We were not such a huge company, though we were successful, that we would waste time and money pursuing this if the author didn’t require us to defend it and if we were not in the right.
He was amazingly argumentative about all of this, at first claiming they were not ours, then when I point blank asked where he got the collection from he said, and I quote, “I don’t know where I got them from.” I said, “David, if you don’t know where you got them from, what made you think you could sell them and put your company’s name on them as publisher and affix a copyright?”
I couldn’t believe this. Here’s a guy claiming at first he gathered them himself from school, friends, from “Archie” online and UseNet, then claiming he didn’t know where they came from, then claiming we didn’t have the right to copyright them, the affixing his own copyright to them. On top of that, in an email he actually said, “I can make more money for you as a writer than from you suing me.”
Oy vey.
Noticeably absent from all of this was an absolute lack of contrition that continues to this day. He spun this as “big bad company picking on me” and we had all kinds of folks thinking we were the bad guy. We weren’t the bad guy here. We didn’t do anything wrong.
When my author and other friends point out that he is talking smack about this whole ordeal in public years after it happened and I allowed him to settle, it amazes me. Yeah, I probably should say nothing, but frankly it pisses me off after I let him off the hook back then.
I respect that he is your friend and you want to defend him, I just wish he would not “use this in his promo materials” as he has said he does, and would just fess up that he made a mistake and do it like a man. This one error in judgment on his part shouldn’t mark him the rest of his life and shouldn’t negate any good thing he has done for you or your family or anyone else, but when the subject comes up, he needs to do the right thing and just say, “I made a mistake, I’m sorry” and not throw out nasties and excuses. It would go a long way with people looking to work with him to simply be a man about it. A simple act of contrition would find me never saying another word about it again, too.
You’re welcome for the page views. Best of luck to you. – ml
Mike,
Thanks for taking the time to come by and provide your perspective — and I believe that it’s really you. (The folks pretending to be you in the past don’t write the way you do. For instance, you have a grasp on capitalization.)
In context, we occasionally get folks from a few companies that show up here and post under false names before encouraging their clients to come here and post under false names.
They use the dispute that you and Dave had as their so-called evidence that he shouldn’t be believed when he tries to steer folks clear from shady marketing companies. One of the companies in question happens to be located a few blocks from your hotel, and it was too much of a coincidence to overlook. Hence the extra helping of snark.
I did make a mistake in the way I phrased my comment, which would appear to put words in your mouth. Again, I wanted to make a distinction between claims that false posters tend to make (“David steals content! And eats babies!”) against the facts that we post about song sharks.
Your version of events jibes with what David has told me — that he had a stack of files that he made available for purchase, and that what he thought was in the public domain was actually a copyrighted work. Like other hyper-creative folks I have worked with, I believe David really didn’t know where the material came from — it just kind of amassed on his hard drive — and the process of unamassing it took longer than it should have.
While I don’t think he knowingly tried to steal your author’s work, he and I conversed years ago about how I wished he would have handled it differently. And, to my knowledge, he has not tried to sell or market that product in any way since.
It’s a shame that this is unresolved — the two of you working together could probably help lots more musicians.
At any rate, I sincerely appreciate the time you took to drop by and weigh in. Please let us know when you’ve got new projects in the pipeline!
best,
-jt
Thank you for a civil and rational response, Joe. I had no idea people were anywhere posing as me about all of this, nor did I know a company six blocks from my frequent LA-area haunt were in a tizzy with David. I’m a publisher, Joe. I have made an honest living doing this for 14 years. That contract library was the very first thing I ever published when I was first starting out. I wish things had been handled differently too, and its important to note that I have an obligation with any author or video producer of mine to defend their copyrights when they are apparently infringed. I can sleep well knowing that I am telling the truth, and that I did the right thing. It wasn’t fun, it was a total distraction and I regret it went down that way, but I can sleep over it.
My authors know that I will pay them honestly, pay them on time, go to bat for them with sales and marketing to the best of my ability and work hard for them, always paying them and paying them on time. That’s why I’ve had so many repeat do multiple titles for me over the years. I take my author’s works and their rights seriously. I have to. It’s my obligation and it’s my job.
The irony to all of this is that had David and I not had this kind of run in and bad blood from it develop, he may have been somebody back then who could have been developed into a meaningful author with our imprints and enjoyed distribution with my partners. I am always looking for enthusiastic, honest, hardworking authors who want to help musicians be successful, protect their works, promote their works and record their works. I’m actively signing new authors now for my new development deal with Hal Leonard Corp. The reason MixBooks, ArtistPro and my other lines were successful is that I always tried to put myself in the place of the reader and publish what I wish I could have read when I wanted to be a rock star. That attitude, coupled with honest and hard work for my authors was and still is a recipe for success.
Best of luck to you, Joe. – ml
i was the singer / guitarist of betty neals. talent 2k did not rip us off. i don’t feel liked they accomplished a whole lot for us either. carlo was always pleasant to us and we did have an album on j-bird records directly because he got us in touch with j-bird. betty neals broke up 2 years ago. i play guitar in a band called Blue Far Down presently. i was interviewed by some cat from rolling stone in regards to T2K, but they never published what i said. i also did a sit down interview with Fox News Chicago over T2K, but the stoy never aired.
Talent 2 k is a rip off. they took me in June 2008. here is december 2008 no record label contact, no publishing deals offered, and can’t get in contact with them. I hired an attorney last week. I am suing for the money they bastards took and emotional damages as well. Going to nail the bastards to the wall…….
People like Carlo Oddo’s Talent 2K cant get a real job so he rips people off…Dude is a Loser
Show us your resume Carlo Oddo
Am having a big issue with talent2k I been signed up wth them sents 12/26/08, I havnt got a deal they didnt do my bio or press kit. I dont even know if they even submit my demo. have any took any action. If not how do I?
Can some one help me get my money back. Talent2k is a fucking scam!
Seriously, I cannot believe that this is heating up again after FIVE YEARS. Here's a link to John Foxworthy's guest editorial that started the thread:
https://spinme.com/2003/10/guest-editorial-the-s…
Am having a big issue with talent2k I been signed up wth them sents 12/26/08, I havnt got a deal they didnt do my bio or press kit. I dont even know if they even submit my demo. have any took any action. If not how do I?
Can some one help me get my money back. Talent2k is a fucking scam!
Seriously, I cannot believe that this is heating up again after FIVE YEARS. Here's a link to John Foxworthy's guest editorial that started the thread:
https://spinme.com/2003/10/guest-editorial-the-s…
Carlo Oddo & Carol Mcmillan his puppet started stealing my music way back in 2003 I have the paperwork & music
2 prove it. I have a deep desire to confront these bastards
they owe me & my company more than money. Carlo Im waiting u see u coward.
To any of you looking into Talent2K I would advise you to research them. They are a complete scam. They give you false hope and tug you along making you believe they are working hard to get you a record deal. Take it from me, me and my band spent our hard earned money on these crooks and they produced nothing in return. They are frauds and need to be brought to justice.
CONSUMER BEWARE
-The Truth
I can say I was ripped off by them,I filed a better bussiness claim against Carlos K. Oddo and Hooman Caramain.I got all my money back!