Mike D Quotes

If somebody else wanted to do a song for McDonald's, that's up to them. I wouldn't do something like that, but whatever.

Celebrity is hawking make-up, cars, everything; it's shifted.

Some people have a taboo about doing advertising in the States. You know, where they kind of make their bread and butter. But to me, that's crazy.

I would never put my songs in a commercial.

Because we do not sell photographs, we have no royalties on books, posters, postcards.

Well, I think that it is complicated in that the first four albums were all with Universal so they have the rights to that and therefore it is a lot easier for them to do that period.

I'm skeptical of any mission that has advertisers at its centerpiece.

The moment somebody is making money off the recipes, that's when you'll see digital rights management around it.

There are two kinds of artists left: those who endorse Pepsi and those who simply won't.

You wouldn't want to be called a sell-out by selling a product. Selling out was frowned on, whereas now you can major in it at business school.

I have made it a rule for a long time, not to part with the copyright of my drawings, for I have been so copied, my drawings reproduced and sold for advertisements and done in ways I hate.

Patents are basically rights to try and develop a commercial product.

Now, product placement, whichever way you look at it, whether you like it or you think it's disgusting, or whatever, it's what it is.

I want all of my films to belong to me.

Capitalists work hard to produce what consumers want. Artists who work too hard to produce what consumers want are often accused of selling out. Thus, even the languages of capitalism and art conflict: a firm that has 'sold out' has succeeded, but an artist that has 'sold out' has failed.

So many things for me are unfortunate in the commercialization of something that is special. It's like when Led Zeppelin appears in Cadillac commercials. There's something that is taken away from your love of this thing and your connection to it.

You can do whatever you want with my work.

I certainly wouldn't want a song that I'd already written to be used on a commercial. That seems strange.

With Ghost Tunes, you just try to do what's right. And what's right is whatever the copyright owner wants to do with their music, they do it.

I really don't believe in the word 'selling out.'

I'm not the kind of person who is on television and in magazines every five minutes selling clothes or washing machines.

Anyone who knows anything should know you cannot take a master track of a recording and write another song over the top of it. You just can't do that. You can call it a tribute or whatever you want to call it, but it's against the law. That's a problem with some of the younger generation, they don't understand the concept of intellectual property and copyright.

After the first one [Twilight], people started referring to it as a franchise, but a franchise is a Burger King or a Subway. It's not a movie. The people who start to say it are generally the people who are making money off of it. They love it when something becomes a franchise. But, as an actor, I think it's scary.

Commercialism is doing well that which should not be done at all.

Licensing is how indie rock people make a living these days, so whatever about that. But I want good films and good placement for the songs because I want to be exclusive. I don't want to just sign it away because I don't want songs to lose meaning, but I'm also...I don't care [that] Wilco sold songs to Volkswagen. That's great. They probably drive Volkswagens.