Royal Dutch Shell, the number one company on Fortune’s Global 500 list, is threatening legal action against the Greenpeace network of environmental activists as the company forges ahead with plans to begin drilling for an estimated 90 billion barrels of Arctic oil in the next two decades.

Greenpeace, which is seeking to make the Arctic a global sanctuary from commercial and environmental exploitation, tweeted today, “As 1 million of you have signed up to #SavetheArctic, Shell threatens Greenpeace with legal action. http://act.gp/NGhcEg.”Continue reading...

It's interesting to see the different ways that artists handle copyright infringement and illegal downloads of their music.

Metallica sued Napster over people "sharing" their music, a band who is clearly against piracy. Radiohead pioneered a "pay what you want" deal to download an entire album in 2007, and tweaked that with its latest release. Music labels and artists, meanwhile, are constantly swatting down YouTube videos on copyright issues, while file-sharing sites are constantly being shut down as new ones pop up.

One band who not only doesn't mind the copyright issue on YouTube, but actually rewards fans for it, is blink-182.  On August 2nd they released their first single ("Up All Night") in eight years, and the video (above) has already had more 200,000 views. The catch? The video is comprised of footage uploaded onto YouTube by fans, whose amateurs videos illegally used ... blink-182's music. Why did they do it?Continue reading...

• Anne may Hathaway with acting, but could the agent who told the Oscars co-host the above skit is funny please take it back before Sunday?

• Viral experiment of the week? @wkwardprice lets "advertisers catch the attention of the public by paying crazy money for common and worthless items sold on Ebay." Uh, no thanks.Continue reading...

It seems difficult to believe that a public service ad in the fight against obesity equating feeding your children fast food with giving them heroin could be outdone in just a week. But let's hear it for the 10:10 campaign, which has created an ad where those who don't comply with a drive to reduce carbon emissions are blown into bloody pieces (above).

Up next, a literacy council commercial depicting those not interested in reading books flailing around, skin melting off, in a fire of burning books.

Granted, the campaign (wonderfully, er, executed by Four Weddings and a Funeral director Richard Curtis) is already bringing a lot of attention to the 10:10 cause. The attention might not even be that negative within younger demographics accustomed to extreme violence in everything they see (maybe itself its own cause in need of an ad).Continue reading...

Pearl Jam signed up with Target. So did Christina Aguilera. U2 and BlackBerry have a closer relationship than Bono and sunglasses. Selling out is the modern rebellious act for rock and pop stars. And it pays well. Very well.

Recording artists are tossing aside rock 'n' roll taboos, and aligning with corporate sponsors such as Bacardi and retail distributors like Wal-Mart. Struggling record labels can’t compete with the allure of mega-brands and retailers dangling behemoth amounts of money and exposure. According to Bloomberg, “Record labels have cut marketing budgets as they contend with dwindling revenue from CD sales and piracy rates as high as 95 percent for downloaded music.”Continue reading...