Camel and
Rolling Stone are
coming under fire for
the "Indie Rock Universe" pull-out in the latest 40th-anniversary issue, thanks to the pull-out's tight integration of advertising content and editorial. Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids president Matthew L. Myers called the graffiti-inspired spread "one great big cigarette ad," and he's alleging that the doodly nature of the insert violates a 1998 agreement between tobacco companies and state attorneys general that prohibits the use of cartoons in cigarette ads. Could this be the final nail in the coffin of musicians being used to hawk smokable wares, which reached its peak for me when I went to a Marlboro-sponsored Violent Femmes show that had
catering in the late '90s? I asked the smoker half of the Idolator team for his take on the relationship between Big Tobacco and Little Music in the IM interview after the jump.
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Idolator
Xiu Xiu and Fucked Up are leading the class-action suit against Rolling Stone publisher Wenner Media and RJ Reynolds over that "Indie Rock Universe" pull-out from RS' final 40th-anniversary issue. The suit is alleging "the unauthorized use of artists' names, unauthorized use of artist names for commercial advantage (right of publicity), and unfair business practices." [
So it turns out that indie rock bads, fans, and anti-smoking activists weren't the only ones upset when RJ Reynolds and Rolling Stone published a pull-out advertising supplement last month called "The Indie Rock Universe" that included the names of just about every working band you could comfortably tag "indie rock" in iTunes. "Six U.S. states sued the maker of Camel cigarettes on Tuesday," Reuters reports, with more apparently to follow.
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