Quang Ly at BET Urbanworld film screening for Lo

This is the second part in my blog on dealing with my CyberSquatted name and why it’s so important to own your own domain name – especially if you’re an artist or involved with new media.

Why Should I Care About Obtaining www.quangly.com?
The reason is simple. I want to protect my brand and identity. Some security experts state that it is not a good idea to obtain a domain name with your first and last name in it since you’re publicizing some parts of your identity. My feeling on this is your name is public anyway. What’s important is the information in your WhoIs lookup which can indicate your real email, address, and phone number. WhoIs lists who the domain name belongs to, managed by, and contact information. When you register a domain name, you are asked to provide this information. If the domain is for a company, then the information should be public. However, if the domain is personal, then I highly suggest you protect it.

Branding: A simple concept, but very elusive to truly grasp.
The history of my music project is related to this story. I decided on my music project name Delta Dreams back when I was 16 years old. I felt strongly of the name as it was indicative of my musical vision. I collaborated with other singers (mostly female) and musicians at the time since I wasn’t a great singer nor could play all the instruments.  However, over the years, I did learn how to sing, play guitar, drums, and became more experienced with writing songs and production. I’ve always enjoyed collaborating with wonderful talent. However, I always found that they lacked the hunger to push and promote the music.  So I continued with Delta Dreams completely solo for several more years while releasing Before My Eyes and Selected Music for Films Vol1. Does a project name for a solo artist suitable? I think the answer really depends how far you want to take your art or passion and how much you plan on promoting.

Quang Ly Performing

In my case, I unexpectedly caught the acting the bug. The problem again now comes with promoting two different names: Delta Dreams and Quang Ly. A film that I work on cannot be credited as staring Delta Dreams. It just doesn’t make sense! I also had a hard time explaining to people all the things that I do and passionate about.  The problem that I had was that I lacked synergy! To be honest, I did not exactly know why I was so driven to obtain my domain. I just had a really strong gut feeling to do so. Once I did receive my name, I felt such strong creative energy flowing again.  I also didn’t expect to enjoy blogging that much! And of course, I understood the power of branding as a result rather than a cause!

Branding Is Synergy
Synergy is defined as “The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.” To promote myself as the Quang Ly brand, I can bring the film world to discover my music and the music world to discover my film projects. I can also introduce both sides to my hobby in photography. (I just bought the Nikon D90 DSLR camera and love it). Furthermore, I can also gather my different worlds together to promote social change such as charity that I’m involved in, politics, economics, or life in general. Not that I am an expert in any of those topics. But I would like to have the potential to do so in the future without being limited by a brand name.

The Anti-Brand
Here comes the challenge. There is the brand and then there is the anti-brand. Some names cannot simply cross over to other ventures because they have conflicting values. Here are some examples

• NIKE and CONVERSE: Most people don’t realize this but Converse was bought Nike in 2003 for $305 million.  There are a lot of vegans, vegetarians, and hipsters who despise Nike because of their use of leather and rumored (a-hem) sweatshops. Nike exploits this ignorance by not confusing their customer’s values. By the way, Adidas owns Reebok.
• KRAFT and ALTRIA (Phillip Morris): Kraft makes Oreos, Tang, cheese and other food products. It is actually owned by Atria (formerly name as Phillip Morris). Phillip Morris makes cigarrette brands like Marlboro, Parliament, and Virginia Slims. How do you think a mother would feel if she knew the cheese on her daughter’s sandwich was owned by a cigarratte company?

The Quang Ly Brand
I admit I only understood this concept of Branding and Anti-Branding once I got quangly.com.  For me, quangly.com is really the ultimate platform and umbrella for all my passion, hobbies, and thoughts. It encompasses my YouTube channels, music on iTunes and Amazon MP3, Twitter, and the blog itself. Technology is changing so fast and difficult for people to keep up with. A good friend, David Abraham (who manages YouTube R&B Artist Redd Stylez) told me if you have a strong brand, you will supercede the changing of technology. People will find you. This is what I’m hoping to happen in the long term. Nothing happens over night. Furthermore, if you are an artist in the new media, it is important to have an official site to disperse authorized news and engagements.

Delta Dreams Cover Song for Snow Patrol Run Video

This is Not Original
Branding a persona is not an original concept especially in the entertainment world. Examples include Will Smith and Jamie Foxx. Both are actors as well as artists.  They can leverage their passion in art and have it cross over to over mediums. Will Smith and his wife Jada Pincket Smith recently opened up a children’s school. I think this is a fabulous example of using branding for the greater good. Let’s not of course forget the amazing grace of Oprah! Donald Trump himself isn’t so much a  real estate mogul as much as he is a brand. Companies license the use of his name to put on their buildings, clothes, water, etc for a huge fee! Of course, all these people with strong brands do not have to reinvent the promotion wheel because all their ventures have synergy.

What I do find is that artists in the independent world have yet to understand this or perhaps I haven’t yet discovered enough of them. Maybe branding is not for them. Or maybe it’s a simple concept but very elusive to truly grasp.

Thank you for reading!
If you made it this far reading, I want to thank you. I tried to make it as brief as possible and it’s a bit of a read.

Quang Ly

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I was driving home one afternoon when I got the call from one of my casting directors that I was going to be in the Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler new psychological action thriller Law Abiding Citizen shot in Philadelphia. I was so excited that I had to pull over.

My scene was the first day shooting in late January. It was so a freaking cold windy day at 15 degrees Fahrenheit. My long johns did not help either. It took the whole day to setup the cranes, cameras, and lighting equipment. Jamie Foxx had to walk out of City Hall and into a police car. That was pretty much it.

SYNOPSIS
Jamie Foxx plays a District Attorney who accepts a plea agreement with a murderer that slips through the legal system.  300 star Gerard Butler plays the vigilante out to seek revenge for his wife and daughter as well as the DA. However, Foxx’s character also has his own personal career agenda.

Law Abiding Citizen is directed by F. Gary Grey who did the excellent Italian Job. It was written by Kurt Wimmer, a Hollywood veteran known primarily for his journeyman script work (Sphere, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Recruit) but beloved by cult audiences for his underrated Christian Bale sci-fi flick Equilibrium. He also wrote and directed Ultraviolet. Wimmer has also been long-rumored to be the director of an upcoming film based on the hit video game Metal Gear Solid. I remember playing Metal Gear on the old Nintendo 16 bit.

Frank Darabont was initially set to direct Law Abiding Citizen but has stepped out for unknown reasons. He is a three-time Oscar nominee for such film classics as The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and the horror flick The Mist. Darabont has also been busy recently developing an updated film version of the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451, which was going to star Tom Hanks until he dropped out earlier this year.

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I was cast as a business man in the comedy/drama Saddle Up with Dick Wrangler & Injun Joe. Mickey Rooney has a cameo in the movie. It is an independent Ultra Low SAG film shot in Philadelphia. My scene involved  sitting on stage at an award ceremony in which the two lead characters were guests trying to sell a Sexual Enhancement drug for a pharmaceutical company.  I was on stage with 10 old white men. Yeah, I fitted in perfectly. We had to laugh on cue and then look at the blue screens in which they will overlay in post production.

SYNOPSIS
A has been Cowboy and Indian television duo struggle to make ends meet.

CAST

I purchased my domain name quangly.com back in June of 2008 and it was quite an ordeal.  Here’s the story.

Part 1 - Cybersquatted
I have been wanting quangly.com for the past 15 years and every now and then I would check it to see if it was available. It was due to expire April 15, 2008 at midnight. That night a few minutes after it was available, I went to purchase it right away. But it turns out, a bot already took it immediately. I was sooooooo pissed! These bots look up in domain directories like Network Solutions to see what are popular queried domain names for purchase and availability through Search and WhoIs.

The next day, I receive an email from Ken Palm <ken@lbcdomaininsight.com> (obviously a fake name) offering to sell my name back to me.  He was able to look me up and find my email address because I left a digital foot print when searching for quangly.com but end up buying a different domain name like quanglyxxxx.com. The offer was a ridiculous $750 for my own name that they snatched up. I then Googled Ken Palm and found a bunch of other people going through the same issue and how they were able to get their domain back. A week later I received another email from Ken but now the offer was $450. This kept going on for a few weeks until Mr. Palm finally said to give him my best offer. Keep in mind that the phone numbers listed were unavailable. The transactions would have to be done on an unauthorized website.

Through out this ordeal, I had one goal in mind which is to get my domain. After all, it is my full name. At one point, I was going to hire a lawyer to find out who runs these controversial and possibly illegal automated domain name systems.

My domain finally went into what appears to be a legitimate auction. I Googled the auction on other sites and it appeared that other people were able to obtain their domain names. So I put in a bid of $75. A few weeks later, I received an email from SnapNames (where it was auctioned) stating “Congratulations, you have acquired quangly.com‏”. I said take that Ken Palm!

But wait, was Ken Palm actually doing me a favor?
I spoke to a representative of Network Solutions and he mentioned that the company used to deal with these auction houses but had a falling out. Network Solutions was also sued several times for similar types of operations so they outsourced it to other companies. Google Network Solutions lawsuits and you’ll see what I mean. According to the rep, these automated domain auctions actually prevent cybersquatting by keeping it out of the hands of hackers that snatch up domains without ever planning to use them. By putting it into an auction, the person who wins is usually the person it should really belong to. This begs the question, what if you should really own the domain name but can’t afford the price of the auction? I would recommend you contact a lawyer at this point because you would be SOL. Yeah, this whole domain name business is shady.

Director Rensil D'Silva

I was an extra on Rensil D’Silva’s new debute feature for Dharma Productions. It was a cold and long day shoot on Rensil D’Silva’s film as of yet still Untitled. It stars Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Vivek Oberoi. I can’t say much about the plot only that it’s a thriller.

The call was at 9am and we wrapped up at 4:30. The shot was on Arch Street in Philadelphia, PA between 4th and 6th streets. It had a lot of FBI cars running down the street. We also shot at different angle with a giant crane. The weather was crazy cold at 15 Fahrenheit and very windy.

Rensil D’Silva is best known for his  startling historically-challenged screenplay of Rang De Basant. Some of the other films that are in production at Dharma Productions currently are Wake Up Sid, Koochie Koochie Hota Hain and My Name is Khan.

During a break, I had a fortunate chance to speak with Rensil for a bit and I must say he is the nicest director I’ve worked with to date.

The expected release date is Fall 2009.