Artists play for free, but take home pricey gifts

Local organisers plan to shower singers with Hugo Boss bags and gifts. More on Live 8

Live 8 performers are playing for free, but local organisers plan to shower the celebrities with a Hugo Boss duffel bag loaded with high-fashion trinkets valued at about $3,000 (euro2,481).

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They'll also be able to add to their goodie bags with big-ticket items including Hugo Boss suits, valued at $800 (euro662) to $1,000 (euro827) each; XM satellite radios and subscriptions, $500 (euro413.5); Gibson guitars, $2,000 (euro1,654); Bertolucci watches, valued between $1,500 (euro1,241) and $6,000 (euro4,962); and other items. In all, a celebrity could walk away with a bag of gifts worth as much as $12,000 (euro9,924).

"We want this to be a thank-you to the celebrities who are giving up their time and energies," said Nicole Cashman, whose firm was tapped by Larry Magid's Electric Factory Concerts to put the bags together.

One ethicist said there is a disconnect in the fact that the rich gifts are being offered at a concert whose aim is bringing attention to poverty in Africa.

"It's not unethical, but it falls into the middle gray zone," Loyola Marymount University business and ethics professor Thomas White told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "Because on one hand the motivation is to help other people, while on the other hand the motivation is to help yourself, and that doesn't seem to go hand in hand."

Another ethics expert said he wonders why the companies who donated the gifts wouldn't just give the money to charity. "There is nothing stopping the businesses from taking a stand, saying, `No, we are going to take this money, and we are going to give it to the charity,"' said Rushworth M. Kidder, president of the Institute for Global Ethics in Camden, Maine.