Slashdot Mirror
Apple and Pepsi Ad Sports RIAA Targets
eefsee writes "USA Today is running a story about Pepsi's Superbowl ad for their iTunes promotion. The ad will apparently feature teens sued by the RIAA, including one young woman who holds out a Pepsi and says, 'We are still going to download music for free off the Internet.' The RIAA response? 'This ad shows how everything has changed.'"
iTunes Music Store only helps the RIAA.
RIAA gets a cut of almost every song sold on iTMS, just like when you buy most CD's.
The ad's line "We're still going to download music for free" is in regards to the iTunes give-away. i.e., those who earn the points/prizes from Pepsi's promotion get to grab a limited number of songs off iTunes for free, with Pepsi footing the bill paying the artists/labels.
Sorry, you're wrong. Copyright law is very clear, I suggest you read up on it.
For example, it is perfectly legal to borrow a CD from a friend, copy it for your own personal use, and then return the CD. However, it is not legal for your friend to copy their CD and then give you the copy.
Bainwol had worked closely with then-National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman Frist during the 2002 campaign cycle while serving as Executive Director of the NRSC.
With an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. from Rice University, Bainwol began his career as a budget analyst in President Ronald Reagan's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). He went on to become a U.S. Senate leadership staff director from 1993-97, chief of staff of the Republican National Committee in 1998, and then a top lobbyist for the management consulting firm Clark and Weinstock in 1999.
During his career, he has managed two successful statewide campaigns and advised on numerous others. Before forming The Bainwol Group in 2002, he also served as chief of staff for U.S. Senator Connie Mack (R-FL) for nine years (1989-1997). Mack praised Bainwol's "ability to manage an organization, fully appreciate all the nuances of issues, and grasp in a very short period of time the essence of a debate."
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Actually, dummy, for those of us independent artists who sell on iTunes (over 6,000 artists, including my band, Crooked Crow), we get roughly 60 of each 99 cents. Apple takes a cut, and then our distributor takes a small cut.
Try doing a little research before you just blithely talk out your ass about something you know nothing....oh, wait. Riiiiight. This is slashdot.
That? That was a pigeon.
The RIAA is a trade organization, not a record label. They do not provide studios or producers. Record labels do those things, and I might also argue for their irrelevance--but not as soon as the RIAA.
The reason why I said established artist is that the marketing (which to a large degree is really just distribution to record stores and radio play) aspect is actually hard for a band to do on its own. I think that pull-based collaborative filtering like audioscrobbler or even garageband.com can work to obsolete push-based recommendations like clear channel, and I think the resulting system would be better for both artists and listeners.
I challenge someone to name one band that has gone gold without an RIAA marketing push.
Both of Liz Phair's albums on Matador went gold, and Matador is an independent label that's not a member of the RIAA.
You put forward a lot of questions here... but I'll try my best to address them...
1. iTunes does not deal with artists directly, therefore if you sell through the iTunes store you need a label.
2. However, this label does NOT need to be a member of the RIAA. Independent labels/distributers (e.g. CD Baby) have deals with iTunes and the other online music stores.
3. Some of these distributors have the same contract with every artist and sell through a variety of channels (mail order, iTMS, Napster, MusicMatch, etc.). For instance, CD Baby has this deal where the artist gets 91% of the money the music store pays out.
SO, it is very possible to have a distributor that has no relationship with the RIAA, but does have a relationship with ALL the major online music stores.
Now, say what you will about Apple, they definitely have faults, but I certainly applaud Steve & Co. for coming up with this model and making sure that the indie record labels and distributors can strike deals with the exact same terms as the RIAA.
Although I have much more respect for the guy who runs CD Baby.
Maybe partying will help...
There was something better than a balanced budget back then, there was a SURPLUS.
If we can't pay off our deficits in a boom, then when can we?
You're confusing deficit with debt. In the simplest of terms, debt is what you owe. You run a deficit when you can't even pay off the interest on what you owe, so that you owe more and more each year. I'm Canadian, so I don't keep close attention to US statistics, but I recall Clinton having surpluses at least for most of his last years, and was at least matching the interest on debt. Even Bush had that luxery when he first started.
The right way to manage deficits is to shrink them in boom cycles, and allow them to grow in down cycles
Bullshit! The right way is to pay of DEBT in boom cycles, and at least make sure there is no defecit in all other cycles. In down cycles you borrow, but you don't borrow beyond your means. If the United States had a Master Card, it would be cut in half by now.
Bush has faced a lot of problems in his presidency that Clinton was fortunate enough to not have, and it is unfair to criticize him for not balancing the budget in a recession when Clinton couldn't do it in the midst of the dot-com bubble.
I won't argue that Clinton had it better than Bush, but Bush knew just as well as anyone else that the bubble had burst, and could have better managed the TRILLION DOLLAR surplus he had, rather than stuffing his fat friends pockets with your hard earned money.
I believe that the deficit is too big an issue to try and blame it on any one person or party.
Yup. But when I think of lack of fiscal responsibility, I think G E O R G E W. B U S H
For those of you who don't recognize the artists either... ouch! I suggest you take some time to sample their music, TODAY (go ahead, hop on Soulseek and download a few tracks-- nearly all of the above artists won't mind). You may find that there is a world of great music that you haven't been exposed to; I did.
P.S.: Finding it odd that WARP wasn't mentioned among the other labels, I feared that the RIAA have a hold on them. Thanks to the RIAA Radar link in a sibling post, I now know they're "RIAA-safe". Be sure to check WARP Records out, too!
Oh, and, uhh... I was too lazy to hyperlink anything. May Google and/or /. karma-whores treat you well. :)
* - I, personally, haven't yet gotten a chance to listen to a significant amount of music from this artist. They're probably on my to-do list, though.