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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.'"
I just might watch the supper bawl for that. I just might have to get an apple air port to connect to my churches network during the game. I do lilke the apple itunes store I have spend a bit there, and even though I don't like Pepsi much I think I might be drinking a lot of it for a while. And I think that ad might be a good one it does make fun for what problems are going on now, aka the riaa just being stupid and suing any one.
Seriously, I noticed last year that if I hit my 30 second skip right when a play ended, it would usually take me right to the snap for the next play. With the 30 seconds of downtime between plays gone, football was actually kind of interesting!
Isn't it strange to hear quotes from people at the RIAA that don't sound stupid? They could rant and sue, but instead they calmly compliment the ad. Something has clearly changed in that organization. I won't go so far as to say they're not evil, but they almost seem less evil than before.
yeah they were downloading and whatever, but they are not bootleggers out there selling copies. they are just kids. the article said a few of the kids said they will use some of the money they get to pay their $3000 settlement.
...is make me continue to buy new CDs.
Screw that. From now on, I am only buying used.
I can't imagine how the RIAA/MPAA think that they have truly changed a culture. Most people that I have talked to still download music, movies and television shows, but they do it in a more anonymous way than what can be readily tracked by outside agencies. If you give someone a burned DVD of all your MP3's, no one can track you. As far as apple and pepsi, I think that they are fairly immune to what the RIAA and MPAA think. The whole target audience that they are trying to reach are young people with lots of idle time and loose morals. The same people who have been trading music and thumbing their noses at the respectives AA's.
If I could get a firm grip on reality, I'd choke it...
5 years ago, someone giled a lawsuit over the pepsi points/harrier jet ad.
A couple weeks ago, a suit was trown out (because it was filed after the statute of limitations) when a boy died after swallowing a pin used to "shotgun" a soda.
No word yet if anyone has been killed trying to drink pepsi one while sky-diving.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Interesting that this promotion is precisely the business model that radio has been for all these years...
So, when this ends and downloads slow down, will Fritos, KFC, etc. be the next to give away music downloads? And how long do you think it will take until all music downloads are sponsored by advertising dollars?
Just my $.02
An ounce of perception is worth a pound of obscure
I was all ready to go and buy pepsi instead of coke, and then i got half way down the article and read "iTunes giveaway" - i thought for a minute they were trying to target young people saying "hey, we got sued, we dont give a fuck and neither should you! screw the RIAA, download music for free, and drink pepsi to the max" which would have been a great ad. Now i realise all they're doing is promoting some iTunes thing, big deal.
You can do _very_ well advertising to the younger end of the spectrum (0-30) with bad-taste advertising, the more complaints you get and advertising standards violations you make the better! I would have put that 12 year old and the 70 year old together and got them to say "fuck you RIAA!" and the next day i might have 5000 complaints and 3 subpoenas from the RIAA, but im telling you - everyone would be buying my product.
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"This ad shows how everything has changed," says Mitch Bainwol, RIAA chairman. "Legal downloading is great because fans are supporting the future of creative work in America."
"RIAA has filed 914 lawsuits since it began cracking down in September, including 532 this week."
Mitch, if things have changed, why are you still filing lawsuits? The truth is as long as a product's price is artificially inflated, there will be a black market for that product. You guys never learn, you were celebrating after shutting down napster, but what happened? 5 more popped up in it's place. Shutdown Kazaa, what's going to happen? People will move to tools like soulseek and newsgroups.
If you simply provided a high quality product at a fair price over the internet, then piracy would be reduced to 10% of what it is today. Instead you provide low quality audio recordings with what you call Digital Rights Managemet (Consumers should call this what it is, Digital Restrictions Management, because who's rights is it managing?), at the same price you charge for a physical product.
I hope you don't learn your lesson. I hope more and more artists will see the light, and manage there own distribution chanels with the internet. The world would be a better place without the RIAA. Music survived before you, and it will live on after you're gone. Good riddens!
featuring CEO's who have been sued by SCO?
S
...at the very least some of the people sued by the RIAA are going to recoup the costs of their settlements with the RIAA by getting paid for the commercial. I think it makes a huge statement about the RIAA. Being that the add will air during the super bowl, anyone who's firmilliar with the RIAA nazi tactics are going to get the message.
Seems like the RIAA are the only ones that aren't getting the message to me.
-- Is it a right to remain ignorant? -- Calvin
"This ad shows how everything has changed," says Mitch Bainwol, RIAA chairman. "Legal downloading is great because fans are supporting the future of creative work in America." (emphasis mine)
That's right, Mr. Bainwol. Fans support the artists. Not the RIAA. The fans.
I have discovered many bands that I like a lot because a friend sent me an MP3. I don't think that any performer out there (okay, unless you're a member of Metallica) would complain about losing that $.02 in royalties, if it meant another person buying the CDs and attending the concerts. Which is exactly what I do, but I'm not buying crap from the latest over-hyped bubblegum act, either.
Either way, the RIAA loses.
And that's just fine with Y.T.
Addendum: I'm not exactly pleased with the whole 'wink-n-nod' attitude that the commercial apparently displays, either. Instead of bringing attention to the issue of a private organization taking legal enforcement powers unto itself, I see large corporations engaged in a mutual luv-a-thon. And there's a perverse logic to the whole thing: turn it into a joke, and people will quit whining.
At least until Grandma faces a $1.5 million dollar lawsuit for her supposed obsession with the musical stylings of Ol' Dirty Bastard.
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
Do you think Apple is really charging Pepsi 99 cents per track
Yes. Here's an unrelated anecdote that explains why I think that. One day (quite a long time ago), Conan O'Brian mentioned on his show that they have to pay the movie studio in order to show the short movie teasers that an actor brings with him. The MPAA are very defensive about their copyrights. Even if they have some movie clip that isn't worth anything anymore, they'd rather it not be seen that for someone to see it for free. I don't doubt the RIAA is the same way. Note that this is also the reason lots of old movies will eventually go extinct. Even though there's a large enough fan base out there to have a grassroots effort to restore old movies, it'll never happen.
As Jay Leno said, "How do we know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction? We kept the receipts!" The nerve gas we (America) sold Saddam has a shelf life of about 8 years, and we sold it in the 80s. Any that wasn't used up then is no longer a viable weapons system.
Steve Jobs recently gave an interesting interview about the music industry.
He noted that for every 10 high potential artist a major label promotes, only 1 makes it. Typically, it costs a large label around 1 million to promote, pay, and produce a single artist (I once worked for a label, I can confirm this).
So this means, it cost about 10 million dollars to find one needle in a haystack. Those artist who do "make it" have to, essentially, pay for the giant losses made by the 9 other artists who didn't make it.
According to Jobs, the record industry is a fairly shitty business.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
There are kids out there who were 12 when it was 1998, they saw the heyday of MP3s and the dot com boom in junior high school, they've almost graduated now and the RIAA is trying to tell them that what they've been doing on their computers for as long as they remember is illegal.
They're going to have a very hard time convincing these kids that CDs are worth money. You might as well be selling 8-tracks.
So the RIAA, in response, can run an ad showing kids ripping Pepsis off from a 7-11, saying "I still get my Pepsi for free"
Is this a great country or what?
You hit the nail right on the head, there, worm eater.
CDBaby actually *is* our distributor. Through them, our CDs are available via iTunes and pretty much all the other digital music stores, as well as Tower Records and the CDBaby site itself.
Derek at CDBaby is a brilliant, brilliant man, and I have nothing but respect for him, and his whole company.
They take only a very, very tiny cut of sales revenue (like 6 cents or something), leaving us the majority of the sale.
That? That was a pigeon.
If sharing is wrong, we don't need lawyers. We need education. We need the RIAA to show up, with armani suits and alligator brifcases, in droves across the nation to every kindergarten and elementary school to stress the evils of sharing your belongings. We need to stress to these young minds just how important it is to hog everything you can get your hands on in your pile and make sure no one else can enjoy it without your fee. Show the benefits of the Patent system, so no-one else can even do anything themselves without violating someone elses's "right". Imagine, they won't even be able to stack one block on top of another without paying a fee!!!
It seems one of the major problems facing our Congress is how to pen law that makes it illegal for some people to do something that cause others financial loss, while holding certain others indemnable for doing the exact same thing... while not looking like they are failing to represent the populace as a whole.
As America gets "down to business", we rely on the rest of the world to build stuff for us. We, here in the Free World of the United States of America will spend our bountiful resources and immense capital account surpluses bickering over whose entitled to what. Our business plan is built on our ability to exact fees to allow others to do anything. If we can sell the rest of the world on this plan, we can make our business executives rich beyond comprehension.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
It is perfectly legal to go to your local library and make free copies of all the CDs there, as long as you are copying them onto "Music" CDRs, which qualify as "digital audio media" under the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992.
It's not as clear cut regarding books.
Anonymous Coward's national defense plan:
1. don't create power vacuums which may harbor terrorists in the future.
2. Give our middle finger a rest and start cooperating with the UN and the world... and the American people for that matter.
3. Do not go on long vacations and ignore terror-warnings from CIA and government officials.
4. Reread anything containing the word "Geneva"
5. Reword phrases like "Bring 'em on"
6. Find a four star general (preferably a West Point graduate) that knows about defense yet is intelligent. If such a person exists.
heh, please do not compare the RIAA to my banks...when I walk into one of my banks, I'm greated by friendly employees who are there to help me get the best deal, they aren't trying to rip me off. Do they make money off me? Sure, but they are providing a valuable service, and I was even able to get a loan from them (high interest, but not ridiculous, something like 10%) even though I DONT HAVE A JOB. At my other bank, I got a call from them one morning, saying I had over-drawn my account. They went ahead and PAID THE CHECK that i'd written, and no the money didn't come out of another account, it came out of the banks pocket, they told me I could come and pay them back as soon as I could, but they'd done this as a convenience for me because I'd been a member for a long time and it was just a mistake. If banks were like the RIAA then I'd hafta pay them for the convenience and safety of storing my money in an account, they would insist that all my money go into their bank account, and I would hafta have an "exclusive contract" to only bank with them I couldn't shop arround for someone who would have better rates, etc...
Oh, and can you imagine, if banks were as bad as the RIAA: Being only able to checks provided by your bank, which they would sell at a premium of course. OH! But you could buy blank checks (sorta like blank cd-audio discs) but you'd hafta pay a tax on them for the bank's lost revenue.
I know this is off topic, but the point is that the RIAA does things that if banks or grocery stores or hell, EVEN CAR LOTS tried, people would revolt.
replacing it with NEW Folger's Crystals! (lets see if they notice the difference)
actually, John Kerry does seem serious about national security. i like his stance on Iraq.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
FYI:Record labels like Warner Brothers, Sony, etc., sign mostly major Pop bands, and these are the RIAA's cash cow - hence the big push to preserve their profit. They sign bands like Britney Spears, Bryan Adams, and 99% of the Country drivel you might hear on the radio.
OTOH: There INDEPENDENT record labels that aren't part of some Multinational Conglomerate, that aspire to shed light on, and simultaneously elevate bands in certain genres. Some of these include SubPop, Matador, and so on. A little research should provide a healthy list of "indy" labels that are friendly to the "digital" segment of the population. Many even distribute in MP3 or other digital format. Warp records (Aphex Twin, Richard D. James, and Squarepusher just to name a few (one?) artists that *cater* to the notion that people want that control over their purchase.
Sometimes, these labels were the labels America's favorite bands start out on, and therefore release their best material with. Like mentioned about Nirvana. Soundgarden and Sonic Youth started there too. Along with most good "alternative" artists.
Pepsi knows how to play the advertising Game. They are very good at it.
Pepsi has one of the largest advertising budgets out there. When they talk, radio and tv stations listen. If Pepsi calls up your local channel 5 news station and says "we don't like the negitive spin you put on that RIAA story", the tv station will not do it again ever because they don't want Pepsi to forget to advertise on their TV station. A quick searh of Pepsi and its closely replated compaines shows it spent over a billion dollars last year advertising. The RIAA members sales of music were about $12b.
It will be interesting to see how the TV news covers RIAA issues now that Pepsi's ads implys its not completely evil to download songs.
I can see an 8-digit code fitting inside a bottle cap...and if they use both alphas and digits:
:)
36^8 = 2,821,109,907,456 codes / 100,000,000 free songs means that 1 out of 28,211 randomly selected codes would work (on average). That is assuming that each free song has a code (they might be "tiering" it so that some codes are redeemable for more than one free song).
That is quite a few, and I would hope that they would also have some sort of brute-force lockout mechanism.
I got an iTMS gift certificate not long ago, but I don't remember how many digits it had...12-15 at least. And I typed it correctly the first time, so I don't know about brute-force safeguards either.
That's an interesting point -- does anyone know what the *taxable* income situation is for bands, after they're done being taken to the cleaners by their labels? Are those expenses they have to reimburse the labels for deductable, or does it count as taxable income?
I've previously pointed out hereabouts that in any other business, what the labels do would be considered moneylending at usorious (thus illegal) interest rates. Cripes, it's probably cheaper to get a loan from the mob!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
2) Read:
3. Profit!!!
(hey, where did my underpants go?)