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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.'"
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.
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
"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!
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.
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.