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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.'"
That's a great lesson to teach. Download music, get caught, get famous in a Super Bowl ad. What a bleak and horrible future we live in.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Corporate forces taking aim at the RIAA shows that the RIAA's business model is failing, and no amount of lawsuits, subpoenas, and para-military crap is going to stop it.
Either the RIAA can join in and make money, or they can sit back and hopelessly try to defend an oppressive business model that has been rendered technologically obsolete.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
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!
Mitch Bainwol, RIAA chairman says ",Legal downloading is great because fans are supporting the future of creative work in America."
We need to have a 'present' first.
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
unfortunately taking a jab at the RIAA like this will do absolutely nothing. It will take more than a commercial make fun of them to make them stop this witch hunt.
As the RIAA responds "this is the way it is supposed to be" they will probably be filling out the next batch of legal filings accusing more senior citizens of stealing songs. The worst part of all this is that here they are making money off legal downloads while they attack people like rabid dogs trying to make more money.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ah yes, the good life.. Drinking Pepsi and stealing from those poor record companies. Back in my day we only have Coke and we had to bootleg eight tracks..
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.
Some 20 teens sued by the Recording Industry Association of America, which accuses them of unauthorized downloads
The entire article is wrong. They were busted for being uploaders (sharers) of music, not downloaders. In fact, it is perfectly legal to download music off the internet. It is against copyright law to share it, which is what they were doing.
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.
Great. That is somehow not the least bit controversial for CBS, but they refuse to broadcast MoveOn.org Voter Fund's winning Bush in 30 Seconds Ad. While I support the freedom to do what you want with your own music, the double standard at Viacom is sickening. If controversy moves product, show it. If it informs political debate, can it. It makes me sad. Very, very sad.
who along with her older sister and younger brother downloaded 950 songs over three years.
That is laughable... An average geek downloads that much stuff in 2-3 months.
...the RIAA is all in favor of the spot. They still get their royalty money for the 100 million "free" downloads.
...during the superbowl, I will be wirelessly offering 300 gigs of Mp3s (that weren't from p2p networks) outside of my house. The wep key passphrase? "We are still going to download music for free off the Internet."
FLR
Mr. O'Connor, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
I think you have this wrong! We still live in the bleak and horrible past where most of the music the world has made is stuffed in vaults. Where most of the money which is used to buy music goes to the management. Sort of like directing cigarette advertising towards kids, and then telling them they can't smoke! Who exactly is wrong here?
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.
Fuck them. Once again, it's not theft. It's copyright infringement. Fuck them.
Oh great! I use to love stealing music but if Pepsi likes it then it just ain't cool no more. At least I still have smoking *cough* *cough* You stay the hell away from that Pepsi!
I'll wait till the commercial is on Kazaa, then I'll get it and watch it:)
Regards,
Steve
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
The radio stations in my town (Orlando, FL) call pretty much all their promotional CD giveaways "Win it before you can burn it" or a similar reference to downloading music online. One of the rock stations even played a promo for awhile that basically poked fun at "little Billy" for downloading music off the internet and while they didn't say it directly, prison rape was implied with a soap dropping reference. If this promo was run as a Slashdot post, it would have been modded down as troll.
Let's face it, while an ad during the Superbowl seems like a big deal to us geeks, people ALREADY know about teens being busted by the RIAA. While the buzz has definitly gotten around to non-techie people, people just aren't getting worked up over this enough to actually do anything about it.
As much as it's considered taboo to say "downloading music is stealing" on Slashdot, that's what many people who do not download music see it as - teens getting sued by the RIAA for stealing music. It really doesn't tug on your heartstrings when that's what you see it as. You gotta remember, the average person who doesn't use P2P services probably does not understand the chances for the wrong people getting accused by the RIAA. They don't realize the RIAA is basically extorting people for absurd amounts of money to settle or face civil prosecution and all the costs associated with it. They don't realize the RIAA is abusing its monopoly and rips off its artists. All people see are teens stealing music.
I see something much more sinister in the Pepsi commercial. I see the RIAA getting its way for $1 a track. I see once insubordinate teens that have been "shown the light" by becoming corporate whores and bowing to the RIAA's will. It only took Apple 20 years to be associated with a superbowl commercial totally opposite of their 1984 vision. This time, big brother wins.
It's a good thing I drink coke.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
A simple no would have sufficed...
"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!
Sorry, for picking you from among the many who are echoing such sentiments, but how is this "less evil than before"? As far as I can tell (not having yet seen the ad and given the article's details), the former defendants will be on the tube, hats in hand, promoting a pay service to obtain files over the Internet. Furthermore, the AAC files Apple sells on the iTMS are DRM'ed. This is everything the RIAA could have hoped for: former P2P'ers nodding to the beat of paying for their downloads.
Also keep in mind that members of the RIAA get a take of money earned by the iTMS if those tracks are copyrighted by RIAA-affiliated labels, and many are.
Don't get me wrong. I think iTMS is great (I'm a Mac head from way back who loves UNIX) and have maybe a couple dozen songs with the "m4p" extension. I also used Napster maybe a dozen times and hated the RIAA's campaign to destroy one of the best databases the world has ever known. But with the exception of profiting from digital music distribution, I don't see how the RIAA has changed at all.
blog
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
Downloading is not what got any of these people in trouble. Sharing -- making the songs available for download -- got them in trouble. They cannot tell what individuals downloaded. They can tell what individuals made available for download and confirm it by downloading it!
If you want to know why the RIAA is hip to this, just think a moment. It blurs the activity. Illegal downloading is now the problem in the public's mind. By saying they litigated on the demand side rather than the supply side, they make people worry about whether the downloads can be tracked.
I respect that the RIAA needs to enforce the publishing rights of its members. Given how creepy most people think the RIAA is, I don't see why the reinforce the perception by perpetuating a lie.
Why shouldn't they compliment the ad? The RIAA wants the money they (and their component labels) get when you buy a CD. Since (as many others have noted) they also get a cut of the cost of a track downloaded through legal music services on the Internet (and have probably set their fee to divide out to the same amount per song), the RIAA has no reason to discourage downloads from which they get their appropriate payment (and the control they assert in what is offered).
RIAA labels still have preferential access to music on radio, they still control their supply chain, and they're getting paid. What's even better is that the while the ad might portray Apple as standing up to the RIAA, Apple (and its customers) are paying them for the music all the same. It's like beer ads that preach mass-market nonconformity as a panacea for conformity - it allows people to feel that they're hurting the RIAA by buying iTunes while giving RIAA precisely what it wants from them (control over music choice, and money).
The RIAA should be cheering - they negate some of their opposition and get paid if they just sit back and shut up. They haven't changed - they still want control over aspects of music they have already shown they can't be trusted with. They're just smarter about it.
Yes, I know they updated the ad with an iPod, but....
Have the Blonde being chased by RIAA police while the drones watch the latest RIAA anti-piracy ad on the big screen. Have Blonde throw the sledgehammer into the screen, etc etc.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Pepsi is all about stickin it to 'da man'
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I love foosball btw... even tho it's of da devil!
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
Ironically, after committing an hour of your life debating this ad on slashdot, it has gained an infamous reputation amongst us, and when you see it during the superbowl, your gonna remember the controversy - then, and now. And when someone yells to you if you want a drink from the store you're gonna ask for a PEPSI. Remeber to stick with beer... or You lose.
[Please sign here]
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!"
If I get a loan from a bank to buy a house or a car, and I pay the loan back on time and in good faith, the bank doesn't keep my house or car. Not during the payback period and not after.
Now if I'm PAID to make a house or car, I don't get to keep the house or car I made.
If I don't like my employer, there are plenty of other cats to go to. The RIAA is a monopoly of the available employers for a particular industry. Smaller employers (indie labels) have a hard time breaking in.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
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.
Don't worry, man, you'll be living there tomorrow.
They've been telling me that for years, but somehow it's still the present...
...stuffed in vaults. Safes, fireproof boxes... most of what was available on vinyl, never made it to cd. most of what is recorded, was never thought to have "commercial" value in the mass production sense. So, I mean actually stuffed in vaults, decaying. Films also suffer the same fate. By the contracts the band itself signs you, of course, mean the only viable contract. As if there were an alternative. You, of course, mean the contract where the artist pays for the wining and dining necessary to get airplay. "Payola" is such an old term! They're now called "music marketers," the most influential of which is actually upstairs from my office.
In the bleak and horrible past, people made decisions for us.
Supporting legal music downloading is the dumbest thing the RIAA ever did. Why, you ask?
The RIAA currenly has a monopoly on physical distribution. No pirate could every touch them when it comes to their ability to crank out physical CD's. However, once they get the downloading in to the mainstream, (and I mean making it totally replace cds) they will have changed the market so that they are totally obsolete. The RIAA cannot survive in an online world...they are too big, too slow, and too hated.
Let's face it, when it comes to the internet, Geeks have a thousand times more resources for distributing information than the RIAA ever will. What's to stop new bands from using services like itunes to be promoted alongside RIAA bands, and then selling their own music over the net?
Anyways, here's to the RIAA! Thanks for helping to make a world where you are irrelevant!
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
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.
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.