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.'"
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!
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
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..
...is make me continue to buy new CDs.
Screw that. From now on, I am only buying used.
...the RIAA is all in favor of the spot. They still get their royalty money for the 100 million "free" downloads.
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?
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!
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.
"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!
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.
Hurray for Darwin.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
I love foosball btw... even tho it's of da devil!
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
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