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Recycle some of your 100 million Pepsi Songs
grub writes "If you're one of the people that wins a free download from Apple's iTunes during the upcoming 100 million song giveaway from Pepsi, then check out Tune Recycler. They say: "With the Tune Recycler, you can send us your unwanted iTunes bottlecap codes and we'll use them to support independent music. Easy for you, and good for musicians" Sounds like a great idea for payments that may otherwise be tossed in the trash."
No. Generally, game pieces have a clause in their contract that they cannot be resold individually. Furthermore, they technically have a cash value of 1/20 cents (read the fine print). IANAL, but IAARSP (I am a relatively smart person).
I don't think you will have to mail anything. It sounds like you will be able to enter the code directly into their site. They might get a few takers. I'd do it.
" Which Musicians are Getting the Money?
Every week or so, we'll be choosing a few independent artists and a particular album of theirs which we will repeatedly purchase using the donated codes. If we buy enough copies of a single album, we might even be able to move it up the iTunes charts-- it's not too hard these days. All the artists will be from independent labels with reputations for treating artists fairly.
How do I know you guys aren't just going to buy music for yourself?
Well, we run the music activism project Downhill Battle, which is working to bring positive change to the music industry. A central theme of our site is that it's simply unethical to purchase major label music. So clearly, if we wanted free major label music, we'd just take it. Furthermore, since iTunes is essentially a voluntary contribution system (you're paying for something that you could get for free), there's just no incentive to scam people out of bottlecaps. We're just trying to make it easier for people to do something good with their caps instead of throwing them away."
Holy Shit, Batman! Score another one for the "can load the page before hitting reply button" team!
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Downhill Battle runs this thing. They are a non-profit music activism group dedicated to returning diversity to mainstream music. They are two very idealistic non-artists who definitely are not trying to boost their own sales. Hopefully they will choose well whom they support and publicly document their reasoning. Incidentally, they need help with the backend for the Recycler, so please contact them if you think you can help (and you are inclined to help them, of course).
Free Speech, Free Software, Free Culture
I have to say that I'm glad the nearby college campus is a Pepsi campus. Back when Pepsi was doing its PepsiStuff/DewStuff promotion, I regularly patrolled the buildings on campus, fishing Pepsi and Dew bottles out of the trash and taking the caps...as most people who drink the things will keep the cap with the bottle and then screw it back on to throw it away.
You may laugh at me for trash-can diving...but I ended up getting a nice backpack, a mini-Mag lite, a DVD of Jackie Chan's Gorgeous...and, for 255 bottlecaps, a 16 meg RIO mp3 player. That's a lot of stuff.
Too bad they didn't give away a Harrier jumpjet.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Being a loyal Slashdot reader, I of course posted before RTFA in which it states:
I use iTunes, so why should I send you my bottlecap code?
You shouldn't! If you use the iTunes Music Store, we don't want the cap, you should redeem it yourself. However, we would strongly encourage you to use the cap to buy music that's not from one of the 5 major labels. The website RIAA Radar can help you figure out if music that you're thinking of buying is put out by a member of the RIAA. Use the tree to see what labels are just major label fronts.
This is what I'm going to try to do.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Sorry, but my gut instinct says it is.
The same group also promotes putting stickers on merchandice in stores. Without authorization from the store owner. That's vandalism (and not very bright that you can whois their domain and get their address).
People who endorse and encourage illegal activities normally aren't very reputable.
I'd be very cautious.
If you like the idea... why not just buy an an independant song off of iTunes yourself? That way your "recycling" yourself. And you know it will happen.
Sorry, I just don't believe criminals.
I am getting really sick of sloppy, idiotic journalists who absolutely insist on referring to those whom the RIAA has sued as "music downloaders," and the USA Today article is a prime example of this complete stupidity.
AFAIK, in absolutely not one single solitary incident has the RIAA sued anyone for downloading music files. They have only ever sued people for sharing music files in excess of a certain number, and even then only if the person is sharing a lot of popular, contemporary music.
Admittedly, those who are sharing files are more than likely downloading them as well, but that is not why they've been sued.
These journalists appear to be utterly incapable of doing even the most basic homework on this issue. One journalist mistakenly writes "The RIAA is suing people for downloading music" and every other journalist, rather than double-checking to see what exactly the lawsuits are about, just parrots what the first journalist wrote. It makes me ill. Thanks to the ever-shoddier American news media, people out there think that downloading "The Log Driver's Waltz" from Gnutella is going to result in uniformed officers kicking their door in moments later, which, at the moment, is simply not true.
As we all know, the RIAA is a massive misinformation machine, and now Pepsi and Apple are jumping in and lending a hand in distributing the RIAA's "We're suing everyone" propaganda. The truth is quite different, but I doubt that more than a handful of Superbowl watchers is going to jump online to ferret out the real story.
The promotion itself sounds like an effective one, and I'm sure it'll bring people to the ITMS in droves, but we really can do without the lies.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Parent post is rightly modded Funny, but in case anyone doesn't get the joke:
Yes, in the US at least most college campuses are either "Pepsi" or "Coke" campuses, in that either the university or some other company has a monopoly on soda pop sales on university property, and both Pepsi and Coke require exclusivity if you want any of the goodies they give out.
And those goodies can be pretty nice. Sometimes just plain old cash. Sometimes they pay for advertising for your business as long as it has a Pepsi|Coke logo on it. Lots of other stuff.
This Like That - fun with words!