Slashdot Mirror
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."
Even the Tune Recycler site admits that Pepsi and Apple are expecting that a majority of the "winning" bottlecaps are going to be ignored and unclaimed. If this kind of site encurages more returns than antisipated, might this prevent there from being a repeat of this promotion in the future?
How long before extra itunes codes wind up on ebay in lots? Will that be an appropriate thing to sell?
Odd this happens just after Coke makes its music store in the UK
I don't think this campaign of theirs will work out. If only %10-%20 percent of people are going to redeem their caps on iTunes, even less are going to go through the hassle of mailing bottlecaps to someone. I bet they'll get maybe 1000 caps.
As for me, im going to the store to see if they started the iTunes promotion, and if they have, I will be buying a few cases of Pepsi.
Who's picking which songs will be downloaded with the turned-in codes? How do we not know that this isn't being set up by a group of artists who want to boost their own sales? Is there any way for additional artists to sign up to get a cut of this money?
It looks like this promotion is limited to Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist, none of which interest me. Wither Mountain Dew? Are they intentionally slighting geeks?
Schnapple
"When you submit a winning Pepsi code to the Tune Recycler, we'll redeem it for music from honest, independent labels."
Just because a label is independent doesn't make them honest. There are shady businesses everywhere.
well, not without some sort of gimmick. not that i'm against small bands actually getting a share of the spoils here, but aren't they the type of artists that should be supported in the first place?
-knowles
" 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!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Their machine would be pretty impressive to me if there weren't other types of artists out there in much greater need. I mean, you can't swing a friggin' cat without hitting some longhair with a guitar. But a painter, sculptor etc? Have fun trying to "get paid" for that.
Cheers. :)
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Why does this group want the codes given to them?
Wouldn't a better plan be to link to some of the better indie artists on the service and tell people to download their songs, therefore allowing people to actually listen to the music their code purchased?
and i dont mean the site asking for caps. The interesting bit it that this will be announced in a big commercial during the superbowl later today that will proclaim that you can legally download free music. i get the impression that this will appeal to alot of people. i hope that it is a huge success .. i know iwill buy pepsi instead of coke simple becasue of the offer :) .. i think thw best thing to do is get a song and give to 2 friends as well that way you have 1/3 odds and 3 people :)
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I would feel a lot better about this if there was some public accountability from Tunerecycler. Do we get statements? A redemption receipt? Summaries at the end? Anything?
As an independent musician, I find it odd that they have never responded to an email asking for more info from an artist's POV - especially when asking for clarification on their stance on iTunes downloads. Silence can often speak volumes.
If this was simply a list of all the bands and labels at the iTunes store (with proper documentation) that you SHOULD support by redeeming the caps yourself, I would be all for it. But there are enough holes here (and enough errors in the so-called label "tree") that I wouldnt touch this thing with a 3 metre pole.
Have fun. Listen to music. But dont get sucked in.
(DISCLAIMER: The band I am in offers ALL of our CDs for free on our web site, all the time. iTunes wouldn't touch us if we were the last band on earth. Whether or not you use the caps, recycle them, or paste them on a squirrel, makes no matter to us.)
-- There are two kinds of motorcycles. 1: German. 2: Crap.
I think a better approach would be if all slashdot readers (or tunecycler advocates) would get indie music. tunecycler could list a new artist or song to check out every couple days, and pepsi-guzzling geeks could get a free song. That would put money in the indie artist's pocket and expose more people to their music, something their approach doesn't do.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Apple's Official Rules for the promotion state that the, "Maximum number of valid Codes per email address/person that can be entered at the Web Site is 10 per day and 200 total throughout the Promotion Period." I wonder how these guys are going to get around that?
What kind of codes are Pepsi and Apple using in the bottle caps. Are the codes following some pattern or are they using random numbers?? If they follow a pattern and it is true that only 10% of all codes are used, one could just boost his favorite independant artist, during the last day of the promotion and no one would notice (except pepsi that is) provided you found the algorithm, ofcourse.
John Carmack fan, browsing at +5 since 1999.
Your healthy lifestyle...as for the rest of us, we'll be chock full of crap in our bodies when we die, but we'll get free music!!
Cheers.
The problem is that Downhill Battle is, first of all, providing this service for people who have not installed or cannot install iTunes (such as Linux users). Secondly, they don't think that iTunes is a good idea, and they'd rather that people didn't use it at all. See their site iTunes is bogus.
Free Speech, Free Software, Free Culture
The site given links to RIAA Radar, a site that tells the relative connection between an artist and the RIAA. A better solution would be to go to that site and discover some new, independent music for yourself. That's actually what they tell people to do if you already use iTunes... they just want the caps if you don't want to bother downloading Apple's program.
Use them yourself and buy the independent music that's available from iTunes? That way, you're helping to support the independent artist, AND you're opening up yourself to new music!
Don't download that song you've heard a million times on the radio or something like that. Explore the musical frontiers...even if they're not that good, you'll never know unless you look. And you may find a gem.
If you DO find a gem of a song out there, you've "won" again in addition to the free download itself!
Just a thought.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
According to the rules of the program:
"Q: How many codes can I enter?
A: You can enter up to ten unique codes per day, not to exceed 200 unique codes over the duration of the Pepsi iTunes Music Promotion."
These people may encounter a problem with this rule.
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.
At the very beginning they claim the service and the software will cost you more than the Pepsi proving they're either ignorant or dishonest. Then all the way through the article they make it obvious that for whatever reason they have a corn cob up their rear ends about iTunes.
If you want to support independents, then fer cryin' out loud, go out and buy their CDs, records, tapes, and online music. And especially support local live music---you won't regret it. Don't turn to these really strange self appointed messiahs. If you don't want major record companies to dictate what you should listen to, why would you want anyone else to either?
The problem is that the largest difficulty in getting a consumer to redeem the bottle cap certificate is having them remember not to throw it away, and instead bring it home and type it into the computer.
This recycling idea counts on people bringing home their caps but NOT redeeming them. I'm really not quite sure why anyone would want to do that. I certainly have a whole bunch of music I'd be more than happy to get for free one way or another, some of which includes independent albums.
Why can't they simply encourage people to buy music from indy groups, instead of essentially throwing the money away on licensed files that no one's ever going to listen to?
It's one thing to have big sales on iTunes, but if no one's ACTUALLY LISTENING to the music, what point does it serve?
>Recycle some of your 100 million Pepsi Songs
Can I recycle the "Always Coca Cola" jingle? It was cool at first (especially the Xmas version), but drives you insane after a while.
Yibble.
An easier solution would be to publish a list of songs (or links to them) from "honest, independent labels" and let people purchase them on their own. It would save them money on gathering the codes and may expose people to new music.
Just a thought...
The dogcow says "Moof!"
Remember those wacky rumor sites claim that pepsi is paying Apple full price. Other sites (more news oriented) say that Apple is only getting something like 10 cents a song, so Apple is probably very limited on what kind of special pricing they can offer.
That's my guess anyways - take it for what it is, just random thinking from a random guy who vaguely remembers reading an article many years ago on how these kinds of promotions work.
"I'm a Genius!"*
*Not an actual Genius
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.
In the long run, I think Pepsi probably assumed that 20% at least of these winning bottle caps would be thrown out and as such they would have to pay less in the long run. They probably have a sweet deal with Apple pushing around $0.20 a song so would have been $20 million dollars at full value. 20% savings on that ($4mill) would have been worth it considering the advertising value is the same regardless of the number of redemptions.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
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.
1) Request Pespi Codes from Internet Users
2) Use statically analysis
3) Write script to generate codes
4) Download songs for free from iTunes
-----------
I'm hoping that people are going to use my site to find new bands to buy with their free songs. Not in the mood to download more Radiohead? Click on Radiohead on Musicmobs and find a more independent artist that people that like Radiohead also like. Of course, there's no guarantee that what you are looking for will be in the iTunes store.
They can have whatever opinion they want, but really isn't apple (and pepsi for that matter) the biggest benefactor of this no matter what they do? Apple gets the same cut regardless of which record label the artist is signed to. If they think this is unfair (the impression I get from their website), shouldn't they be telling people to not use itunes at all and buy directly from the artist? Seems silly to me to be saying that this is a bad thing in one breath, yet encourgaging people to use it (albeit by proxy) in another. Maybe they just want free songs. They link to Poisoned(a fine gifTD frontend) on the page you link. Curious I say.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
With any kind of promotion like this, they are expecting only a certain percentage of people to actually bother to redeem the botttle caps - if 10% redeem them, they only have to pay royalties for 10% of the songs in the give away. Now, more bottle caps will be redeemed then they counted on - this could end up being a very high price tag for Pepsi!
Dumpster diving is weak. When I was a kid, we would take our trash to a landfill. After a year or so, my mother's edict was 'you bring back LESS than you take'. Landfill diving is to dumpster diving as a Ferrari Enzo is to a Miata (or an IBM mainframe is to a 486).
Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the landfill filled up, and is now only a transfer station.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Yeah, OK, this is somewhat off-topic, but I'd like to know: does anybody know if iTMS will ever get to Canada? As of now, all online music buying services in Canada suck, and besides I prefer Apple's DRM to Microsoft's.
iTunes provides nothing of value to me. Considered my bottlecaps forwarded.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
From the Official Rules, (http://www.apple.com/itunes/pepsi/rules.html)t says "NO TRANSFER OF PRIZE TO A THIRD PARTY IS PERMITTED..."
I
I wonder if Pepsi Legal will be cracking down on this 'service'. I fail to see how a codes origin could be proven or tracked though. The rules also state no more than 200 songs can be claimed by the same email address / registered user.
Let's see what develops...
8. GENERAL CONDITIONS: No substitution of prize is offered, no transfer of prize to a third party permitted and non-cash prizes are not redeemable for cash value. In the event that winner is not capable of downloading Song Prize for any reason, then neither Sponsor nor any of the Promotion Parties shall be obligated to award any prize. Prize recipients are responsible for all applicable federal, state, and local taxes, if any, on prize. All participants agree to be bound by the Official Rules and decisions of Sponsor and its authorized judging agencies (the "Judges"). Non-compliance with these Official Rules will result in disqualification. You are not a winner until your Code has been submitted and verified in accordance with these Official Rules, and you have fully complied with these Official Rules.
Independent artists get a phenomenal cut of the song download. I sell some music through CDBaby and iTMS and get 53 cents per song on iTMS, which is way more than I get on the physical CD. It's a great deal for me.
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
Q: How many codes can I enter?
.72 for mine... it might take longer, but its not a 1 in 3 chance, when purchasing a 1.50 drink.
A: You can enter up to ten unique codes per day, not to exceed 200 unique codes over the duration of the Pepsi iTunes Music Promotion.
Personally, I am thinking about sending in 200 SASE's worth
moo.
First off, I find this whole Pepsi promotion to be ridiculous; almost as ridiculous as Pepsi's "Billion Dollar Giveaway" from last year. Pepsi believes they only will have 10 to 20 million songs redeemed. Then if you read the rules, a single user is limited legally to 200 downloads, and only 10 can be registered per day. Pepsi's limitations are designed to reduce the amount of songs redeemed. Then you have the fact that Joe Blow has to already have iTunes installed on their computer or download it. If you'll notice at the locations that sell Pepsi, you won't find any CD's that you can pick up that has iTunes already loaded, unlike say if AOL ran the promotion.
Next, you have the Tune Recycler campaign. They want people to "recyle" those iTunes caps. Great idea. I myself wanted to do such a thing online before I read about the 200 download cap on the Rules page this morning. So this group will not be able to download en masse, otherwise Pepsi will cut them off. That means they'll parcel the collected entries between various members of their group. They might claim altruistic reasons, but the simple matter-of-fact is that the downloaded files will be on someone's hard drive and therefore it becomes their "property" even under the DRM limitations. So which songs will these people download?
If Tune Recyler was really serious about their campaign, they'd ask that you input your email address for each of the bottle cap numbers you donate to them, and then put it to a vote of their users as to which songs from which artists they should purchase as well as the volume, all based upon voting. But they don't do that now, do they? Sorry, that's not appealing to me.
The Tune Recycler group then goes on about how bad the iTunes Music Store is since it works with the RIAA. Fine. But they also fail to realize that if iTunes becomes really successful, that will tempt bands to dump their labels and deal directly with Apple, cutting out the middle-man. That will be the end of pre-recorded CDs being sold in retail channels. And I expect that the first major band to do such a thing will be Duran Duran with their much publicized reunion album almost complete and the band yet to re-sign with any of the RIAA labels yet. (And no, I'm not counting Annie DeFranco in this equation either) The simple fact is Tune Recycler cannot see what is plainly in sight on the near horizon with their protest mentality.
And yes, you can only play those AAC files on an iPod. How monopolistic of Apple, I'm sure the Tune Recycler folk will say. But of course with Apple's rather lightweight DRM implementation, you can take those AAC files, burn them in CD format, and then turn them into MP3s or OGGs or whatever else you want. The only other commercial choices support Microsoft's tin-can-sounding WMA format, which is NOT a standard no matter how much money Microsoft throws into PR to claim that it is. So if Tune Recycler wishes to view the world in good and evil terms, you have Apple on one end and Microsoft on the other. Which will you choose?
I'd like to end this posting with stating that I want to see our online community really stick it to Pepsi and claim as many of these bottle caps as possible. We have until March 31st to claim the downloads, so let's get to work.
p.s. The Lynxpro does not work for the RIAA, Apple, or PepsiCo. He actually favours Coke and thinks CokeMusic.com is pretty slick although he abhors their embrace of WMA...
p.p.s. The Lynxpro also thinks Tune Recyler is naive in thinking Pepsi is actually paying Apple 99 cents for each claimed download. In all probability, Pepsi is paying the fee sans the percentage of the cost Apple has built-in to pay the credit card companies for the micropayments. Apple might also be waiving their profit markup as well, so in all actuality, Pepsi is probably paying less than 88 cents per redeemed download...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
From the Official Rules:
No Purchase Necessary. To receive one free game piece and a copy of Official Rules, while supplies last, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope postmarked on or before 3/31/04 to: Pepsi iTunes Game Piece, P.O. Box 9205, Young America, MN 55558-9205. Residents of the state of VT may omit return postage. Limit one free game piece per request per stamped outer envelope.
So Vermont residents, for the cost of two envelopes, you can get a game piece which has a 1/3 chance of winning. It doesn't look as if there's a limit to the number of times you can mail in for your free game piece either, as long as each request is in a separate envelope.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.