Decoy Files on P2P Sites Become Ad Vehicles

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Some record labels hire outside companies to plant fake files on peer-to-peer sites. Now, labels are turning these decoy files into vehicles for marketing to music pirates by inserting promotional material into the files, such as an eight-minute clip from a Jay-Z concert, the Wall Street Journal reports." From the article: "'The concept here is making the peer-to-peer networks work for us,' says Jay-Z's attorney, Michael Guido. 'While peer-to-peer users are stealing the intellectual property, they are also the active music audience,' and 'this technology allows us to market back to them.'"

Comments

Decoy Files on P2P Sites Become Income

[eldavojohn]

So, like a lot of things on Slashdot, I was interested in this hip new technology. I hopped on eDonkey and downloaded a bunch of Jay-Z until I found the golden ticket.

It was great, it said I had won a free boat! So I went to the URL in the file (http://www.riaa.com/tricks/freeboat/warrantapplic ation.html) and there it was, a registration form for a free boat!

I start filling this out, you know, understandable things like name, address, average household income, what mp3s was I downloading when I won, where they are on my hard drive, which attorney would be representing me if a court case broke out--you know, the usual.

But once I hit submit, I got some law-talking guy spamming my e-mail address non-stop! Trying to sell me some product I'm not even interested in ... something called an "Average Out of Court Settlement." Yeah, like I'm going to pay you $22,000 for that! As if! I think they want you to pay that if you want a free boat. I'm not stupid though--I know how this scam works--they give you a free boat but after taxes and registration, it's not even close to free anymore.

People on the internet are so stupid sometimes.

Re:Decoy Files on P2P Sites Become Income

[IcyNeko]

I think the key thing to this whole article is that this time it's Jay-Z that's whining. Honestly, I think Jay-Z sings one step shy of "City Pound during Cat Mating Season", but that's just me. Jay-Z with the Punjabi boys was the most horrific waste of time ever made. Why hasn't anyone executed Jay-Z for being an enemy of the state? Anyway, Hooray for RIAA/Whiny-talentless-hacks's software teams for finding a way to further thin out the minefield of retarded p2p users.

Re:Decoy Files on P2P Sites Become Income

[shmlco]

Go to: www.I-admit-to-downloading.com and register...

Re:Decoy Files on P2P Sites Become Income

[lakeland]

Seems to be slashdotted already

Re:Decoy Files on P2P Sites Become Income

[rtyall]

I'm all for these people replacing MP3 files of Jay-Z's music with other adverts, I believe that would do the world a service and be a step towards eliminating his music completely.
But for them to be replacing good music with videos of Jay-Z, tsk, a pox on them I say.
I guess it's all a moot topic though if you use emule, whenever I try and grab "XXX Hot horny Jenna Brianna Crystal Bukkake Cum Lesbo Splat Fest" it rarely is what I think it is (normally an iso of windows, damn and blast).

exclusive content - must steal to see

[searchr]

"But judge, the only way I could get the exclusive pre-release video of [hyper-hyped band/singer-songwriter/pretty face] was to steal random music from a P2P service. I didn't want to, I obey the law and have never stolen anything in my life. But [record label] would only hide the must-have exclusive video in fake song files. I didn't know which songs they were, or which ones were fake or real. So I had to download several thousand of them to finally find the video."

Case dismissed.

Re:Monetized = legit?

[lucabrasi999]

If they claim this audience can be monetized, how can they consider it to be non-legit?

Actually, from what I read, they consider the audience to be TOO legit. Legally, they are too legit to quit.

holy crap

[Trailer Trash]

they are also the active music audience

Stand back, the music industry may have just grown a brain cell.

Re:The active music audience

[Captain Splendid]

I know, the disconnect is ridiculous:

"Damn kids, downloading all these music videos."
"We can hire a company to seed decoy files."
"I have a better idea, instead of wasting that file with garbage, we could always put some ads in it."
"Like what?"
"Hmmm, how about music videos of our artists!"
"Outstanding! Here, have another line of coke..."

torture ?

[Potatomasher]

"'The concept here is making the peer-to-peer networks work for us,' says Jay-Z's attorney, Michael Guido. 'While peer-to-peer users are stealing the intellectual property, they are also the active music audience,' and 'this technology allows us to market back to them.'"

Oh .. I thought the goal of this was to get people to stop using P2P networks by forcing them to listen to 8 mins of JAY-Z.
1 min is about all the torture I can take. I guess its back to the record store for me !

Re:Huh?

[griffjon]

such as an eight-minute clip from a Jay-Z concert, the Wall Street Journal reports."

I'm sorry, but I don't see how Wall Street Journal reports, no matter how much emotion one put into their reading, or what background music there might be, could possibly be appealing to the pirate market. ;)

Mystery box

[Anonymous Coward]

A boat's a boat, but the mystery box could be anything. It could even be a boat! You know how much we wanted one of those!

Re:That's what Google said

[Jherek Carnelian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyone who realizes the internet changed the market for entertainment distribution and thinks the business of entertainment distribution ought to catch up with the changes in the market is just looking for free handouts. Anyone with half a brain can see that the internet changed nothing, its just a passing fad. Thanks for your insightful contribution.

Re:The active music audience

[bugnuts]

And pretty soon, RIAA will start suing p2p indexing sites for caving and shutting down the index servers, claiming it cost RIAA advertising revenue.