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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.'"
but the RIAA is going to claim they buy more music because of the ads they're decoying out now.
"Michael Guido --'While peer-to-peer users are stealing the intellectual property, they are also the active music audience"
Wrong-o, Guido the Killer Pimp. Nothing has ever been stolen via p2p. The words you are looking for is "users are violating the copyright of...".
Where were you when the voynix came?
If they claim this audience can be monetized, how can they consider it to be non-legit?
I would have second thoughts about hiring any lawyer that can't distinguish between two entirely different sets of laws. I'd half expect Mr. Guido to charge jaywalkers with attempted murder based on his statements here.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Yes, it's a trap.
But on a serious note, this will not work, because when someone goes on their favorite P2P, looking for a full lenght Jay-Z concert, the search results will have some options. Here we have a file that is 8min long, and another that is 1 hour long (or if there is no "length" category, they will see one is 10mb and one is 700mb) and come to the realization that "hmmm...I was searching for a full lenght concert. Most concerts are more than 8 minutes long, better go with the 1 hour file." This inevitably increases the number of sources available for the pirated file. This increases the number of people who download that particular file, cuase I always sort by number of sources to get the best download speed (and hopefully a more credible file). Those who inadvertantly get the advertisement will say "WTF? this isn't what I wanted" and delete the file from their computers, go back to their P2P app. and find a better one. They have to remember, not everyone is a moron. Now if they want to put the whole concert on the p2p site, but include maybe some advertisements in it like "Pick up Jay-Z's latest album "" now at Tower Records" and then saying that it is a free download, I think you might have something there. But if you give people a teaser when they think they are already breaking the law, but don't care, they are just going to either a) ignore it and download the pirated version, or b) watch it and say, that was great, but I'd really like to see how it ends, better find the full length version"
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
Pay. Absolutely, I prefer a pay model. Advertising supported media is an ever declining standard. It starts with a little advertising. It increases until people start turning off. Which means they clutch at more advertising to keep the revenues up. The only thing that keeps standards high ultimately, is a customer base that is willing to pay for the content.
Besides, an advertising supported model is incompatible with owning your music, film, whatever. Afterall, no one will make money by selling you a song that eternally has the same ad for Nike's latest running shoes at the beginning of it year after year. The advertising model only works in a setup where you are fed your media content. And of course there are economic pressures against offering you too much choice. We're going to have to fight hard enough against licensing model media purchases (i.e. You've paid for six months of this song) now that the technology for it is available. Part of that fight will be rejecting models like advertising funded media which tie into it.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
It's about time the Industry starts playing the game.
Although this is a very cruel approach to advertising, it gives them the advantage to not only strike back at the community yet be able to advertise for their clients / artists as well.
Now you must stop the lawsuits and expect penalties that come from falsifying files.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
"thats bullshit. filesharers are taking stuff without paying. dont cloak this theft in some argfument about it being ok because they buy it anyway. if thats the case, why pirate it?"
To test drive the car before they buy it, jacktard.
How would you feel, if you bought a new CD, stuck it in your stereo, only to have William Hung's voice coming out of your speakers?
-AC
I wonder about the status of that 8-minute Jay-Z clip they're giving you. IANAL, but since you obviously didn't click "yes" on any of the record label's copyright or terms-of-use screens to get onto the P2P network, and since there's no way for them to make you view their copyright notice before you get your hands on the file, and since they are willfully giving it away for free themselves, do they own that clip anymore? Would the fact that they are deliberately giving out these clips negate any claim on enforcing the copyright of that material?
There was an interesting project a few years back called RIAA-mix. Basically, it took a bunch of decoy files from P2P (you know, the ones that only have the first 5 seconds or so of the song before going blank or staticky) and remixed them. The idea was, since the RIAA gave those specific clips out themselves, they were releasing them into the public domain to be bastardized by us shady Internet masher-uppers.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Why do these people still call P2P networks 'sites'? They're goddamn networks, for crying out loud.
Actually, "those imbeciles" didn't build the $35 Billion industry, their predecessors did. For all intents and purposes, they inherited it. I'd wager that very few of the people who were around during the rise of the large commercial record business are still there. No, I think most of them -- if they have any brains -- have cashed in their stock options and are laughing into their martinis, headed for Bali.
The imbeciles currently in charge of Sony/Warner/BMG were busily driving one of the biggest corporate empires ever created into the ground; it's only quite recently that they seem to have caught up to what a lot of people have been saying all along: there's a whole lot of money to be made in digital content if you play along and don't fight it every step of the way.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Ignorance of the law (or actions) doesn't absolve guilt of said action.
oogly boogly!
This would be trivial for the RIAA to do. They largely control what music is going to be popular at a given time anyway, since they basically control what MTV, the radio stations, etc. play- and people tend to buy things that they are conditioned to like through repeated playing.- on-it-that-could-be-vaugely-interpreted-as-music-b y-some-heavily-locked-down-crappy-software-and-als o-the-disk-will-make-your-computer-explode-...-twi ce so that basically any CD anyone buys ever will add to the number of people buying that song.
All the RIAA would have to do would be to put out ads for an artist, then heavily advertise that artist to the exclusion of others for a month or so, and bam, they have statistics to prove that the song or artist that was advertised experienced a statistically significant increase in sales. And thats without doing something sneaky like including a "bonus" Compact-disc-shaped-bit-of-plastic-with-some-bits
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
"So, then... you don't mind if I -NOT STEAL- your SSN, driver's license info, ATM card # and PIN?"
Ah, the old fallacy used by those who have no idea what "theft" means. You are implying that if it is not theft, then it is OK. Are you not aware that the law books and moral codes are full of many different crimes that are not theft, but are still imagine that!!! wrong? The meanings of words change, but the meaning of "theft" has not.
"and a record is no longer a big, black, plastic disk"
Where did you get that idea? Only records are called records. No one calls a tape, CD, or mp3 file a "record" that I have ever heard at all.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Perhaps I should've been more clear. I was trying to get at the fact that it is in no way advantageous to RIAA to have P2P appear to be a useful mechanism in any way, even if they could show that one song is more popular on account of their P2P ads. That's what grandparent was trying to assert, but it is simply not in RIAA's interests to have P2P be seen as anything other than a hepatitis-C infested black market.
Whether or not it would be trivial for them to rig some fancy statistics is beyond the point -- why would they take the time and effort to do that? They're clearly not doing this to boost any song or artist's popularity; it is simply another tactic to get RIAA-controlled media onto P2P nets and people's hard drives.
I always thought a perfect use of the p2p networks was to place low-bitrate files (128kb/s mp3's) with bumpers around announcing the artist. They could talk over them like a DJ. The point is that they get the songs out there as an advertisement to either buy the CD or download a CD quality file. They could do like they used to do and have an album version and a radio version (shorter), except that it would be a p2p version.
Get it on social networks, p2p networks, it would be the same as listening to the radio. It would build artist loyalty, it would get the record companies out of the payola business, it would let them more easily turn a profit on marginal acts because you can narrowcast this stuff. If I can think that stuff up, imagine what somebody who really had a stake in it could do.
But I'm convinced they're so worried about next quarter's profits that they can't build for the future. Oh well. Maybe someboy will be adventurous enough to try it.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
What prevents them from putting more advertisement/garbage after those 8 minutes ? I've heard MP3s with only the refrain playing in a loop for like 4 minutes. ... And correct me if i'm wrong but I think I have seen somewhere that they had found a way to artificially inflate the number of seeds for a torrent by using rogue torrent servers or something like that.
I think you're right. But they know very much that not everyone is a moron. Think about it, what are they losing in the process ? They're thinking like spammers. If only one pirate chooses to buy the whole concert, they've won. They know they piss you off by making you download an advertisement (and waste your precious bandwidth) and they'll keep pissing you off until you've had enough and either
a) you buy their product or
b) you stop downloading illegal stuff
They have learned well. You have to agree that it's clever ! They're using the pirates own weapon against them.
This doesnt work as a defence for sharing.
I dont think RIAA has ever sued anybody for downloading, only sharing.
wow, what a concept! promote ceedee sales by giving away low fidelity versions of the same songs on p2p networks! what'll these music biz people think of next!
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
Yeah - weird isn't it? It's almost like... allowing people to download music for free... leads to more music sales!
How strange - how "downloading free copyrighted music" doesn't lead to more music sales... but apparently "allowing people to download free copyrighted music" makes them buy more music from you.
Of course, we all know the central issue is one of consent - clearly when people download free copyrighted music that I don't want them to, that hurts my business, even if it leads to more sales. However, when people download free copyrighted music that I've allowed them to download, even when they don't know whether or not I want them to download it, that helps my business.
Clearly there's some magical "spooky action at a distance" going on that means when someone downloads my copyrighted music it only hurts my business if I didn't want them to download it - if I don't mind the downloading it actually helps my-
*head explodes*
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself