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

The active music audience

[ben there...]

'While peer-to-peer users are stealing the intellectual property, they are also the active music audience,'

So they admit that filesharers are the active music audience.

They're one step away from admitting filesharers buy more music.

What happens if...

[LiquidCoooled]

I go onto a p2p site and download this advert for the concert but mistakenly get the whole thing?

Will I be arrested and thrown in jail?

That's what Google said

[rbf2000]

It's about time the record labels caught on somewhat. Just because you give something out for free doesn't mean you're not going to make money off of it. I'm sure Google's business model with youtube will involve this type of thing somehow - giving content to people for free without them realizing they're watching ads.

Legal blunder?

[SeanBaker]

Though it makes sense from a marketing perspective, this seems to compromise their position legally. If they really don't want people downloading the P2P files, then why are they spending so much money to talk directly to them OVER P2P? Could leave a defense much like the First Commenter said - just walk into court and claim you were downloading all of that illegal music because you wanted to see the ads you heard about on the Internet.

Re:Decoy Files on P2P Sites Become Income

[phagstrom]

Let's sue them for providing you with mislabeled material with the sole intend to defraud. Also entrapment and racketeering (pay us, or bad stuff will happen to you).

Yeah, Yeah, bogus lawsuite clearly, but still better than the average riaa lawsuit.

Re:Decoy Files on P2P Sites Become Income

[flonker]

It seems to me that by putting the files up, they are giving permission to distribute them. Hence, no copyright infringement occurs.

Imagine the first mover advantage

[chriss]

This is what everybody told the music industry for years: Don't try to fight down P2P, understand that these are your customers and give them an incentive to buy something from you instead of trying to force it down their throats. Now, after maybe six or seven years, the message got through.

Just imagine what would have happened if one of the major labels would have done this right from the beginning and what this would have done for their market share compared to the other ones who prefer to sue kids and grannies.