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RIAA Writes Its Own News For Local TV

Posted by Zonk on from the how-generous-of-them dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Did your local news recently do a two-minute clip on music copyright infringement? If so, you can thank the RIAA. They sent out a video press release to local news stations as part of their 'holiday anti-piracy campaign.' In it, they warn people that the best way to avoid counterfeit music is to avoid 'compilation CDs that could only exist in the dreams of a music fan' and to trust their ears, because illegally copied music usually sounds 'atrocious.' Instead, they encourage watchers to buy ringtones for Christmas."

3 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Ringtones? by eno2001 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Who the fuck with a brain buys ringtones? Just drop a needle, take a sample and shuttle it off to your phone via USB... Jesus the RIAA are a bunch of fuckin' morons.

    --
    -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
    1. Re:Ringtones? by glindsey · · Score: 5, Informative

      Who the fuck with a brain buys ringtones? Just drop a needle, take a sample and shuttle it off to your phone via USB... Jesus the RIAA are a bunch of fuckin' morons. Depends on the phone. A lot of newer phones only allow you to choose ringtones from a special section of memory which can't be accessed over USB mass-storage, or require DRM-encrypted files to play. Goddamned phone is designed to work as a music player, and yet you can't use the MP3s stored on it as ringtones, because there's profit to be made, dammit!

      It is the kids accepting this shit that are the bunch of fuckin' morons.
  2. This is normal by wonkavader · · Score: 3, Informative

    Video Press Releases are a way for your local news station to fill a minute or two without spending any money to create content. As such, these for-profit "news" channels love them. They're done by any number of industries. The key is that they have to be very polished. If they don't have the usual TV news production values, the stations won't run them. This means that you need to have at least the same sort of equipment that the local stations have, putting such VPRs out of reach for most organizations that we'd actually WANT to send out such a thing.

    But Proctor and Gamble can afford it, as can Conagra, etc.

    You want them all the time, if you bother watching local news, and don't even know it. Look for the atractive reporter that you've never seen before, or the reporter who reports on the same subject EVERY SINGLE TIME he or she is on a segment. That's a giveaway that it's outside material.