Apple and Pepsi Ad Sports RIAA Targets 683
eefsee writes "USA Today is running a story about Pepsi's Superbowl ad for their iTunes promotion. The ad will apparently feature teens sued by the RIAA, including one young woman who holds out a Pepsi and says, 'We are still going to download music for free off the Internet.' The RIAA response? 'This ad shows how everything has changed.'"
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Either the RIAA can join in and make money, or they can sit back and hopelessly try to defend an oppressive business model that has been rendered technologically obsolete.
How come... (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to go Apple and Pepsi but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As the RIAA responds "this is the way it is supposed to be" they will probably be filling out the next batch of legal filings accusing more senior citizens of stealing songs. The worst part of all this is that here they are making money off legal downloads while they attack people like rabid dogs trying to make more money.
Re:Way to go Apple and Pepsi but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, isn't the RIAA already involved? From what I remember, they get a pretty large chunk out of that $.99 paid to the iTunes music store. Looks like they are doing both at the moment...
uploaders, not downloaders (Score:4, Insightful)
The entire article is wrong. They were busted for being uploaders (sharers) of music, not downloaders. In fact, it is perfectly legal to download music off the internet. It is against copyright law to share it, which is what they were doing.
Learn your values from megacorps (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
The bleak and horrible past! (Score:5, Insightful)
Downloading is Theft? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck them. Once again, it's not theft. It's copyright infringement. Fuck them.
Re:Not at all stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
That's nothing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it, while an ad during the Superbowl seems like a big deal to us geeks, people ALREADY know about teens being busted by the RIAA. While the buzz has definitly gotten around to non-techie people, people just aren't getting worked up over this enough to actually do anything about it.
As much as it's considered taboo to say "downloading music is stealing" on Slashdot, that's what many people who do not download music see it as - teens getting sued by the RIAA for stealing music. It really doesn't tug on your heartstrings when that's what you see it as. You gotta remember, the average person who doesn't use P2P services probably does not understand the chances for the wrong people getting accused by the RIAA. They don't realize the RIAA is basically extorting people for absurd amounts of money to settle or face civil prosecution and all the costs associated with it. They don't realize the RIAA is abusing its monopoly and rips off its artists. All people see are teens stealing music.
I see something much more sinister in the Pepsi commercial. I see the RIAA getting its way for $1 a track. I see once insubordinate teens that have been "shown the light" by becoming corporate whores and bowing to the RIAA's will. It only took Apple 20 years to be associated with a superbowl commercial totally opposite of their 1984 vision. This time, big brother wins.
It's a good thing I drink coke.
Pepsi - last bastion of freedom eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
this ad, while ostensibly taking a shot at the RIAA, is actually helping them. It points out that these kids were sued for one, reminding a lot of people that the threat still exists. It makes i-tunes a very attractive alternative. The more popular i-tunes is, the less popular p2p necessarily becomes.
and does the RIAA make money from songs sold on i-tunes?
Um, you know, i think they do . .
so if you were thinking of screaming 'TAKE THAT RIAA! HELLS YEAH PEPSI!", maybe you should take a moment to consider that pepsi is probably just using your anti-RIAA sympathies to leverage its brand.
*disclaimer - i personally think i-tunes rocks. pay for your music . . . just don't buy RIAA.
Sure the RIAA gets their cut from iTunes sales... (Score:2, Insightful)
but my question is this: Do you think Apple is really charging Pepsi 99 cents per track, or do you think they got a volume discount? I would like to think that Pepsi got a smokin' deal on however many tracks they purchased to giveaway, meaning that the RIAA isn't making as much money off of the Pepsi tracks as it would if they were all independently purchased...
Re:950 songs over 3 years? (Score:2, Insightful)
An average geek with a 3MB cable modem does that much stuff in 2-3 HOURS.
Pikers.
Re:super bowl watching tip (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Theres two problems here
First of all, the slashdot blurb doent make it clear, as the article does, that Pepsi is paying to give away 100 million free song downloads on the iTunes website (presumably with the purchase of a Pepsi product). Thats the nature of the "we will still download for free comment", which has nothing to do with subverting copyright law. Its a really great marketing scheme which doesnt really do anything at all except play on your wants and fears, having you make assumptions about the current state of the music industry and Pepsi's stance on it. Scroll up a bit and you'll find a guy professing to buy Pepsi from now on, even though he doesnt really like it.
Secondly, even if there was a mega-corporation taking aim at the RIAA, it wouldnt prove that the business model is failing. This was proven long ago when the RIAA sued a 12 year old for downloading the theme song to Full House (among other songs). It has been proved repeatedly over and over again since then, most notably with the introduction of iTunes - a new business model. If cant be sure yourself, and you need Pepsi to validate this for you... well I dont know what to tell you.
Same ol' RIAA but now with Moxie? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, for picking you from among the many who are echoing such sentiments, but how is this "less evil than before"? As far as I can tell (not having yet seen the ad and given the article's details), the former defendants will be on the tube, hats in hand, promoting a pay service to obtain files over the Internet. Furthermore, the AAC files Apple sells on the iTMS are DRM'ed. This is everything the RIAA could have hoped for: former P2P'ers nodding to the beat of paying for their downloads.
Also keep in mind that members of the RIAA get a take of money earned by the iTMS if those tracks are copyrighted by RIAA-affiliated labels, and many are.
Don't get me wrong. I think iTMS is great (I'm a Mac head from way back who loves UNIX) and have maybe a couple dozen songs with the "m4p" extension. I also used Napster maybe a dozen times and hated the RIAA's campaign to destroy one of the best databases the world has ever known. But with the exception of profiting from digital music distribution, I don't see how the RIAA has changed at all.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
The money may "go to the RIAA", but in reality it's going to pay off the debts incurred by the bands.
Arggh! It's not downloading. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to know why the RIAA is hip to this, just think a moment. It blurs the activity. Illegal downloading is now the problem in the public's mind. By saying they litigated on the demand side rather than the supply side, they make people worry about whether the downloads can be tracked.
I respect that the RIAA needs to enforce the publishing rights of its members. Given how creepy most people think the RIAA is, I don't see why the reinforce the perception by perpetuating a lie.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
from the 99 cent iTunes download they get about 11 cents per song.
Apple gets about 35 cents per song.
In both cases, the RIAA/Record companies get the rest.
So, if I buy 10 tracks from an album, the artist gets about $1.10, as oppsed to 8 cents.
Support iTunes because it gives back to the artists. Don't not support it because it puts money in the RIAA's pocket. Even CD-Rs (so called music cd-r) get "Taxed" by the RIAA. You have to pay the RIAA to do anything with RIAA music. The best we can do is pay less for the music and give the artists a bigger cut. iTunes seems to be doing this, so it is a Good Thing in my book. At the very least, it is a step in the right direction.
they're not less evil, just less stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
RIAA labels still have preferential access to music on radio, they still control their supply chain, and they're getting paid. What's even better is that the while the ad might portray Apple as standing up to the RIAA, Apple (and its customers) are paying them for the music all the same. It's like beer ads that preach mass-market nonconformity as a panacea for conformity - it allows people to feel that they're hurting the RIAA by buying iTunes while giving RIAA precisely what it wants from them (control over music choice, and money).
The RIAA should be cheering - they negate some of their opposition and get paid if they just sit back and shut up. They haven't changed - they still want control over aspects of music they have already shown they can't be trusted with. They're just smarter about it.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Controversy (Score:3, Insightful)
Fact: MoveOn.org does not pay for ads on a regular basis on TV, and certainly not on CBS.
Fact: Pepsi does
Fact: Politics and voting are of little concern to over 50% of the population
Fact: Comercials that are entertaining generate better response from the viewing audience.
Fact: The superbowl is not a political forum, nor is it supposed to be used as such.
Conclusion: CBS does not care for, nor will they air the MoveOn.org ad, especialy given that it's a political ad whihc means (IIRC) they then have to give equal time to an ad supporting bush. CBS does care about pepsi ads because papsi ads sell products, which generate more advertising revenue for them and also keep viewers entertained.
Therefore: You should stop expecting the media to be your political watchdog.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Controversy (Score:3, Insightful)
Revenue is not profit (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:1, Insightful)
It'd be foolish to ignore music you like just because some asshole company has a stranglehold on the artist.
Pray to your god for a frontal lobe. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember, the artists could just have well not signed up to be in the RIAA, and remain independent. Instead, they "sold out".
There really is no reason to join the RIAA. You could have easily produced your art without them, and remain independent. If you wanna be rich as an artist, make the money yourself, and do your own promotions. If someone else is going to be doing all the promotions for you, then they rightfully deserve the resulting money for their work.
Re:Good. (Score:2, Insightful)
from the 99 cent iTunes download they get about 11 cents per song.
Apple gets about 35 cents per song.
In both cases, the RIAA/Record companies get the rest.
First off, record labels and the RIAA aren't the same thing. Record labels choose to support the RIAA. It's not like the RIAA has a tap into a percentage of each album or song sold.
Second, in these meticulous calculations, where do record stores come in? Manufacturing costs? Advertising?
That said, I''m strongly opposed to the RIAA and most record labels, but pushing around naive napkin calculations as fact hurts your viewpoints more than it helps.
sports : video games :: football : Civ (Score:2, Insightful)
For a long time I was very anti-football. I saw it as a sport for idiot jocks that gets them billions of dollars a year. But then I was living with some rabid football fans for awhile, and I started watching.
Now, I'm hooked. Much like a turn based strategy game, if you don't know what's going on it's boring as hell (imagine watching a game of Civ with no clue whatsoever?). But once you know *why* there's pass interference, or false start, or the difference between an incidental face mask and one that's a personal foul, it becomes engrossing. Hell, I went out and bought the complete rules to football once I really started getting in to it. It's cool to be able to call out a penalty and then see the refs call it after you saw it.
Also, try to understand the different types of defense that are going on (e.g., zone (where you cover the ball / offensive players in an area) vs. man (where you cover a particular offensive player), and the blitz (where you send guys out of zone or man coverage to get the quarterback) ). Defensive stragety is *quite* interesting and fun, not to mention with a large element of psychology thrown in.
If you're going to be watching the super bowl anyway (for the ads) you might as well try to figure out what's going on. Instead of reading
In the end, I'm convinced that the reasons geeks hate football is because we got beat up by the football players in high school.
Re:Controversy (Score:4, Insightful)
Naturally, CBS is under no obligation to air the ad, but it is upsetting that such a mild ad gets the shaft while a company like Pepsi can pretty much do whatever it wants.
Remember, these are our airwaves. The same airwaves that will broadcast ads from Bush' drug policy office, in case anyone was getting worried about "equal time". If an organization is willing to pay fair market value, I see no good reason, aside from outright obscenity or something the FCC wouldn't allow, why they should be stopped from airing their views, commercial or political. If Pepsi can nudge the RIAA, then MoveOn can nudge Bush for the same dime.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The bleak and horrible past! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm more sad that most of the music the world has made is either unrecorded or unpreserved.
Re:The 12 Year Old... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even CD-Rs (so called music cd-r) get "Taxed" by the RIAA.
If this is true, then haven't I already paid for the right to copy RIAA music?
Re:The 12 Year Old... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Controversy (Score:3, Insightful)
The MoveOn email and web site front page say that CBS will be airing ads from the White House. What they don't say is that the ads are from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Now, while I'm no fan of ONDCP, I wouldn't say that their anti-drug ad is likely to be a political one.
The question is: why is CBS refusing MoveOn's ad. One of the posters below says "No political ads have ever been aired during the Superbowl". If that's true, CBS is just continuing the precedent, not displaying a double standard.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
RIAA != Bank (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if I'm PAID to make a house or car, I don't get to keep the house or car I made.
If I don't like my employer, there are plenty of other cats to go to. The RIAA is a monopoly of the available employers for a particular industry. Smaller employers (indie labels) have a hard time breaking in.
Re:The bleak and horrible past! (Score:3, Insightful)
By "goes to the management," of course, you mean the parties and percentages listed in the contracts the band itself signs.
What's the issue here?
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
I see a completely different message (Score:1, Insightful)
People want the convenience of downloading music. They want it on demand. And thanks to the net, there is no reason that it can't be provided that way. RIAA was scared. They know that the main hold they have on artists is their promotional muscle and distribution chain. Well if artists can get their stuff to fans on the net and make themselves known there, what do they need a record company for? Artists have hated the recording industry's contracts for a very long time.
RIAA didn't want music downloads to happen. Instead, they've dragged their feet too long. Now the fans have somewhere else to go. And all the indie record companies who are willing to deal with the artists on a more even basis should have no problem stealing them away from RIAA's members.
Re:Downloading is Theft? (Score:2, Insightful)
(dude, you like, can't OWN data =) but I jest)
Re:Good. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why buy/listen to it at all? (Score:1, Insightful)
The RIAA doesn't produce anything. That's not its purpose. It's an industry trade association.
The RIAA is made up of record labels. Record labels don't produce anything either. That's not their job. Their job is basically to be venture capitalists.
Artists produce things, along with producers and engineers and all the myriad technical professionals that help them. A guy with a guitar can't create anything tangible without money, and that's where the label comes in. A label listens to an artist, makes an educated guess about that artist's commercial potential, and offers (or chooses not to offer) financial backing proportionate to that potential.
So a record label is basically a VC firm.
Now, why do record labels choose to invest in some artists and not others? Because they know what's going to sell and what isn't. They know this better than anybody else, because they've got decades worth of empirical data. So they know that Britney Spears is going to sell $X billion in concert ticket sales, $Y billion in CD sales, and $Z billion in cross-promotional and other sundry revenues over the next 5 years. They also know that a fringe act like Zero 7 is going to do similar business, with all the numbers divided by ten thousand. (Sometimes they're wrong; witness Moby. He generated ten thousand times more business than anybody expected him to with his "Play" album. Same thing with the soundtrack to "O Brother Where Art Thou," except it was more like a hundred times instead of ten thousand.)
So here's how it all boils down: people want to listen to music. There are certain kinds of music they want to listen to a lot, and other kinds they want a little, and still other kinds they couldn't give two shits about. Record labels know this, because they've been around the block a time or two. So they can make educated guesses about which artists are going to make money and which aren't. They invest their money accordingly.
Let's sum up: who's producing crap? The artists. Why? Because people want to hear it.
The RIAA has nothing to do with it.
Re:The 12 Year Old... (Score:1, Insightful)
I think Apple and Pepsi are trying to show what world we are about to live in if nothing is done, that a 12 year old can get their asses sued just for downloading a song on the Internet. Granted, sharing the song is a different story, but no one would ever get sued for copying a song on the radio, which is pretty much what this kid was doing. Oh wait, but thats right, MP3s are digital quality.... err but they aren't.. or are they?
hrmm....
Re:Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not true. Plenty of non-RIAA bands get radio airplay. Lately, I hear Death Cab For Cutie so often I'm getting bored of them.
Also, there are very few (none that I know of) commercial outlets that sell music in any volume without specific authorization from the RIAA.
Really? Then where the hell are people buying all those copies of Warren Zevon's album "The Wind", which is on Artemis (a non-RIAA label)?
.
Re:That's nothing... (Score:2, Insightful)
If anything, I'd think it'd be encouraging artists to abandon the major labels (i.e. your big shots in the RIAA) in lieu of the more equitable terms of indie labels. If the artist on the indie gets a fatter cut then the artist on Sony or Warner Brothers or EMI, then it would make more sense for artists to release through an independent label instead, since they both get equal treatment on the iTMS (i.e. they don't take money for better placement as opposed to traditional retail). In that way I see it as an opportunity for the little guy to stand on even ground with the big shots. Also take note that since they permit 30 second previews of all tracks and all tracks can be purchased individually, people have a much greater chance to try something new, perhaps something they never heard of before.
No, I mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the bleak and horrible past, people made decisions for us.
Signing their own death warrants (Score:4, Insightful)
The RIAA currenly has a monopoly on physical distribution. No pirate could every touch them when it comes to their ability to crank out physical CD's. However, once they get the downloading in to the mainstream, (and I mean making it totally replace cds) they will have changed the market so that they are totally obsolete. The RIAA cannot survive in an online world...they are too big, too slow, and too hated.
Let's face it, when it comes to the internet, Geeks have a thousand times more resources for distributing information than the RIAA ever will. What's to stop new bands from using services like itunes to be promoted alongside RIAA bands, and then selling their own music over the net?
Anyways, here's to the RIAA! Thanks for helping to make a world where you are irrelevant!
Re:What does Pepsi get out of this? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's also an economic multiplier -- "hey look, I'm getting a drink AND a song..." Or, "Hey, my drink/song costs less now..."
Yes, some outliers are going to buy litres of Pepsi, but I still think that most folks aren't actually going to drink more fluids as a result.
What would make a better commercial... (Score:2, Insightful)
1) one of the millions who filed with the anti-trust suit in which the RIAA inflated CDS between 1995-2000. We're the victims here...
2) Prince or the Dixie Chicks explaining lawsuits around their unfair contracts with their record companies.
3) Howard Berman (Rep. Senator fighting P2P). I'd love to see Pepsi ask him about the 55 million in lobby money the RIAA spends a year.
4) Mitch Bainwol himself. I'd like to see them ask about the data posted on the RIAA site and have him explain in detail the "loss of sales" spreadsheet for last year. Apparently, the people who put together these figures assume you will buy several copies of the same CD for your car, your stereo, and your computer. It would be fun for him to watch him explain this while he's drinking a pepsi.
5) Interview someone from the CD-R division of any one of the Music companies and ask them why downloading music is wrong.
Come to my house on the 2nd and you're getting coke....
Re:No, I mean... (Score:2, Insightful)
According to absolutely everybody, there ARE alternatives...indie labels, Internet distribution, etc.
You're behaving like the RIAA is forcing you to sign with their labels, as if there is no choice. Well, gee, you should let the other 80% of the music world know, since there is a non-RIAA world.
You, of course, mean the contract where the artist pays for the wining and dining necessary to get airplay.
So don't. There's Internet or other radio stations that DON'T require payola.
I'm so sick of this whiny victim mentality. Bands can do just fine without going to an RIAA label--they do it all the time. If you sign a contract, you sign a contract! What, is there a gun pointing to your head? Is that what you're saying when you write "no alternative?"
Hackable? (Score:3, Insightful)
printed on bottle caps, how long until scripters start probing for music codes....
Damn pirates.
They did it to themselves (Score:3, Insightful)
Talk about reaping what you sow.
When you turn the industry into something about trendiness and glitz and everything except actual quality of product, this is what you get.
Of course, of the 10, all 10 are just glitz products, and the actual skilled musicians, pot-bellies and ugly faces and all, sit at home and release quality albums in batches of 1000 on independent labels. Or they play in small jazz clubs and such.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or I can listen to what I like, and not base my music tastes on sticking it to the RIAA...
Re:Downloading is Theft? (Score:1, Insightful)
Copyright infringement is where you infringe on the exclusive rights of holders to do certain things.
Robbery, pickpocketing, fraud, etc. are where you take something away from someone in such a way that they don't have it anymore.
When you infringe copyrights, you're not taking the song, or the music, you're taking the exclusivity out of the right. It's a subtle difference, but, it makes a whole world of difference -- especially in terms of the actual harm done by the "crime."
It's just laziness to assert that copyright infringement is theft. I mean, you can just as easily asser the opposite: that copyright, itself, is theft since it robs from the otherwise free pool of ideas known as the "public domain."
Re:Nice try, but that's BS (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure you do...thats why its called copyright, and violating that right is called copyright infringement. Still doesn't have anything to do with theft.
Re:The 12 Year Old... (Score:3, Insightful)