Recycle some of your 100 million Pepsi Songs 383
grub writes "If you're one of the people that wins a free download from Apple's iTunes during the upcoming 100 million song giveaway from Pepsi, then check out Tune Recycler. They say: "With the Tune Recycler, you can send us your unwanted iTunes bottlecap codes and we'll use them to support independent music. Easy for you, and good for musicians" Sounds like a great idea for payments that may otherwise be tossed in the trash."
Re:how long (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Honest indies (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I don't think anyone will bite.... (Score:3, Informative)
Did you load the page? (Score:5, Informative)
Every week or so, we'll be choosing a few independent artists and a particular album of theirs which we will repeatedly purchase using the donated codes. If we buy enough copies of a single album, we might even be able to move it up the iTunes charts-- it's not too hard these days. All the artists will be from independent labels with reputations for treating artists fairly.
How do I know you guys aren't just going to buy music for yourself?
Well, we run the music activism project Downhill Battle [downhillbattle.org], which is working to bring positive change to the music industry. A central theme of our site is that it's simply unethical to purchase major label music. So clearly, if we wanted free major label music, we'd just take it. Furthermore, since iTunes is essentially a voluntary contribution system (you're paying for something that you could get for free), there's just no incentive to scam people out of bottlecaps. We're just trying to make it easier for people to do something good with their caps instead of throwing them away."
Holy Shit, Batman! Score another one for the "can load the page before hitting reply button" team!
Re:Who runs this thing? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Pepsi, Cola war again (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Pepsi, Cola war again (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps you meant that it is odd that Coke opened their store just before this promotion started.
my favorite band... (Score:1, Informative)
DMC
http://www.lumigraphics.com/
Re:Killing the golden goose? (Score:5, Informative)
You may laugh at me for trash-can diving...but I ended up getting a nice backpack, a mini-Mag lite, a DVD of Jackie Chan's Gorgeous...and, for 255 bottlecaps, a 16 meg RIO mp3 player. That's a lot of stuff.
Too bad they didn't give away a Harrier jumpjet [slashdot.org].
Whoa, I answered my own question. (Score:5, Informative)
I use iTunes, so why should I send you my bottlecap code?
You shouldn't! If you use the iTunes Music Store, we don't want the cap, you should redeem it yourself. However, we would strongly encourage you to use the cap to buy music that's not from one of the 5 major labels. The website RIAA Radar can help you figure out if music that you're thinking of buying is put out by a member of the RIAA. Use the tree to see what labels are just major label fronts.
This is what I'm going to try to do.
Why do I feel this is a scam (Score:5, Informative)
The same group also promotes putting stickers on merchandice in stores. Without authorization from the store owner. That's vandalism (and not very bright that you can whois their domain and get their address).
People who endorse and encourage illegal activities normally aren't very reputable.
I'd be very cautious.
If you like the idea... why not just buy an an independant song off of iTunes yourself? That way your "recycling" yourself. And you know it will happen.
Sorry, I just don't believe criminals.
Re:Honest indies (Score:2, Informative)
from their site:
Pepsi isn't going to be happy. (Score:3, Informative)
Driving me friggin' NUTS (Score:5, Informative)
I am getting really sick of sloppy, idiotic journalists who absolutely insist on referring to those whom the RIAA has sued as "music downloaders," and the USA Today article is a prime example of this complete stupidity.
AFAIK, in absolutely not one single solitary incident has the RIAA sued anyone for downloading music files. They have only ever sued people for sharing music files in excess of a certain number, and even then only if the person is sharing a lot of popular, contemporary music.
Admittedly, those who are sharing files are more than likely downloading them as well, but that is not why they've been sued.
These journalists appear to be utterly incapable of doing even the most basic homework on this issue. One journalist mistakenly writes "The RIAA is suing people for downloading music" and every other journalist, rather than double-checking to see what exactly the lawsuits are about, just parrots what the first journalist wrote. It makes me ill. Thanks to the ever-shoddier American news media, people out there think that downloading "The Log Driver's Waltz" from Gnutella is going to result in uniformed officers kicking their door in moments later, which, at the moment, is simply not true.
As we all know, the RIAA is a massive misinformation machine, and now Pepsi and Apple are jumping in and lending a hand in distributing the RIAA's "We're suing everyone" propaganda. The truth is quite different, but I doubt that more than a handful of Superbowl watchers is going to jump online to ferret out the real story.
The promotion itself sounds like an effective one, and I'm sure it'll bring people to the ITMS in droves, but we really can do without the lies.
Re:Official Rules (Score:3, Informative)
Sign up for a ton of Hotmail accounts. [slashdot.org]
Re:Mountain Dew? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:how long (Score:2, Informative)
From here: [santella.com]
However, these game pieces have no cash value, nor can they be transferred to a third party "...no transfer of prize to a third party permitted and non-cash prizes are not redeemable for cash value." - From the Offical [sic] Rules [apple.com]
Re:Killing the golden goose? (Score:3, Informative)
Why should that matter? The UPC code on Coke cans will be the exact same in Michigan as they are in Ohio, as they are in Canada,etc. That's kind of the point of UPC. All of the cans sold anywhere in the country contain the deposit messages even though they are normally bottled locally for each market, Coke and Pepsi don't want to redesign their cans for each market so there is no way they are going to use a unique UPC for one market.
Re:Pepsi isn't going to be happy. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Accountabilty? (Score:2, Informative)
Our stance on iTunes downloads is pretty simple: if the money goes to musicians, that's great. If most of it goes to a major labels that's a bad thing, for musicians and music culture.
As for public accountability, as has been pointed out already in this thread, there isn't much potential for scamming. We don't even know if the codes we get are real or fake until we redeem them, so giving people receipts would be silly.
Actually, iTunes will still let you in, even if you are giving away free mp3s on your website. You just have to go through CDbaby [cdbaby.com].What about legal implications? (Score:2, Informative)
I
I wonder if Pepsi Legal will be cracking down on this 'service'. I fail to see how a codes origin could be proven or tracked though. The rules also state no more than 200 songs can be claimed by the same email address / registered user.
Let's see what develops...
8. GENERAL CONDITIONS: No substitution of prize is offered, no transfer of prize to a third party permitted and non-cash prizes are not redeemable for cash value. In the event that winner is not capable of downloading Song Prize for any reason, then neither Sponsor nor any of the Promotion Parties shall be obligated to award any prize. Prize recipients are responsible for all applicable federal, state, and local taxes, if any, on prize. All participants agree to be bound by the Official Rules and decisions of Sponsor and its authorized judging agencies (the "Judges"). Non-compliance with these Official Rules will result in disqualification. You are not a winner until your Code has been submitted and verified in accordance with these Official Rules, and you have fully complied with these Official Rules.
Re:Killing the golden goose? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, in the US at least most college campuses are either "Pepsi" or "Coke" campuses, in that either the university or some other company has a monopoly on soda pop sales on university property, and both Pepsi and Coke require exclusivity if you want any of the goodies they give out.
And those goodies can be pretty nice. Sometimes just plain old cash. Sometimes they pay for advertising for your business as long as it has a Pepsi|Coke logo on it. Lots of other stuff.
Re:Hypocrisy, hypocrisy (Score:2, Informative)
Independent artists get a phenomenal cut of the song download. I sell some music through CDBaby and iTMS and get 53 cents per song on iTMS, which is way more than I get on the physical CD. It's a great deal for me.
Tune Recycler's cynical campaign... (Score:3, Informative)
First off, I find this whole Pepsi promotion to be ridiculous; almost as ridiculous as Pepsi's "Billion Dollar Giveaway" from last year. Pepsi believes they only will have 10 to 20 million songs redeemed. Then if you read the rules, a single user is limited legally to 200 downloads, and only 10 can be registered per day. Pepsi's limitations are designed to reduce the amount of songs redeemed. Then you have the fact that Joe Blow has to already have iTunes installed on their computer or download it. If you'll notice at the locations that sell Pepsi, you won't find any CD's that you can pick up that has iTunes already loaded, unlike say if AOL ran the promotion.
Next, you have the Tune Recycler campaign. They want people to "recyle" those iTunes caps. Great idea. I myself wanted to do such a thing online before I read about the 200 download cap on the Rules page this morning. So this group will not be able to download en masse, otherwise Pepsi will cut them off. That means they'll parcel the collected entries between various members of their group. They might claim altruistic reasons, but the simple matter-of-fact is that the downloaded files will be on someone's hard drive and therefore it becomes their "property" even under the DRM limitations. So which songs will these people download?
If Tune Recyler was really serious about their campaign, they'd ask that you input your email address for each of the bottle cap numbers you donate to them, and then put it to a vote of their users as to which songs from which artists they should purchase as well as the volume, all based upon voting. But they don't do that now, do they? Sorry, that's not appealing to me.
The Tune Recycler group then goes on about how bad the iTunes Music Store is since it works with the RIAA. Fine. But they also fail to realize that if iTunes becomes really successful, that will tempt bands to dump their labels and deal directly with Apple, cutting out the middle-man. That will be the end of pre-recorded CDs being sold in retail channels. And I expect that the first major band to do such a thing will be Duran Duran with their much publicized reunion album almost complete and the band yet to re-sign with any of the RIAA labels yet. (And no, I'm not counting Annie DeFranco in this equation either) The simple fact is Tune Recycler cannot see what is plainly in sight on the near horizon with their protest mentality.
And yes, you can only play those AAC files on an iPod. How monopolistic of Apple, I'm sure the Tune Recycler folk will say. But of course with Apple's rather lightweight DRM implementation, you can take those AAC files, burn them in CD format, and then turn them into MP3s or OGGs or whatever else you want. The only other commercial choices support Microsoft's tin-can-sounding WMA format, which is NOT a standard no matter how much money Microsoft throws into PR to claim that it is. So if Tune Recycler wishes to view the world in good and evil terms, you have Apple on one end and Microsoft on the other. Which will you choose?
I'd like to end this posting with stating that I want to see our online community really stick it to Pepsi and claim as many of these bottle caps as possible. We have until March 31st to claim the downloads, so let's get to work.
p.s. The Lynxpro does not work for the RIAA, Apple, or PepsiCo. He actually favours Coke and thinks CokeMusic.com is pretty slick although he abhors their embrace of WMA...
p.p.s. The Lynxpro also thinks Tune Recyler is naive in thinking Pepsi is actually paying Apple 99 cents for each claimed download. In all probability, Pepsi is paying the fee sans the percentage of the cost Apple has built-in to pay the credit card companies for the micropayments. Apple might also be waiving their profit markup as well, so in all actuality, Pepsi is probably paying less than 88 cents per redeemed download...
Re:Killing the golden goose? (Score:2, Informative)