AfterDawn: News

Ad campaign against online music piracy

Major record labels have funded a big advertising campaign in the U.S. to "educate" consumers that downloading music from the P2P networks is illegal.

Campaign that will run for the next couple of months, will feature artists such as Britney Spears and Missy Elliott. Adverts will be shown at Congress' hearing on online piracy today before they will be rolled out to public. TV campaign is also boosted with national newspaper campaign launched earlier this week, featuring same names as the TV ads and also additional artists, such as Eminem and Madonna.



Basically artists will be telling American audiences how downloading music from the P2P networks is stealing and morally wrong. IMHO, it kinda strikes me to use artists who earn millions from their recording deals, in these ads and trying to convince how their living is under threat by P2P networks. Meanwhile various studies have proved how downloading music actually boosts record sales. Ah well, its better that they spend record labels' money this way than suing individuals over downloading MP3s..

Source: BBC

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 26 Sep 2002 13:56

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• 7 comments

• dRD

  Hah, finally a good reason to get female pictures to our site ;-)
  

  Petteri Pyyny
  Webmaster
  http://AfterDawn.com/

  26.9.2002 15:06 #1

• waiski

  Hey! What is my girlfriend's pic doing there? :o
  

  Janne Nissinen
  Administrator
  http://AfterDawn.com/

  26.9.2002 19:09 #2

• A_Klingon

  Mega-millionaire Madonna trying to tell me that p2p systems are hurting her bottom line holds about as much credibility as screen doors on a submarine.
  
  Message to the RIAA and all those who they represent: Flush your mega-stars down the nearest toilet, get some serious independent artists, grow up, get a life, then call me in the morning.
  
  This whole ad campaign reeks of Nazi propaganda.
  
  -- Klingy --
  
  

  27.9.2002 00:48 #3

• Hausplant

  In the bigger picture:
  a.) Yes, it is stealing, and specifically illegal
  b.) Yes, someone is losing some money, and
  i. The more prevelant it becomes, the more they lose
  ii. They have money to fight it politically
  c.) The sooner they can curb it from becoming mass-market activity, the sooner those of use who love it can not feel so threatened that it might get more official resistance.
  
  Face it, the mass market CANNOT make this the norm, and the more it looks and feels to the industry like this is common, the harder it will be for those of us who don't mind breaking that law... So screw the masses.
  
  I hope the ad campaign works so politicians can ignore it again.
  
  --aph

  27.9.2002 09:53 #4

• A_Klingon

  I haven't got a clue what you just said.
  
  "It" (peer-to-peer) is already mass-market; it IS the norm. Face *that*.
  
  Stealing from the mega-Madonnas and mega-Spears? Tuff Titt. Breaks my heart, it does. The industry has been stealing from us for years, and in particular, the smaller artists.
  
  The ad campaign is a crock of you-know-what. The only ones losing money are those that stole it from us in the first place. And they will continue to lose.
  
  Let's see how deep their pockets run.
  
  -- Mike --
  

  27.9.2002 18:43 #5

• dRD

  The fact is that recording artists are required to sign up to "slave contracts" with labels in order to get _any_ promotion from the label. This causes some seriously **cked up things to the markets:
  
  -small artists pay for promotion that label does
  -small artists pay for their musicvideos label want them to do
  -small artists pay for management fees for labels
  -labels OWN all the music -- whether artist stays on the label or not, label can (and will) do whatever they want with the music
  
  Some nice ideas to chew: Pressplay pays something around $0.001 to each downloaded song for artist. Seriously. Think about it. You get a grass-roots following and distribute your music through legal, label-owned music service and _ONE MILLION PEOPLE_ download your single -- you get $1,000. And then label deducts the fees listed above.
  
  Best-known example of label-abuse was probably the bankruptcy of girl-band TLC back in '90s -- they sold tens of millions of albums, but actually owed money to label.
  

  Petteri Pyyny
  Webmaster
  http://AfterDawn.com/

  27.9.2002 20:11 #6

• vudoo

  Ha Ha Ha this shows desparation in part of the RIAA to get us to STOP Downloading. Excuse me while I get the songs I wanted from Dreams So Real.
  Well folks it is election time again. I suppose you all know what that means. If you don't like what is going on, then be sure and vote Dommocrat. Republicans all screw people over. If you want P2P to survive, be sure not to vote for anyone claiming to be a Christian.
  
  Voodoohippi
  (Defender of FREE Cyberspace)

  3.10.2002 10:44 #7