AfterDawn: News

Sprint sponsors p2p download

Sprint has signed on as the first company to underwrite a song to be distributed on file-sharing networks, agreeing to embed its logo on copies of tracks from Atlantic Records hip-hop artist Plies, sources told The Post.

Sprint and Atlantic Records are teaming with ArtistDirect's Media Defender division for the initiative, which essentially amounts to an advertising buy for the telecom company.



According to sources familiar with the deal, Media Defender will push 16 million Plies song files embedded with the Sprint logo onto peer-to-peer networks over a three-month period in return for a "substantial six-figure" fee to be divided between Media Defender, Atlantic Records, Plies and his publishing company.

Once embedded, the Sprint logo will be attached to the files forever and will appear alongside Plies' name and the song Title on the screen of a desktop computer, iPod, cellphone or any other digital music player.

According to Steve Yanovsky, a former record industry executive who consults for Mindshare Interactive, which counts Sprint as a client, the deal positions Sprint "as an innovator and will help drive perception of them in the marketplace."

Source: New York Post

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 10 Jul 2007 3:19

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• 5 comments

• blackvamp

  Wait a minute, sprint releases this music over p2p for free, to have their logos attached to the music file? Isn't that just adware? oO

  10.7.2007 12:31 #1

• akaangus

  Quote:
  Once embedded, the Sprint logo will be attached to the files forever and will appear alongside Plies' name and the song Title on the screen of a desktop computer, iPod, cellphone or any other digital music player. How? My Zen MicroPhoto doesn't support cover art, how the hell would it support an out-of-spec logo?
  
  I have a feeling this will crash more players and computers than any DRM

  10.7.2007 13:44 #2

• kingjoker

  What's the point of dowloading a song that is free with an ad while dowloading another addfree.

  10.7.2007 17:21 #3

• kizersosa

  MediaDefender, a company known to associate with the MPAA, put up a website intended to entrap catch would-be pirates by offering a program download that claimed to speed up downloads. The website was MiiVi.com.
  
  The program actually searched your computer for illegal files and sent the info back to them. Well, the internet got word of this and sprung into action.
  
  By exposing the website and scheme, internet crusaders forced MediaDefender to shut that mother down. When will the MPAA learn that they can't catch pirates by using the same strategy as an annoying pop-up promising to get rid of annoying pop-ups?
  http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/67..._and_Fails.html

  10.7.2007 22:39 #4

• borhan9

  This is like DRM free music files that have hidden features.

  17.7.2007 00:05 #5