Pepsi: Amazon instead of iTunes
p2pnet news | Music:- Steve Jobs’ and Apple’s most recent experience with using the Super Bowl as an advertising vehicle, almost exactly four years ago, was a total shambles and an utter disgrace.
It teamed up with Pepsi. Fair enough. But then it blew the game by also hooking into Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA, using 16 teenaged RIAA victims as foils in a blackly cynical iPod/iTunes promotion.
Pepsi is back at the Super Bowl, but this time around, there’s no sign of Apple.
America’s No 2 burp-water company is using Justin Timberlake instead of Green Day, and Amazon in place of Apple, says the New York Times, going on:
“The switch is an indicator of the continuing tension between the music industry and Apple. Pepsi’s earlier ad, set to Green Day’s version of the song ‘I Fought the Law,’ prodded music fans to quit pirating music online and instead buy songs – legally – from Apple’s then-fledgling iTunes. Four years later, iTunes is by far the biggest digital music store, and the industry is taking a liking to Amazon’s rival music service, introduced in September.”
At issue now, “is whether the labels can help popularize a more industry-friendly service and accelerate the pace of digital sales,” says the story, noting that behind plan is a, “growing desperation: sales of digital albums and songs are rising far too slowly to offset the rapid decline of the CD, the industry’s mainstay product. CD sales slid 19 percent last year; after adding in the 50 million digital albums sold last year and counting every 10 digital songs sold as an album, overall music sales were still down 9.5 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan”.
Amazon gets to offer Big 4 MP3s without DRM, but they’re stil forcing Apple, “to sell their music wrapped in digital rights management software”.
Given Jobs’ addiction to DRM, that shouldn’t be a problem, but anyway, DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control is, “intended to discourage rampant copying,” says the NYT.
Now the industry is, “waiting to see whether – and how quickly – Amazon can grow into a credible alternative to iTunes, and whether Mr. Jobs will stand by as his service, which commands as much as 80 percent of digital download sales, is challenged,” says the story, quoting Gartner analyst Michael McGuire as saying forcing Apple to continue selling restricted music is “kind of like a couple of pebbles in the shoe” but although, “maintaining parity is probably somewhat important,” in the end, “they’re still selling iPods” and Amazon also sells many iPods.
(Thanks, Ray)
Also See:-
utter disgrace – Pepsi-iTunes Super Bowl ad blasted, January 31, 2004
New York Times – Music Industry, Souring on Apple, Embraces Amazon Service, January 14, 2008
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January 14th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
but, but, several thousand fanbois have told us that Apple doesn’t like DRM only has DRM because of the big 4.
So is 2008 the year that Apple announces that iTMS is 100% DRM free?
January 15th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I support the change. As content creators with a focus on new and emerging media, we understand the challenges surrounding the monetization ability of digital content. In this light the debate around protecting content from ‘unauthorised’ downloads / usage has intrigued me right from the beginning both as a consumer as well as a creator.
While iTunes and more recently even sections of Bollywood have been able to sell DRM protected content and reaped moderate benefits, introducing the idea of ‘paid’ digital media to consumers, DRM implementation is still hobbled by lack of universal standards, high costs and overstated efficacy.
I strongly feel Internet is a beautiful medium to help content travel to various markets and demographics. Instead of locking it down be prepared to re-purpose / re-orient your product to any distribution channels such as Mobile or even Print.
(comments posted by: saurabh@phonethics.in)