p2pnet - rss feed: Sharman launches huge campaign
Sharman Networks today launched an on- and offline campaign aimed at trying to talk users into backing its attempts to finally achieve its goal of moving into the corporate world, with special emphasis on the record labels and movie studios.
In a collection of cynical (even by Sharman standards) ads and puff releases under the slogan Join the Revolution, the Kazaa p2p application owner says it’s, “encouraging users to show their support for peer-to-peer” and “changing perspective” and “publicly showing support for the peer-to-peer revolution which we believe is unstoppable”.
Sharman has for months been failing to convince the entertainment industry their p2p app could be the centre-point of a service through which the studios and labels can sell product - and make money.
However, file sharers are abandoning Kazaa in their thousands, preferring one or more of the many free - and junk-free - alternatives, while the entertainment industry treats Sharman with contempt.
In the meanwhile, Sharman, its partner Altnet and its growing list of collaborators continue to try to push other bundled products and ’services’ before the corporate and user doors are shut permanently in their faces.
In a statement, Sharman says Join the Revolution is a, “marketing campaign to mobilize consumers to send a clear message to the entertainment industry that peer-to-peer technology is a powerful distribution channel for copyrighted material and that users are more than willing to use it to purchase music, movies, games and other content using Sharman’s Kazaa application”.
And, “it’s time for the entertainment industry to stop turning a deaf ear to what consumers want and recognize that there is a revolution underway that is changing the way that music, movies and other content is distributed and purchased,” ceo Nikki Heming says.
What consumers want? This is all about Sharman.
And to make sure Hollywood gets the message, Sharman has adverts in The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Reader, Village Voice, San Francisco Weekly, Portland Mercury, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian (UK) and Metro (UK). In addition, it’ll be featuring online ads on yahoo.com, billboard.com, wired.com and rollingstone.com.
The ads will also run in 35 college newspapers throughout the US, along with posters of the advertisement being placed in high-traffic areas of these colleges.
It’ll be interesting to see how many people are suckered by this massive, and tasteless, propaganda effort - or if it represents Kazaa’s last gasp.
