Recycle your Pepsi tops!
DownhillBattle’s latest foray is into online music world. Again. And this time their target is Pepsi and its free iTunes song launch.
You’ll recall that Pepsi stroked a 14-year-old victim of the RIAA’s sue ‘em all campaign into appearing in a Pepsi iTunes commercial slated to hit the airwaves during the SuperBowl.
The promo means Pepsi is giving away 100 million iTunes songs. Well, actually, it’s selling them to you on behalf of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) whose owners, the major record labels, sold them to Apple in the first place.
People get the songs by buying Pepsi and then looking under the bottle tops, some of which have a code you use to ‘buy’ a song from iTunes.
If you already have iTunes, you’re set – if you want to support Big Music, that is. If not, do you really want to install iTunes just to buy a song from a lack-lustre catalogue from the labels?
We didn’t think so – but wait!
Now there’s a reason to actually do that.
Enter DownhillBattle’s Tune Recycler.
Now read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Transforming useless soda caps into a force for good
By Rebecca, Nicholas and Holmes - DownhillBattle
Pepsi is about to dump 100 million free iTunes songs into circulation. During the Super Bowl, they’ll be launching a promotion that gives you a 1 in 3 chance of winning a free iTunes song under the bottlecap of a Pepsi. Those 100 million caps could theoretically mean 65 million dollars for record labels and musicians (that’s what’s left after Apple’s cut).
But we have a hunch that most Pepsi drinkers won’t bother to download and install iTunes just to get a single song. To help remedy the situation, we’re announcing the Tune Recycler which lets people donate their unwanted iTunes codes, which we will redeem. Of course, we would never send Pepsi’s money to the big five labels (that would be a little incestuous, don’t you think?). We’ll be using the codes to buy music from independent labels. We’re going to pick single albums and buy them over and over – each purchase sends a little cash to some cool people. We’re going to start taking bottlecap submissions when the promotion begins on February 1st, but we’re announcing the site today. Check out the Tune Recycler.
===========================
What did you really win under that cap?
Pepsi is giving away 100 million iTunes songs under Pepsi bottlecaps. For some people, winning an “iTune” when they open their Pepsi might be exhilarating. But if you aren’t one of those excitable few, we understand – you didn’t exactly win the lottery. Most people who drink Pepsi don’t use iTunes, so winning a single song means you won a chance to spend 20 minutes downloading, installing, and signing up for a music service that will cost a lot more than your Pepsi habit.
An Opportunity for Independent Music
A winning Pepsi cap isn’t just a song, it’s a chance to send Pepsi’s 99 cents somewhere good. When a cap is redeemed, Pepsi pays Apple 99 cents for the song, and Apple passes along 65 cents to a record label. Unfortunately, most of the music on iTunes is put out by one of the 5 major record labels, and their business practices are highly suspect. When you buy an iTunes song from a major label, there’s a good chance the artist won’t see a penny, because they’re perpetually in debt to the label. If the artist does get a cut, it’s only about 10 cents from the 99 cents you paid. But we can do better!
Don’t throw away that cap, recycle it!
When you submit a winning Pepsi code to the Tune Recycler, we’ll redeem it for music from honest, independent labels. There are a few great independent labels in the iTunes store that give their musicians up to 40-50 cents, right from the first sale. When you use the Tune Recycler, you know that no money is going to support price fi’ing, payola, or lawsuits against families with children – and most importantly, the money goes to a musician. That way, you don’t have to sign up with iTunes to get one song, but you can still put that cap to use.
