Canada's music industry has expanded its public awareness campaign promoting the idea that when someone buys music, they help artists create more music and allow new artists a chance to be heard.

At least, that's what a ridiculous new 'public service announcement' (a very, very expensive, paid-for tv ad, in other words) says.

Entitled "Drowning", it was apparently seen for the first time at the MuchMusic Video Awards.

And 'drowning' is about where it's at for a lot of unknown people the recording industry has been ripping off for decades.

Be that as it may, featuring music by "Canadian recording artist Andy Stochansky [who he?] this PSA is the most emotionally-charged of three PSA spots produced by the Canadian Value of Music Coalition [wot it?]" a puff-piece states.

Emotionally charged? It'd be nice of the music industry directed some of the cash it spends on these totally useless 'public awareness' shots to actually doing something for the artists they own.

In the meanwhile, it's all part of an international mind-washing campaign which is costing BMG, EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner, the Fulsome Five labels (soon to be the Fulsome Three) mega bucks and includes:

* point-of-sale materials in retail stores,
* tags on retail music advertising,
* banner announcements at key Canadian online properties,
* CD inserts that, "thank consumers for buying a recording"
* posters aimed at kids' attention to the campaign
* an update of an odious "instructional" video the labels want teachers in middle and high schools across Canada to force-feed their students

If you're Canadian and you see any of this junk, why not tell the owner / broadcaster (and/or your teacher) you're not totally brain-damaged so LEAVE IT OUT !!!

I'm so glad the RIAA is wasting more of it's money.

Go ahead RIAA! Spend spend spend!

Guess the RIAA doesn't realize that Canadians don't put up with shit like this.

Oh, we put up with everything, that's part of the Canadian way, we're pussies.
is it the RIAA doing this or their Canadian equivalent?...(CIAA)?
This is why it's important to make everyone out there who might be succeptible to this kind of propaganda aware of the rational arguements of the pro file sharing community and how p2p networks might be the best thing that ever happened to Canadian musicians.

I haven't seen that public service announcement yet.. just a fuckload of those "stealing sat. signals" ones, bah, those piss me off so much.

Lots of Canadians steal sat because we can't legally get directTV up here, at least not where i live..

fucking bell expressvu sucks donkey balls

My cousin is still in school. She's in middle school to be exact. She told me that when her school received some of these re-educational goods from the media giants, her social studies teacher used them to teach the class about the history of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and it's benifits to society. Score one for a public educater.

haha, fucking eh!

i'm waiting for the stops where they show starving children and have sally struthers walk out and say "these poor hungry children would have made millions in a musical career, but instead they live in squalor because of online file sharing"

Nice to know there's still some cool teachers out there.
if the file sharing ads are as dumb as the sat stealing ads we won't have much to worry about.

Still trying, still failing. The MUSIC campaign ran similar ads a while ago, but only 30 seconds and very badly done. The MUSIC campaign is of course run by the RIAA. Those ads had no effect at all. They were basicly 30 seconds of people saying buzzwords (Rip, MP3, internet, etc) followed by the "dont steal music" notice and a link to the musicunited website. since those failed, the canadian approach seems to be to use a more emotional and detailed advert.

If somone finds a link to a recording I will evaluate parody potential.

I mentioned this how long ago in the anti RIAA forum???, and now evryone is talking about it?, I think I brought it up about a month and a half ago LbS

Andy Stochansky appears on Ani Difranco's album living in clip, he may have been a band member for a while. I wonder what she's up to lately? Too bad Andy is in on this crap, Ani started her own label rather than bend over for the recording industry, her early CDs had an insert to the effect that:

"Unauthorized Duplication, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing."

You sure this isnt fake? It sounds like most spoof pieces...

Could someone verify this?

If it isnt then TCPA isnt all of my problems.

BTW, most of my teachers download stuff, know i'm a cartoon pirate, one has a fioncee into IRC and the other wanted help on pirating Office XP.

Dont think they'll be fooled for this once they try America, land of the Slaves

Wow...instructional videos in class? Likened to youth propaganda. That's exactly how Hitler raised his army.

Soon we'll see the RIAA buying up summer camps, where children will be taught how to buy music and how to make sure it doesn't come from those evil independent labels. "Remember, it's a sin to buy music unless one of these logos is on the cover..." I can see it now.

Hmm..I just noticeD that most of the organizations and businesses I have ever encountered which end in "AA" are usually a corrupt bunch of assholes.

BOYCOTT THE BASTARDS!

iH8RIAA: Post makes no sense. Verify thread?

Currently schools provide about an hour of teaching about internet piracy, in a fairly neutral way. At least they do over here, it could be different in the US. I wouldn't be surprised if pressure from the lobbying groups (to do anything) and from the FBI (who want to look like they are doing anything) will change that in a year or so.

(I was refering to the FBIs potential new role running an anti-piracy campaign includeing education, as discussed in an earlier thread.)