This Is Classic

[theknife]

Rolling Stone magazine placed this ad in the New York Times yesterday

This is a very expensive way to make an editorial statement ...wonder why they did it and why now?

[MagicMorpheus]

I like it. I wonder if anyone besides p2p users noticed it?

[Shani]

did you scan it yourself, or is it posted somewhere?

[theknife]

nope, I found it here

[JackSpratts]

Originally posted by theknife
This is a very expensive way to make an editorial statement ...wonder why they did it and why now?

Mass-market music magazines like Rolling Stone and others will find the post Napster world as hard to negotiate as the mass-market music companies - the magazines need a monolithic industry as much as the frantic labels do even if they go to great lengths to hide the fact. If the song industry collapses into a scene of scattered factions where everyone makes and consumes their own tunes for smaller and smaller individual audiences the need for national or international magazines covering a handful of "power bands" will diminish or collapse. They can’t possibly cover a diluted worldwide market from a couple of central offices but even if they could the ‘zine would be thousands of pages long. So why buy it if 98% of the contents are as irrelevant to you as the record companies you ignore? I see this ad as a cry for help to the labels, a "Hey guys we're all in this together and we've got a good thing going here so don't f*ck it up!"... camouflaged by anger and Rolling Stone faux nihilism.

- js.

[theknife]

Originally posted by JackSpratts


Mass-market music magazines like Rolling Stone and others will find the post Napster world as hard to negotiate as the mass-market music companies - the magazines need a monolithic industry as much as the frantic labels do even if they go to great lengths to hide the fact. If the song industry collapses into a scene of scattered factions where everyone makes and consumes their own tunes for smaller and smaller individual audiences the need for national or international magazines covering a handful of "power bands" will diminish or collapse. They can’t possibly cover a diluted worldwide market from a couple of central offices but even if they could the ‘zine would be thousands of pages long. So why buy it if 98% of the contents are as irrelevant to you as the record companies you ignore? I see this ad as a cry for help to the labels, a "Hey guys we're all in this together and we've got a good thing going here so don't f*ck it up!"... camouflaged by anger and Rolling Stone faux nihilism.

- js.

Well put, as always, Jack.

Ok, this makes sense. This is Rolling Stone trying to preserve their psuedo anti-Establishment credentials and send a message to the industry at the same time. Logically, they probably like nothing better than to preserve the old status quo. They have as much of a vested interest in a homogenized market dominated by a handful of artists as do the radio stations and record industry.

[multi]

to show they are sincere they should start a big mofo FTP server with thousands of High Quality tunes...for FREE!

[jaan]

Originally posted by JackSpratts
I see this ad as a cry for help to the labels, a "Hey guys we're all in this together and we've got a good thing going here so don't f*ck it up!"

i have to disagree. paper ads are generally used to get a message to general public, not to particular organisation. there are infinitely more effective methods to do what you are suggesting their intention was.

my guess is that it was just an ad for the magazine, formulated in the way to resonate best with their audience.

i don't necessarily disagree with the rest of your analysis though.

- jaan

[JackSpratts]

Originally posted by jaan
i have to disagree. paper ads are generally used to get a message to general public, not to particular organisation. there are infinitely more effective methods to do what you are suggesting their intention was.

my guess is that it was just an ad for the magazine, formulated in the way to resonate best with their audience.

i don't necessarily disagree with the rest of your analysis though.

- jaan

in the us jaan there are two or three papers that companies use for so-called inter-corporate advocacy advertising. the washington post is one, the wall street journal is another but by far the most important is the new york times, where this ad ran.

if you look at their demographics (something rolling stone knows a bit about) and compare rs to the times you'll see immediately the two share few readers. if rs wanted to impress their own audience they just dropped about a hundred grand down a black hole. if however they wanted to get the attention of corporate america - including executives, investors, lawmakers and opinion leaders - they hit a home run.

- js.

[assorted]

Originally posted by JackSpratts
in the us jaan there are two or three papers that companies use for so-called inter-corporate advocacy advertising. the washington post is one, the wall street journal is another but by far the most important is the new york times, where this ad ran.

yah; what he said. it's like if you were a movie person and you wanted to communicate a message to all other people who work in movies, you'd take an ad out in Variety.

i'm not sure what rolling stones' point was (cuz i don't believe they honestly support file trading); but it wasn't to impress their readers who no way in fuck read or care about the ny times.

[jaan]

Originally posted by JackSpratts
in the us jaan there are two or three papers that companies use for so-called inter-corporate advocacy advertising.

yeah, well, ok. however, the message seems to do a really poor job at that (ie conveying that they are really worried about filesharing), because it states quite the opposite, and contains no traces of sarcasm. they didn't even use the notorious s-word -- "stealing".

- jaan

edit: umm... i misphrased the above -- the message is of course dripping with sarcasm, but the sarcasm is directed the "wrong" way. or to put it another way, i totally fail to see how a record executive could read this ad and think "wow, these guys are really supportive of our cause!".

edit2: to put it yet another way: the fact is that, to the reader of NYT who "gets" sarcasm (admittedly, some people don't), this message reads "RS believes what the record execs are currently doing is short sighted and dead wrong". agree? so tell me how exactly getting such message to millions (?) of people would advance the anti-filesharing cause?

[Mazer]

Maybe it's not to support an anti-filesharing cause. Maybe they're just echoing the letters they've recieved from their own readers. Rolling Stone has a large base of loyal readers, both consumers and musicians alike, and the editors probably feel some sense of responsibility to be a soundboard for those readers. Perhaps Rolling Stone doesn't support filesharing but they don't like the way the industry is handling it either. They're implying that the money is better spent developing new music rather than feeding lawyers and lobbyists. They're implying that the battle is being fought on the wrong turf. By saying 'the internet is just plain stupid' they're basically telling the industry that there are ways to ignore the internet and still make lots of money, but people like Hilary & Co. think they're fighting for a cause and they're not likely to get the message.

[nanook]

i agree, Mazer.
very interesting ad.
very interesting debate.
nice to see the differing views as to it's meaning.

[justed]

"This is a very expensive way to make an editorial statement ...wonder why they did it and why now?"

"...computers are just a fad anyway, and the Internet is just plain stupid"

Telling the world: The battles lost, the war is over?

[RIAAEnemy#1]

I noticed that on another forum and did not think it was actually real until now.