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is a WSJ Online freebie today.
In a tactic little known outside the music industry, record labels have also started to hire outside companies to plant "decoy," or fake, files on the sites. . . . The decoy files frustrate users because they fail to download even though, thanks to the companies' technical expertise, they often claim the top spot in search results for a tune.
But now there's a growing recognition among some record executives and performers that the people who are downloading illegally are frequently huge music fans and that marketing to them may be more desirable in the long run than suing or otherwise harassing them.
. . . . By inserting promotional material into the decoy files, and then planting those files prominently on file-sharing sites, record labels and other marketers can turn what is now an antipiracy tool into an advertising medium.
Right now, only about 1% of the decoy files on peer-to-peer sites include promotions or ads, but the potential audience is huge. While many well-known peer-to-peer services such as eDonkey and Grokster have been shut down by legal action, new ones pop up all the time. In September, an average of nine million people were logged on to the services at any given time, up from 6.8 million two years ago, according to BigChampagne, which tracks the industry. By comparison, last month YouTube attracted about two million visitors a day and MySpace.com attracted 16.8 million visitors a day, according to comScore Media Metrix.
The typical downloader is a tech-savvy male between 14 and 25 years old. "It's a wonderful audience that is very difficult to reach through any other means," says Mitchell Reichgut, . . . . It is a great story of industry inventiveness, so read it all. Besides, the thought of the narcissistic, market-destroying, free riders being subjected to a barrage of syrupy promotions is downright Gilbert & Sullivanesque:
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!
posted by James DeLong @ 9:48 AM | Enforcement & Remedies, Internet: P2P, Search Engines...
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