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Apple and Pepsi ad insult to injury for Coke and the RIAA
Leaked advert makes stars of file-sharers...

By silicon.com

Published: Monday 02 February 2004

"Hi, I'm one of the kids who was prosecuted for downloading music off of the internet and I'm here to announce in front of 100 million people that we're still going to get our music free off the internet.

"And there's not a thing anyone can do about it."

So says a teenage file-sharer who was prosecuted by the Recording Industry Association of America and subsequently befriended by Pepsi to be the face of the company's new advertising campaign, which is running in conjunction with Apple's iTunes.

The advert features other convicted file-sharers and superimposes words such as 'incriminated', 'accused', 'busted' and 'charged' over their images, with US punk popsters Green Day playing the Clash classic I fought the law (and the law won) on the soundtrack.

silicon.com brought news of the advertising campaign - which coincided with the launch of Coca Cola's online music service - on Monday, but today the advert has been leaked online ahead of its debut during Sunday's Superbowl. You can watch the advert here, although demand for the ad has seen the site struggle today.

The advert has been popping up on Apple Mac fan sites, because of the iTunes link, and there are echoes of similar leaks prior to launches of new Apple hardware. In the past, it's been widely suggested that such leaks are part of Apple's strategy to hype its products.

But this launch almost needs no added hype - especially as the campaign treads so comprehensively on the toes of Pepsi's archrival Coca Cola.

The Pepsi campaign offers music fans the opportunity to download tracks from the iTunes site every time they get a 'lucky' ring pull or bottle top. The adverts claim there are 100 million songs to be won and that one in three drinks will be lucky.

The campaign will be screened for the first time during Sunday's Superbowl and is likely to cause controversy among the anti-file-sharing lobby, which will see it as a case of music pirates being rewarded and afforded celebrity because of their criminal activities.