Eisner Slams Apple on their "Rip, Mix, Burn" Campaign

Date: Tue, Mar 5, 2002 10:06 AM

From: lyonderboy666@hotmail.com (Anti Pope Lupus of SI)

Fact:
Apple's accepted a technical Grammy award from the National Academy of
Recording Arts and Sciences last week. "As the leading architect in
bringing computer technology into the studio and revolutionizing the
way music is written, produced, mixed, recorded, and creatively
imagined."

Point: (Eisner, CEO Disney)
Eisner's recently testified before the United States Senate Commerce
Committee about the potential threat that computer use has to music
and movie distribution. Eisner accused the computer industry of
considering piracy its new "killer app." He singled out Apple's "Rip,
Mix, Burn" ad campaign of 2001 as an example of this type of behavior.

Apple's ad campaign suggested to potential buyers "that they can
create a theft if they buy this computer," said Eisner, who otherwise
ignored Apple's iPod ad campaign, which features prominent warnings
against stealing music.

**************************************************************
**************************************************************
Eisner's comments come as congress considers legislation known as the
Security Systems Standards and Certification Act. The act would
require computer makers and consumer electronics makers to install
technology which would prevent such devices from being able to
duplicate copyrighted media, including CDs, DVDs, digital music and
movies and more.
**************************************************************
**************************************************************

Point: (Apple, CEO Steve Jobs)
"If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it
on all other devices that you own," said Jobs.

Jobs also told the interviewer that Apple believes more than 80
percent of consumers are willing to pay for digital music, "But there
is no one offering you a choice."

Point: (Newsweek)
Levy clearly rankles at the opinions of music industry executives and
their friends in Congress, like SCCA sponsor Senator Fritz Hollings.
"That's where citizens stand -- not as potential consumers, but as
candidates for prison denim," said Levy, referring to Hollings'
assertion that the Internet is a "haven for thievery."

To Hollings' proposed legislation, Levy said, "Earth to moguls: beware
of what you wish for. Business-school professors could feast for years
on the unintended consequences that come from treating Britney Spears
tunes like nuclear secrets. Clearly, clamping locks on electronic
equipment and intentionally crippling CDs wouldn't increase sales.
Would it depress sales? Almost certainly."

Point: (Some maniac on MacCentral)
Stack of 50 cd-r's, 20 dollars.
30 minutes downloading music on cable modem, $(your time/hr * 0.5).
Watching the Record Execs thrash around because 10 million Americans
don't make 40 dollars and hour and *do* have a cable modem...
Priceless.

Question: (APLY)
What does alt.slack think of this?

It should be considered that Eisner and Steve Jobs had an argument
earlier this year. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is also the CEO of PIXAR, a
digital animation company that made the highly successful Toy Story
1&2, A Bug's Life, and Monsters Inc. PIXAR entered a deal with Disney
to release a certain number of titles together for promotional
reasons. What happened was the last two (2) PIXAR movies made more
money than the last three (3) Disney animated features. So Eisner
roped PIXAR in for another movie, winning an the argument in court
that Toy Story 2 "didn't count" towards the deal because it was a
sequel and not an original movie. Steve Jobs countered by saying,
okay, no more sequels, including no Toy Story 3. (Not what Eisner was
counting on, in fact, he shot himself in the foot)

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Original file name: Eisner Slams Apple.txt - converted on Friday, 20 September 2002, 16:09