Gateway's new Consumer Advocacy ads are fantastic. The computer manufacturer's TV spots feature their CEO and a cow (natch) driving side-by-side in a sixteen-wheeler, singing along with "Sundown," while text appears on screen reminding you of your right to legally download music, burn it onto CDs and load it onto your computer or MP3 player. It goes even further, and tells consumers to guard against new laws that would limit our rights to use our legall acquired music the way we want to.
Of course, this has put a serious wild hair up Hillary "RIAA" Rosen's ass, who vomited this nonsensical FUD:
"The Gateway commercial is fun, but their website is nothing but a gateway to misinformation. No one has proposed anything that would 'prevent all digital copying.' If Gateway truly believed that illegal copying hurts all artists and labels who make the music we enjoy, they wouldn't be relying on these misleading scare tactics — they'd be working with us to find a solution to the piracy problem. If only they would devote a little bit of the millions of dollars they're spending on this ad campaign to help stop illegal downloading…but that wouldn't help them sell more CD burners, would it?"
Uh-huh, right Hil. That's what it's all about — technologists want nothing more than to steal from the music industry. This isn't about anti-democratic initiatives like the BPDG that would replace the innovative world of today with a world where no new technology could be legally brought to market without the say-so of coked-up Hollyweird fatcats.
BTW, the EFF is running a campaign to get consumers to thank Gateway for doing the right thing, which you can participate in here.
(via Dan Gillmor's eJournal)
