BuyMusic Rips Off Apple - Twice!

Something eerily familiar about those BuyMusic.com ads? This article in Slate details how BuyMusic's new ads are blatant and shameless rip-offs of Apple's iTunes ads. Even their slogan - "Music Downloads for the Rest of Us" - rip-off the ad slogan Apple used to launch the iMac way back when.

The buymusic ads are already in the archive, as well as most of apples ads.

Buymusic.com;


apple;

Adland® is supported by your donations alone. You can help us out by buying us a Ko-Fi coffee.
Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
comment_node_story
Files must be less than 1 MB.
Allowed file types: jpg jpeg gif png wav avi mpeg mpg mov rm flv wmv 3gp mp4 m4v.
AlphaSquirrel's picture

I think what they're getting at — with the multiple singers [as opposed to Apple's one] and Tommy Lee smashing the guitar [which I hear was from the Apple campaign] — is that their difference is music downloads for the majority: Windows users.

Now, it's not a defense; I'm just guessing at the reasoning. As satire, it's not clever enough, and with the whole look and feel, they just seem to be cashing in on Apple's branding. There's a place for parody that helps a brand define itself. This is just lame.

Dabitch's picture

whats really lame though is their price; 79cents they brag, but I have yet to find a song for that. Most of them are for 1.19, and all songs have different conditions of use. Way to go making things more complicated!

Robblink's picture

When I first say the BuyMusic commercials, I thought it was Apple, but it was different. It looked cheaper and not as sharp. Then I saw the logo and thought that maybe Apple sold or merged their music division. Now I know that it's a ripoff! Just by looking at the screenshots, you can tell the difference between the two commercials. Apple is subltly better!

caffeinegoddess's picture

I thought they were Apple ads myself. Never really paid enough attention to realize they were for another company. (Yea I know it's bad for me not to be paying close attention as a adgrunt). But, it really does show the fine line for satire ads- they can easily go from a spoof to providing almost free advertising for the company they are spoofing. Espcially since it's not blatent that it's a different ad (at a quick glance).
But it's just another example of stupid companies doing "what the competition" does. Drives me nuts.

errol's picture

Apparently they don't just rip-off ideas from other companies... they rip off the artistes whose music they sell...

found this link in ipodlounge.com

http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/29/1510211

quote:
" Here's what I've deduced... BuyMusic.com (which I will refer to as BM) got their "vast" music library of 300,000 plus songs from a company called the Orchard. The Orchard is a distribution company that has consistently shafted artists by not paying them for CD's sold nor returning unsold CD's or cancelling contracts. So, without the express consent of what is likely lots of the Orchards catalog, BM has put it up for sale at the bargain price of $.79 a song."

cafemuse's picture

This company has illegally licensed much of its artists who had "bad" deals with Orchard, a small NY based company.

Dabitch's picture

I couldn't agree more.

Dabitch's picture

Yes! True!

How ironic considering these internet-download shops are supposed to prevent piracy!

More on that here @ Macslash

To top it all off, Songs can't be put on portable devices oooh, clever.

cafemuse's picture

Well now the've done it. The superpowers in the music industry have dropped the price of CD's hoping people will come back. Or is it a desperate attempt to hike the units sales (not revenues) so somebody buys the company. Sure dont think its part of the NBC package, unless NBC is willing to sell downloads like these other monkeys.