Fighting piracy with ads and getting 'free' CDs...

I have a proposal. Put ads in music or movie CDs/DVDs, then give them away for free. That way, privacy rate will go down to zero.

I was having coffee and reading one of those free magazines you find in coffee shops or cafe. I noticed that such magazines are getting better and better. Yet, they were free. So it must be the advertisements that covered all the costs plus some margin (maybe handsome, too) for the editorial and production staff.

After the coffee, I went to the CD store, bought my new New York Voices (liked it, but I guess it's the Manager's posting area). Then suddenly I thought: hey, why don't they run music business the free-mag way?

I mean, think about it. If you can get some company advertise in your album and for that ask it to pay all your dues plus some profits, your label doesn't have to ... sell the CDs. Just distribute them for free. Yes, just like the cool free-mags. And the best part is, because the selling price is zero, nobody will have the incentive to pirate it.

The only problem, maybe, is that music (or movie) CDs (or DVDs) are meant to be long lasting. Who wants to listen to an ad over and over again? (Yes, if you are in my age cohort and lived in Indonesia, you would remember that back in those 80s, we had LCLR - Lomba Cipta Lagu Remaja or Song Writing Competition - sponsored by a famous radio station, Prambors. Then they produced the cassette. Then, in the middle of your listening to the songs, there were a couple of ads (if I remember correctly, one was Teh Botol). But the cassettes were best sellers).

I know this is just a wild idea (I'm ready for your calling it stupid). So help me improve it. So we can also do this maybe to books and softwares...