• by March 30, 2005

"I KNOW PERFECTLY WELL THAT I CAN BUY A CD AND PUT IT ON MY IPOD. BUT I ALSO KNOW IF I CAN GET MUSIC WIHTOUT BUYING IT, I'M GOING TO DO SO." - Okay, so most of us are thinking that, even if we're not actually doing that, but we're also the same group of people who, when asked, acknowledge zipping through commercials with our TiVo. We're cynical media consumers, because we're also media purveyors. But we're not Supreme Court justices. So when David Souter said that following the opening arguments in the High Court's hearing of Hollywood vs. Grokster, it takes on an entirely different meaning. He's not one of our peers, even if he is a would-be peer-to-peer.

What does it mean? Aside from revealing that even Supreme Court justices have larcenous media tendencies, we're not exactly sure. No one seemed sure following round one of what many believe to be the next big precedent-setting fight over media copyright ownership. And it doesn't seem like we can simply rewind our Betamax's to find out. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg indicated that the court's so-called "beta" ruling in 1984 may not be applicable to peer-to-peer file-sharing software in 2005. In fact, the recent history over media copyrights doesn't look good for all those marchers stomping outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday brandishing signs asking the justices to "Keep Your Hands Off My iPod." Anyone remember Napster? While it's still anyone's guess how the court will rule, we can only imagine the headlines should Hollywood prevail, and MGM nabs Souter in a sting operation for illegally downloading the studio's content.

HERE'S A 'RIF' RIFF - Random House is taking experiential marketing to a new extreme: giving potential book-buyers the experience requisite to purchase the books it publishes. Specifically, Random House Wednesday said it was investing in American Reading Co., a privately held firm that promotes literacy via a system that teaches children how to read. The strategy is a brilliant one. Not only does Random House, a unit of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG get to market a new product - literacy - but it also is one that expands the market for its other products books.

We hope the newspaper and magazine industries are taking note, and would fully expect the Magazine Publishers of American and the National Association of Newspapers to back similar programs on behalf of their members. After all, as Madison Avenue once said, "Reading Is Fundamental," especially if you happen to be a medium that requires readers. And we don't mean Zinio.

IF YOU LET YOUR FINGERS DO THE WALKING HERE YOU MAY JUST END UP WITH A YELLOW THUMB - Most of the major media are apt to tout big consumer product categories as their chief advertisers - things like automobiles, packaged goods, food, entertainment, financial services, etc. - so imagine our surprise when we saw a release from one of them today boasting "landscape contractors" as one of its most dynamic ad categories. If you guessed Yellow Pages, you are far more attuned to media planning than we were when we first received findings from the 2005 edition of the Yellow Pages Industry Usage Study conducted by Knowledge Networks/SRI and released today by the Yellow Pages Association.

While landscaping was not the top-ranking Yellow Pages heading - it ranked only 35th on this year's list - American consumers reference the service category 7l.5 million times a year, according to the estimates. That's a lot of mulch. According to industry estimates, 88 percent of those look-ups resulted in a purchase, surpassing the 79 percent average for all Yellow Pages headings.