Comments on: Bacardi Rips-Off The Cacophony Society With Salmon “Swimming Upstream” Commercial

By: waiting for that co-opt moment « Second Verse

waiting for that co-opt moment « Second Verse — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 01:57:45 +0000

[...] exec somewhere to turn the whole thing into a 30 second commercial. It’s happened to better ideas. Reading Alan Greenspan’s auto-biography has encouraged my pre-existing enthusiasm for [...]

By: Playstation » Comment on Bacardi Rips-Off The Cacophony Society With Salmon …

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 09:20:37 +0000

[...] Sony Bravia Play-Doh Bunnies Commercial | Laughing Squid wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptillustration by kozyndan. That wouldnâ€™t surprise me at all considering what happened with Bacardi and the Cacophony Salmon or Absolute Vodka and the Pillow Fight. Related PostsSuperballs Invade San FranciscoTiki Bar TV: [â€¦] [...]

By: Sony Bravia Play-Doh Bunnies Commercial | Laughing Squid

Sony Bravia Play-Doh Bunnies Commercial | Laughing Squid — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 04:52:22 +0000

[...] illustration by kozyndan. That wouldn’t surprise me at all considering what happened with Bacardi and the Cacophony Salmon or Absolute Vodka and the Pillow Fight. Related PostsSuperballs Invade San FranciscoTiki Bar TV: [...]

By: Laughing Squid » Absolut Vodka Co-Opts Pillow Fight In New Commercial

Laughing Squid » Absolut Vodka Co-Opts Pillow Fight In New Commercial — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:27:05 +0000

[...] of you will remember that last year Bacardi ripped-off The Cacophony Society’s Breakers To Bay Salmon event for one of their [...]

By: Laughing Squid » Carts of Brooklyn Racing Association Idiotarod 2007

Laughing Squid » Carts of Brooklyn Racing Association Idiotarod 2007 — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:53:51 +0000

[...] This situation is somewhat reminiscent of last year when Bacardi ripped-off The Cacophony Society Salmon event, but with that one the event’s organizers didn’t have any advance notice that they were being co-opted. photo credit: Eric Harvey Brown tags: New York (T) , NYC (T) , Urban Iditarod (T) , Brooklyn (T) , Carts of Brooklyn Racing Association (T) , Idiotarod (T) , Idiotarod 2007 (T) , COBRA (T) , Iditarod (T) , dogsled (T) , CSI:NY (T) , Idiot Run (T) submit to StumbleUpon Comments RSS feed | Trackback URL [...]

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:51:40 +0000

The band is D4, album is 6TWENTY

By: Mike D

Mike D — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 14:38:21 +0000

Does anyone know which band provide the music to this ad?

By: Benjamin Pender

Benjamin Pender — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 19:11:28 +0000

I just saw this ad run before a movie in a cinema in London and after it was over the person next to me looked at me and muttered… “oh Americans.” What this person didn’t know is that I am from San Francisco and have participated in just about every cacophony event I’ve been living in San Francisco for. They also didn’t know how much my feelings were just hurt by seeing such an awesome thing turned bad. The end when the girl is flirting with the salmon head is particularly bad.

I wonder when how much time until we see a Santa Archy Jack Daniels ad.

By: Porle

Porle — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 13:43:55 +0000

Good Point Dav, I’m sure if the Cacophony Society were involved we would be screaming sell-out! If anything perhaps it will push them onto the next big thing, create something even more original.

By: Dav

Dav — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 03:32:05 +0000

I really don’t see the problem with this. I mean I love cacophony, I love the salmon (that’s my video on youtube you linked to) and most of all I love you, Scott, but ideas flow. As someone once told me, IP is the easter bunny; you want to believe it exists, but it doesn’t. This is why I also love the Creative Commons. Sure the Salmon Run concept will be percolating through the sotted brains of thousands of frat boys now and will spawn [cough] many horrendous mutant children, but Caco and the Breakers to Bay will survive.

I mean, hell, would you really -want- Bacardi to run an ad that actually featured the Cacophony Society in some way?

By: Porle

Porle — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 02:25:02 +0000

^OMG coop! I must say i have seen many rip offs of coop’s work. Mostly by bands (who have no money), perhaps its a homage, but its not gonna put food on the table. :S

On a similar note, the HP campaign for ‘making the computer personal again’ bare similarities two the famous ipod commercials. Bright colours with human silhouttes. http://www.hp.com/personalagain/us/en/index.html

By: COOP

COOP — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:48:19 +0000

In a similar vein, (name redacted, but it’s a big software company) had a print campaign a couple of years ago with a “devil girl” theme. They used a illo cobbled together from three different images of mine, and even set the ad copy using the display fonts I created for House Industries. When my lawyer contacted them, they of course claimed ignorance of my work, and said it was just a coincidence, then tried to blame the poor illustrator who got the assignment. My lawyer found the artist who did the illo, and got him to confirm that his first pass (which looked nothing like my stuff) was rejected, and he was sent to my website for “inspiration.”

Bottom line, they are all skunks, and they will steal anything that ain’t nailed down, as my grandpappy would say.

By: MisterGibson

MisterGibson — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:17:31 +0000

Greetings,

The Cacophany Society is famous for it’s social work and should be applauded.

My roommate, Rob, definitively started this urban joke-myth by running the Bay to Breakers event as a spawning fish as an adjunct to the budding Burning Man gyrations. Let there be no doubt he took the idea from mere twinkle in his eye to honorable mention on national tv coverage. Rob’s a great one for mental puns going back to the late eighties & early nineties and his support of the Billboard Liberation Front. Viva!

Rob wrote me this week asking, rhetorically, if he should have copyrighted the event.

Well, here’s your fifteen nano’s of fame, roomie!

- Jonathan -

By: Saint Mae

Saint Mae — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 14:45:40 +0000

I know that it’s not like we had copyright on the idea, but having actually *been* a Cacophony Salmon one year… this kinda bugs me, while at the same time it makes me proud. On the one hand, it’s like – hey, look, I did that one year! – and on the other, it’s like – those assholes! *I* did that one year! I guess what it really means is that it’s time to move even further to the edge, since what used to be the edge has clearly moved center….

By: Captain Morgan

Captain Morgan — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 06:25:19 +0000

Aaar! Guess I’m back to drinking Ron Rico :)

By: anna

anna — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 21:16:51 +0000

Oh this story reeks of so many things I hate: New York provincialism “this could only be shot here”, advertising people trying to do something that someone else has done with more hilarity and panache, and artists stealing other art. Ugh! Go Cacaphony. I’m so proud I live here! They are hilarious during the race- and to the person who has never heard of them before, you’ve been missing out!

By: Kevin E.

Kevin E. — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 15:42:42 +0000

What was that line? “Everything you love will be repackaged & sold to people you hate”

By: Sleepless in SF

Sleepless in SF — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 15:27:29 +0000

Umm, I haven’t seen any video of the Cacophony Society’s run so I can’t comment about similarities in the visual styles. However, asserting that the society must have invented the idea of running upstream a la salmon is silly. I had never heard of the Cacophony Society until today (despite the fact I have lived in the Bay Area for nearly ten years) yet in the 90’s I used to do group training runs “backwards” around our loop, telling everyone that I was a salmon. My point is that it is quite possible to independently invent ideas. Once arrived at, the idea of running upstream would naturally evolve into salmon costumes. And, as the Hash House Harriers (motto: a drinking club with a running problem) would be sure to tell you, the Cacophony society must have invented the idea of going out for a drink after a run — not. Also, if the agency wanted the [New York City] Marathon and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, then it really couldn’t have been shot anywhere else, could it? The SF Marathon and the GG Bridge are beautiful (I commute over the latter daily) but they aren’t the same thing, are they?

By: brad

brad — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 14:16:44 +0000

I find it weird that at work, in part, I get paid to plagurize. Plagiarism is a common and intelligent solution for TV marketing. For example, if one makes a TV spot, it is common to select music which would be identified with the target market, and then create a sound-alike. The object is to reference existing music which has the meaning you want, and appropriate the cultural reference for your own product. Musicians and producers copy as much of the qualities of a song as possible, without actually infringing upon the copyright and incurring big licensing fees.

However, at home, in the world of art and personal expression, using 25 tiny samples from the distant past to make something genuinely new is likely to draw legal action.

The commercial approach is legal plagiarism, and the artistic approach is illegal creativity. As a culture, we value plagiarism more highly than creativity, and commodifiable expression more highly than ideas. An idea that can’t be commodified is an idea without value.

(It’s a shame about hip hop, which has been reduced to rap: artists can’t use 25 samples per song anymore, as they can only afford 1 sample; some ironically rely on creating their own sound-alikes. And if a sound-alike song becomes a hit, the makers of TV commercials make their own sound-alike of the original. The world of recombinant art which has grown out of digital media technology has been reduced to plagiaristic simulation. )

By: Little Buddy

Little Buddy — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 03:29:29 +0000

This is nothing new, ideas are stolen daily. The thing that really gets me, are the ideas that are only half baked and sold to the Companies for BIG BUCKS, only to be passed off to the people that really make it happen…I COULD tell you how many times I ‘ve polished a turd into an award winning advert… but it would make me sad. I want driving privileges for that Porsche!