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Phish to Sell Downloads of Concerts
zzyzx writes "Phish have a new system for distributing their music. At livephish.com they will be selling their soundboard concert recordings. Most 2-3 hour concerts will cost $10 to download in mp3 format, $13 to download in the lossless shn format. What makes this interesting is that they're putting no DRM on these files at all. How are they protecting themselves? One paragraph in their Faq: 'Live Phish Downloads relies on an honor system, and we ask that you do not abuse the unrestricted nature of these files. If you would like to see this type of delivery of shows continue and flourish, please respect our taping policy and don't abuse the system.'" The honor system has served them well in the past, what with allowing their fans to record their concerts while also selling both studio and live albums.
...I pay $10 to hear one 2 hour guitar solo? I'm not sure that passes the bang-for-buck test.
Live concert recordings usually aren't that good, so this is analgous to them seeling a a 64kbps MP3. While it may get spread around, the recording is bad enough that it publicizes the band but still ensures users will want to hear a better studio recording.
SHN FAQ has some info and links regarding what shn is.
It's great that Phish has decided to make a lossless format available as well as the lossy mp3s. etree.org has been doing this for a number of years, and a method of distribution has been developed that preserves the quality of the audio as it passes through many hands.
etree.org offers legal show recordings from bands that promote the taping of their shows. The bands get free publicity, the fans get free recordings -- it works out for both parties.
Phish is pretty typical in that they only allow audience recordings (no soundboard access) and they sell (generally) better sounding soundboard recordings.
Anyone who's been to a Phish show can tell you about the legions of folks with high-gain mics and DAT/miniDisc units taping the whole show. Used to be that they'd have RCA patch bays coming off the soundboard that you could pull a post-mix feed from.
Rather enlightened, IMHO.
-JPJ
Feh.
The Grateful Dead started legal concert taping years ago, eventually setting aside stageside sections for tapers where they could set up mic booms and their DAT recorders. These concerts (plus those of Phish, Allman Bros, Dead satellite groups, etc) for the past five-six years have been available on Etree which is essentially a clearinghouse for FTPs with .shn versions of these shows. Been downloading them for years. From the site: "You can find nearly every band that allows taping in the jambands community on etree.org, including Phish, The Grateful Dead, The Seth Yacovone Band, String Cheese Incident, The Slip, Medeski, Martin & Wood, Umphrey's McGee, The Big Wu, Amfibian and The New Deal."
I would venture to say that these same Phish shows will be available on Etree sites, so why does livephish think people will pay for what they A) can get free already from Etree or B) will almost certainly end up on Etree anyway?
Besides, doesn't charging for taped concerts kind of go against the concert-tapes-as-promotion philosophy? The reason the Dead were the most successful concert band of all time was partially due to the free availability of tons of concert tapes. I know livephish has to pay for bandwidth, but this is a much larger divergence from the Dead/Phish philosophy of free concert music than people seem to believe.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
What's his name from Metallica needs to see this
C|N>K
When Pearl Jam [Ten Club, Synergy] sold the official bootlegs for their 2000 tour, they didn't care if you traded the boots. So if you bought the CDs, fine, and if you wanted to trade/download them, thats fine too.
B
Hey, they could have saved on bandwidth costs if they used the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC). Check it out at flac.sourceforge.net. It's pretty cool.
G.
Or get some 230+ SCI shows from The Internet Archive project.
o ws e.php?collection=etree&cat=String%20Cheese%20Incid ent
http://webdev.archive.org/audio/etreelisting-br
What are the recommended specs for enjoying Live Phish Downloads?
Windows
Windows 98SE, 2000, ME, XP, or later 128 MB RAM 10 GB Hard Drive (a larger hard drive is optimal) Pentium III 750MHz or faster (or equivalent) Cable Modem or DSL Internet Explorer 5.5 or later
Mac OS
Mac OS 9.1 or later 128 MB RAM 10GB Hard Drive (a larger hard drive is optimal) Cable Modem or DSL Internet Explorer 5 or later
Unix
You probably don't need our advice.
There is a peer to peer network (in beta) for only bands like Phish and the Dead that allow taping. It's called furthurnet.org. There is a java client that works fairly well in Linux, too. I've grabbed tons of cool stuff from there - Hendrix, Neil Young, Built to Spill, Phish - there's a huge list of bands. And they have .shn and .mp3s currently, eventually there will be video too.
That's 19 live albums that they have sold. And they still allow taping their shows.
Obviously, not everyone will buy shows off livephish, but some dedicated fans (like my room mate) who want to show support for them probably will.
I tend not to second guess phish, as they are the most successful "jam band" around; they seem to know what they are doing.
my pet machine
What is the problem.
Music is more then the sum of the components, and also varies with your personal taste.
Lots of bands sound "crappy" live compared to the polished studio music, but there is much more to a performance then the sound.
I can't believe this got modded up as Informative. What you said is true, but Phish is definitely NOT one of these bands. Phish has gotten its reputation by performing excellent live shows. I understand that you are saying that here is more to a Phish show than the music (the people, the parking lot scene, the drugs, etc.) and you are right. But the music is what holds the entire scene together.
Phish has a free live show available for download on phishlive.com. Go and listen to it and get a taste of what Phish really sounds like.
david "zzyzx" steinberg,
paul glace at Phantasy Tour and the crew at etree.org with their nearly anal quality hounds tracking the the recording status and quality of most legally traded music on the internet.
Live distribution shows what a dynamic band this really is. Not a cookie cutter, same show every night type band! Check them out.
Anything you say will be held against you.
This story upsets me. For years, I've been a Dave Matthews Band fan, another band which allows live taping of their shows. One of the great things about live taping is the community that gets built around the band, without the band being directly involved. I've met so many great people through trades and message boards.
Since the policy states that copies can't be made for other people, the entire network of live performance trading (for Phish, anyways), has just been destroyed, and the community that the trading has created with it.
I hope the band enjoys their $10 or $13, but it may cost them fans in the long run, and I hope it does. This is not a good precedent to set.
Should DMB ever go this way with their taping policy, I guarantee that they won't see another dime from me. Live performances is what first excited me about DMB, and the grassroots support that they had (and still do) via the trading network is a beutiful thing, and should be preserves. Yes, even in the face of the almighty dollar.
Audience trading is still allowed. In fact, along with this new program they actually changed their tape trading policies to make them LESS restrictive. This just offers something new that was previously unavailable.
$10 for a two or three hour concert recording is pretty damn reasonable, when you consider that a 72 minute cd sells for $20 or so most of the time.
do not read this line twice.
.shn is free, isn't it? Why would ANYONE want something in a lossy compression format?
Anything you say will be held against you.
Shouldn't that be "in the Phaq"?
Thank you, I'll be here all week! Tip your waitstaff...
_nfotxn
If you would like to see this type of delivery of shows continue and flourish, please respect our taping policy and don't abuse the system.
Whoops - looks like the only restriction is if you copy the recordings to tape - I guess distributing the MP3's isn't against the rules then...
While I agree that SCI is probably a better band than Phish.... the cost of the 38 cd set is higher per minuite than 10 bucks for a 3 hour concert. It's just not good value!
Oh well.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
You know, I've looked around for awhile on etree and related sites, and the reason that I've never really gotten into them is a real lack of music that I want to hear (which is ok, for the most part). I don't expect every music site to cater to my tastes. What's disturbing, however, is the fact that there is a supreme lack of (ie, none whatsoever) punk bands and bootlegs from punk concerts.
:/
You'd think that punk would have really adopted the whole linux/free software movement, given that the same 'fight the establishment'/DIY sentiment is really prevalent in both movements. I really wonder why more smaller punk bands don't put themselves up on sites like this now. Crass used to bootleg themselves all the time, and they were selling halfway decent bootlegs of themselves for the mere cost of the tape years ago.
Yes, I know that I probably shouldn't expect this from anyone on epitaph or fat records, or that whole wave of warped-tour style punk that most people tend to group everyone into. However, I really wish that punks would get with the program here and start using the net to spread their music and message more effectively.
Just my little rant.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
They call this value. Phish is using a marketing philosophy that literally goes back to the beginning of time: Treat your customers with respect and they'll contine to be your customers. See, despite what Hilary Rosen would have you believe, music fans WANT to support musicians. See, people make music for the following reasons (in order): 1. Because they love to. 2. Because they love others to enjoy their music. and finally, 3 To make a living. This is why there's so many garage bands; most of them are happy to make a few bucks playing a wedding, and they have real jobs during the week....like writing code for example. Phish realizes this and says to their fans: for short money we'll give you honest VALUE. Putting it simply, they treat their fans (customers) with respect. Also, consider that most of the 10 bucks you pay goes straight to Phish. Everybody wins...well almost everybody. The music INDUSTRY doesn't win. But remember, they don't make music all they do is distribute it. Their motivation is ONLY #3: to make money. Also, they don't respect their customers. In fact, they publically call their customers THIEVES. Is it no wonder that nobody likes them back?
Because some people don't have the bandwidth or disk space to spare on something that's 5 times bigger and offers a marginal increase in quality. I care a lot about the quality of the music I listen to, and I'm unable to tell the difference of a 160k+ MP3 and uncompressed audio. Try it yourself and see if you can.
The thing that really makes me giggle like a girl are the SHN freaks who offer terrible-quality audience recordings with a million warnings in capital letters telling you that if you ever so much as think about encoding the music into MP3 form, that your first born will be sacrificed.
Josh Woodward
actually as i remember .shn isn't totally free, just free for "non-commercial" use, FLAC is starting to pick up a little wider use now though and is totally free and open source
I don't think it's ok to just "share" mainstream music. If we don't like the terms the music industry offers, we should look around and find other bands who are *willing* to offer their music in reasonable formats, and then pay them appropriately.
This might have the side effect of more variety returning to music, instead of having some cartell deciding which music we are supposed.
Ok, sorry for the rant, but how about slashdot providing some "music review" section to complement the book reviews? The reviews would have to be about new artists, who are willing to sell mp3s (or some format like that) of their music.
Just my 0.02 Euros.
Money Good! Napster Bad!
Phish became as popular as they are because they were the only viable alternative after the deadheads' platform became unsupported. They vertically leveraged Phish and brought over all their old apps, which integrated seamlessly. It had nothing to do with their taping policy, which was just a nice extra.
c-hack.com |
This is refreshing to see how many Phish fans are out there on /. Any of you guys going to the NYE or Hampton shows? I got shut out of those, but I'm going to the Cincinnati shows.
I'm listening to the 10/7/00 mp3's right now. They do sound great, but I like to occasionally here the audience cheering. I guess I'm still going to get shows from Furthur.
-prator
Other artists should take note that all Phish did was listen to the needs of their community! The Shn format is not very popular, but amongst the taping community it is thanks to etree.org. It will be very interesting to see how this service affects their live taping policy. Phish's live taping policy is much more restrictive than most because they do not offer soundboard patches. Tapers are forced to use expensive mic and preamp rigs ($5000+) if they want to get anything close to soundboard sound. Live concert taping with microphones is part art, part science, and there are quite a few people who take it way too seriously. The other major restriction of the Phish taping policy is once they release an album of a concert, that concert cannot be distributed online. I would imagine this service will not qualify as an "album."
The next big step for this service will be the distribution of the Phish archives, Phish has recorded every concert from about 1990 on, possibly even earlier. Most of the recordings are multitrack DAT with audience mics to capture the crowd sounds. I would imagine the Grateful Dead will seek to duplicate this model if it is successful. A few years from now we might have every Grateful Dead and Phish show online, remastered SBD recordings. Today is a happy day for jamband fans. A little message to the authors of the "Phish sucks" posts, stick to Creed.
Except in this case, the 75% profit is going to the band as opposed to the record lable. Besides, $10 for 2-3 hours or music is well worth it, considering you couldn't go th ethe concert for that price.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
and have downloadable shrooms?
So now that phish is SELLING these recordings, is it still legal to download from furthur?
The Phish concerts on furthur are for the most part audience recordings. It will remain perfectly legal to upload or download any audience recording from Furthur.
Nothing changes there.
Consider these new downloaded soundboards as commercial releases. It's just as illegal to place these downloaded soundboards on Furthur as it would be to upload Phish's latest studio album.
But Phish has no problem with you trading audience tapes of the same shows. Just not the soundboards that they are trying to sell.
Simple enough!
Nicely written.
;-) of this is that if you want, you can trade SHN's, but encode to mp3 or OGG for your own personal use. The main thing you want to consider is that you should NEVER distribute an MP3 for the purpose of a "trade" (which implies that you are getting origional source). Especially if you are trading with people that have no earthly idea of the underlying issues.
A nice corraLarry
The biggest problem I have come across is people downloading mp3's, and then converting them to Audio CD's and trading them. This is wrong on so many levels, yet stupid people do it all the time not even realizing what problems they are adding to the community. As long as nobody converts MP3's/OGG's to audio CD's or SHN or WAV, we are all going to be doing just fine.
On the other hand, MP3 distribution is very very usefull if done properly. As long as you are downloading an MP3 knowing you dont have the origional, your goal should be to have a fast download, and something to listen to, but not a master copy.
For instance, what if someone's only means to listen to music is via their car MP3 player, or their PC, and they don't plan on converting them to WAV or SHN or CD Audio, then by all means, download the mp3 if it makes you happier.
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
"Who's got my extra???? My Nassau's for your NYE."
And all of a sudden, my worlds collide.
By the time they signed with Elektra in 1992, Phish was an established band that was selling out concert halls on a regular basis. Phish had been chased by record labels for years, but the band held out, preferring to retain control over their copyrights, business rights, and creative decisions.
It paid off. This allowed them to get a fantastic deal when they finally did sign with a label. Phish's contract with Elektra is a promotion and distribution contract, not a recording contract. Phish retained their copyrights, their internet rights, and their electronic distribution rights. They retained complete creative control over their music and organization. Their relationship to Elektra is basically this. They provide master tapes, and Elektra distributes and promotes the album.
You can't get that sort of contract unless you're already a big name band. If Phish had signed with a RIAA corporation back when they were a brand new band, they would not be in a position to do what they are doing now. The record label would own their copyrights, their website, and their electronic distribution rights.
Compare this system to the pathetic efforts of the RIAA to foist copy protected CDs and DRM-saturated, inferior MP3s on the public, and call that the "future" of internet music distribution.
By contrast, Phish is selling downloads of CD quality (SHN) recordings, with no DRM at all. You can download the CDs within two days of the concert. You can also download CD art. Even better, once you have paid for a recording, the system remembers that you have done so in the "My Stash" section. If you ever lose or damage your CD, you can go back to the web site and re-download the shows you lost!
I really can't imagine the system being any more customer-friendly, except if it was a bit cheaper. But the system is new, so I won't begrudge them that.
Right now, the music industry is trying to establish the Big Lie -- that music can't be distributed, especially online, unless the system is designed to treat every customer as a criminal. The music must be laden with obstructive DRM. Users must be prevented from making backups.
Live Phish Downloads has the potential to be the Big Counterexample. Phish said it themselves -- this is all about the honor system. You respect us, and we respect you.
In the end, that's how copyright was designed to work in the first place. The whole idea of copyright being a war between record labels and their customers is a relatively new concept, and this is a nice beginning to putting an end to it.
Well, it's free as in beer, and nonrestrictive.
If you really feel strongly about the matter, you could easily extract the SHNs into WAVs, then reencode them as FLACs. Since all three are lossless formats, you wouldn't lose anything. Personally, I have no plans to do so.
I'm assuming that Live Phish Downloads is licensing the SHN codec for commercial use. SoftSound did the taping community a huge favor by providing a free, unencumbered version of shorten for tape trading. I have no problem with them making a little money now that their format has caught on.
I've been a fan for several years, but when the live CD's started to come out I thought- uh,oh, this is going to cost, and I stopped buying. $10 is a reasonable price to pay for those shows. I wonder if they'll turn a blind eye to people trading the album art from the CD releases of the same shows..
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
someone (possibly me) really needs to organize a emailing campaign to let phish know that some of us would like to see these very same files available in ogg (lossy, equivalent to mp3) and flac (lossless, equivalent to shn) formats. here's a great opportunity to promote our favorite royalty free media formats!
why not just decide what the music's value is, post portions of the concerts to get people hooked, then let people pay with paypal donations...when the donations and pledges reach the posted amount , release the music.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
To be picky, this shouldn't be mistaken with the same quality as "A Live One" or "Slip Stich & Pass". The true commercial live albums they've produced are made in a very different fashion. These are simply a recording of the feed coming off the board containing the same stuff that goes into the house speakers at the show. While it's not optimized for home listening, it still sounds great.
True live albums are recorded differently, more like a studio album. One big difference is that they are always matrix recordings of the soundboard mixed with audience mics for ambiance. This makes it sound brighter and more alive. Also, professional live tapes are recorded to multitrack with each track a distinct instrument. Traditionally, this is done in a van outside the venue for sound isolation purposes.
So you're right in that the quality of these is better than audience tapes, they're still a notch below true live albums.
Josh Woodward
of course I'm going to NYE :)
10 days!!!
I've been lucky enough to get out to see the coolest shows in this "genre" this year. I think it's a cool thing they're doing even from the simple fact that it gives us a chance to test and find the business model that we like for dealing music on the web... With so many companies biting it... Liquid Audio for instance... Some experimentation is in order.
.shn snobs are the primary reason. Why on earth would I want to here all the lossless glory of a two Shure SM58 mics hooked up to a Sony minidisc player. (In other words some people... SOME people out there are not recording experts...) And in that case You're not going to get a feed that would sound good enough to merit a file size 10x larger. I would get into .shn if I knew the source of the audio was High quality (came straight from the band or a buddy who was a taper.). Instead of spending 500MB of downloading on what turned out to be crap...
I'll tell you why I'll by directly from Phish online... Quality control... they're not going to release a poor quality recording on that site... It's going to be the best you can get.
Why I never got into Etree... professed
I can't wait to download NYC on New Years Eve after I get home from that show.
Also... I speak for most people... I buy the CD's because studio recording and live performance are two entirely different arts. Both which should be appreciated. Live CD's I buy for the reason I'd download a confirmed high quality lossless recording... quality of live recording.
Oh yeah... and who else out there thought Bonnaroo rocked?!!!
the slot they played on SNL runs almost directly counter to the spirit of the whole band. they are given one (or maybe two) pop-song-length bits of time to cram songs into...these are songs that routinely run over the five (and often ten) minute mark at real shows.
and instead of being surrounded by tens of thousands of fans who know the music and can kick back and boogie, they have a barricade of TV lights glaring down on them.
so, judge them if you want, but don't think you got anything close the real phish experience.
sean
Let me preface this by saying that I know next to nothing about this band, but did anybody catch this article in the New York Times last week? It makes this Phish fans sound like addicted cult members. What struck me particularly odd was this quote:
"The band takes over a crowd," said Megan Leff, 28, who works in advertising in Manhattan. "They throw everyone into a fury. You cannot move or shake quickly enough. Then, suddenly, they will have everyone fall and pretend they are dead."
Does this article conform with anybody's experiences with this band or is it just a hoakey sensationalistic headlining?
Richard Thompson has been selling unavailable-anywhere live material, sold directly by the artist either mail order or at shows. It's not downloads, but its not copy-protected CDs, either.
They're actually "professional quality" CDs with real liner notes, photos and a quality production job. Unfortunately they're not whole shows, but "best of" of specific tours.
If I was a performed, I'd be inclined to do something like this. I'd discourage taping at the show, but I'd sell every show I did in a complete a format as was possible with as good a quality of audio as was possible.
My guess is that most artists (other than Titney and other fake entertainment industry creations) could do this and make money. Real fans would likely buy them at the right price -- guaranteed quality, decent liner notes, support-my-artist mentality.
As long as the sales cover the major up-front production cost, they should even make a buck on it, since the sound system and the show are pretty much paid for by the tickets to the show to begin with. Electronic distribution greatly lowers their upfront cost, but limits to some the value due to lack of liner notes, silkscreened CDs, etc, but would make selling every show more financially viable.
See, despite what Hilary Rosen would have you believe, music fans WANT to support musicians.
A lot of music "fans" want whatever is cool at the moment, regardless of quality, tied to a carefully marketed star*. Until that star becomes uncool (ie. not the latest and most heavily played), and suddenly all their former "fans" are talking trash and pretending they never cared much for them. Refer to file labeled "Spice Girls". Groups like this can't market music the same way Phish (or any other truly good band) does, simply because Phish has nurtured a community for years, and their live shows are unique works of art which lend themselves to the bootleg scene. Phish's fans will be glad to pay a few bucks for a good live recording, they respect the band and know the band respects them.
Oh the irony. The music industry is so hooked on the fast heavy cash generated by the Britneys and P. Diddy's they hype, that they've effectively generated a fan base who care nothing for the shallow music they consume, and thus feel little guilt about "stealing intellectual property". Ah, Hilary, live and learn.
* arguably these people are barely "musicians", definitely not "Artists" and can legitimately be called "performers".
Freedom: "I won't!"
agreed. I don't even really know why they do things like SNL, it's just not their strength