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Phish to Sell Downloads of Concerts

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the not-just-on-tapes-anymore dept.

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.

30 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. Great idea! by unterderbrucke · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Great idea! by jwilhelm · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The quality of these recordings will far surpass the quality of someone standing in the crowd with a mic. We've all heard those and they suck. These recordings will be recorded off the sound board; the quality will be amazing -- anyone who has done this before can attest to this. Essentially every inch of the stage and every item on the stage has a mic, and each is individually leveled on the board. The recordings for sale will be directly from this.

    2. Re:Great idea! by The+Dobber · · Score: 5, Informative

      Obviously you do not participate in (or were cognizant of the existance of) the activity of "tape-trading". Many of the shows I've collected sound as good, if not better than those produced and sold by "the man". These days its not uncommon for tapers to get direct feeds off the soundboards.

      Perhaps you should visit the Internet Archive, specifically the Audio section that deals with Etree / lossless recording. Over the past few months they've been actively aquiring and archiving shows (in shn and flac format) from taper friendly bands. Phish opt'd out of the archive, probably because they were working on thier own distribution system (which we are now seeing the genisis of).

      Download a couple of shows (if you got the bandwidth), convert and burn to audio CD. I think you might be pleasantly suprised. And the kicker is, there is quite a broad selection of acts hosted. Six months ago I never heard of String Cheese Incident.....

    3. Re:Great idea! by keefebert · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I have already downloaded the 1st concert they have up (in mp3), and the quality is great. The recording was made from a direct patch to the soundboard, so the quality is identical to any live album they would normally put out (minus the little bit of audio loss in an mp3 compression). For a Phish fan, this is great.

    4. Re:Great idea! by garcia · · Score: 3, Informative

      Audiophiles (most of the live taping trend in Dead, Phish, SCI, etc) are VERY serious about the quality of their recordings.

      I actually prefer a AUD (audience) taped show than an SBD b/c of the crowd noise. I like to hear the reaction (especially if I hadn't been there) of the people listening to the show. It's amazing to hear what the Grateful Dead or String Cheese does to people. You hear them in their best.

      SBD's are PERFECT copies of the show. No noise, etc. They are copied to DAT and then piped through usually SoundForge then to CDR. Many SHN versions of shows have a great lineage: SBD>DAT>SoundForge>CDR.

      Don't talk about things you don't know about, please.

    5. Re:Great idea! by Snork+Asaurus · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Recording live is tough, since it introduces a large set of elements that either don't exist in or can be controlled in a studio (echoes in indoor venues, for example). But good live recording is an art that can be mastered and many extremely well recorded live performances do exist.

      On top of that, many real musicians are at their best when playing live - it has a lot to do with being bona fide musicians who can introduce the element of surprise through variation, moments of inspiration and playing off audience reaction. Good live artists / recordings can convey a sense of 'electricity' in performance that is rarely captured in the studio. A few really great performances even shine through poor recordings to the extent that one can overlook a poor recording.

      BTW, I thought that I was the only one here that would remember Renaissance - I had the fortune to see them live about 120 years ago along with Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span.

      --
      Sigs are bad for your health.
  2. Ok, I had to look it up (-1, ignorant) by handsomepete · · Score: 5, Informative

    SHN FAQ has some info and links regarding what shn is.

    1. Re:Ok, I had to look it up (-1, ignorant) by Natalie's+Hot+Grits · · Score: 4, Insightful

      SHN is very usefull for archives. It is also very usefull for listening to. Imagine you want to store your master copy of all your music on a hard drive in a computer along with the rest of your stero system. Now imagine you want to replicate audio CD's for friends (this is legal for all the bands that allow taping at concerts, phish allows you to distribute SHN's of their shows if they were taped by independant tapers)

      So you can listen to these SHN's on your stero, and if you want a MP3 CD for your car, you just run the shn's through a perl script, and now you have an MP3 cd of the same material. Now imagine a friend stops by with some CD-R's and wants to spin a few disks of the new shows you just downloaded off etree. just stick the blank in, and run it through a perl script, and boom, instant audio cd with no compression loss.

      MP3's are good for the end result, but for the source file, you dont want mp3, you want lossLESS. and SHN will cut most wav's in half. Not only this, but data integrity of SHN's is much better than storing your master copy in an "audio CD" because of the way the data is encoded onto the medium (audio cd's do not have as much redundancy on a disk, so a scratch will lose data, whereas, on a data disk you have redundant encoding on the media itself)

      For all these reasons, SHN is good for just about everything. Too bad my car MP3 disk player doesn't support SHN's.

      --
      Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
  3. Lossless audio distribution: etree.org by moron0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Lossless audio distribution: etree.org by tiedyejeremy · · Score: 3, Informative

      sadly, phish has not credited etree.org for the wide distribution it has facilitated.

      --
      Anything you say will be held against you. ... "tits"
    2. Re:Lossless audio distribution: etree.org by AugstWest · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We knew Page was running a DAT right off the board for like 10 years now, and I was wondering if they were ever going to do anything with it.

      It's a good idea, really, since there are a LOT of people who go to the shows, but don't know a taper, or have the patience or bandwidth for etree. It's a cool idea to know that you can get a tape of the shows you've actually been to, especially with soundboard quality.

    3. Re:Lossless audio distribution: etree.org by leviramsey · · Score: 3, Informative

      As another poster has mentioned, etree has very little to do with the actual exchange of the recordings. The Furthur network, otoh, is a P2P network that only traffics in live recordings of bands that allow taping.

      Perhaps the most surprising band that allows/encourages audience taping and trading of such tapes is Metallica, perhaps most famous in these parts for their stance on Napster.

  4. Phish has always allowed tapers by John+Paul+Jones · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  5. But this goes against the GD tradition... by droopus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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."
    1. Re:But this goes against the GD tradition... by hrieke · · Score: 5, Interesting
      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?
      • Because I support the band
      • Because I like their music, and it's from the patch board, where the signal is nice and clean
      • Because we all been bitching and moaning about the DMCA and record companies, and this can prove to the bands that there are other ways to make money
      • Because I'm Karma Whoring, here and in the real world
      --
      III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIIIV IIVIIIIIIVIII...
    2. Re:But this goes against the GD tradition... by blakestah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is totally in the Grateful Dead tradition of viral marketing.

      The Dead let people tape and trade their shows, but you couldn't sell them. The traders developed a barter system, and soundboard copies of shows were top dog in the barter system. You could get 3-4 non-soundboard shows for one soundboard.

      So now Phish will provide people with REALLY high quality bootlegs of shows for $10 (I guess bootleg isn't really the right term). People will buy them. For certain. And this puts MORE Phish music out there, and makes people more likely to go to their concerts and buy their studio releases - and that is the real goal. They know people will copy and trade these shows for free - again - that is the goal. They just give anyone an easy way to get any concert for $10. That is a lot of value compared to checking bartering message boards and trying to come up with a valuable enough trade.

      A smart business move by Phish. The Dead made their shows tradeable, and had more concert attendance in the 1980s and 1990s than any other band. They made a lot of cash from their shows, and from their merchandising.

    3. Re:But this goes against the GD tradition... by BigWorm · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      A couple points:

      - Phish does not allow soundboard patches at their shows (due to the illegal foreign "import" scene). These soundboard recordings will naturally sound better than your typical audience recording. I'll pay for the quality. Some of my audience recordings sound great. Others sound like they were recorded in a tin can.

      - You can still freely trade any audience tape/mp3/shn. In fact, Phish just modified their taping/trading policy to allow ANY audience recording to be traded online (Taping Policy). The previous policy prohibited the online trading of audience recordings if a commercial release of the same show was available.

      - How is this any different from the live Grateful Dead releases (i.e. Dick's Picks)? You won't find any of the Dick's Picks releases on etree. Seems to me like they are embracing a new medium.

  6. Wow... by inode_buddha · · Score: 5, Funny

    What's his name from Metallica needs to see this

    --
    C|N>K
    1. Re:Wow... by stubear · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Lars' comment has long been taken out of context. His complaint was "no one asked me if I want to participate", in reference to file trading online. Sure, Metallica allowed fans to trade music early on in their career, but METALLICA made this choice, not the fans.

      Something lost in this tiresome debate between the RIAA and geeks worldwide, too fucking cheap to buy a CD but spend ungodly amounts of money on computer gear, is what do the artists want? Phish seems to want to let fans download their music online, with limitations of course. Does this mean every musician wants this? Does Phish speak for an entire industry? No, they do not. They merely speak for their own little band and their own little band doesn't mind a little file trading of their concerts.

      Many seem to think they can do whatever the fuck they want but let's spin this in a way many here can understand. What if I took some GPL'ed code and built a proprietary app with it. Say, for instance, I took GIMP and made it usable by the print industry and fixed the horrible UI. Then I went to sell the application online and made millions on my new Photoshop killer and I refused to relinquish the source code despite the incessant whining of the geek community over violating their license.

      When you copy music you have done the exact same thing. You have violated a license, an agreement between you and the copyright holder. Phish allows for more lenient terms in licensing of their copyrights. Other bands aren't as amenable to these terms and stick with the standard copyright license as set forth in US and foreign law.

      In my opinion, you have absolutely no fucking right to cry foul when your rights are being violated if you willfully violate the rights of others.

    2. Re:Wow... by stubear · · Score: 4, Informative

      Are you a US citizen? Are you a citizen of a country which protects intellectual property through copyright laws? That's the point at which you agreed. The license is on the outside of the package and it looks like a C with a circle around it.

    3. Re:Wow... by Natalie's+Hot+Grits · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm not sure about your parent's post about the "license" but any time you recieve a work that is copyrighted, you are automatically bound by copyright law, without having to sign or agree to anything.

      All a license does is give you EXTRA rights aside from that already granted to you via copyright law (fair use). Under copyright law, if you recieve (because you paid for it, or obtained it in other legal ways) a work without any type of license, that means that you are 100% restricted to not redistribute the work. The only copies you are allowed are fair use copies, etc.

      If an EULA or license does not grant you extra rights, sometimes they do bad and _RESTRICT_ those rights guaranteed to you by copyright law. In these cases, those parts of the EULA are effectively unenforceable. No EULA can restrict fair use and be valid.

      So in a sence, your right, you didn't sign or accept any agreement when you purchased the work. On the other hand, you are not legally allowed to do anything except listen to it consistant to the fair use clause in US copyright law, and not copy it under any other circumstances. So you are in fact bound, but not by a contract, but by US Criminal law, wether you accept any extra agreements/EULA's or not.

      In effect, the "spirit" of your parent is correct, though it is technically incorrect.

      cheers >

      --
      Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
  7. Pearl Jam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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

  8. the best part of the FAQ by phaxkolumbo · · Score: 5, Funny
    (straight from the FAQ... i found this, for some reason, quite amusing.)

    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.

  9. Check out furthurnet.org too by martinde · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  10. So? by nuggz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  11. an advantage of live distribution by tiedyejeremy · · Score: 3, Informative
    For over two years this band has been on hiatus, yet their 4 show holiday run may be some of the most difficult tickets to attain, ever. Why so much popularity for a very non-mainstream jam band? The free distribution of live recordings of nearly every show they've played and the behind the scenes efforts of dedicated fans 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. ... "tits"
  12. Re:The spirit of taping by tiedyejeremy · · Score: 3, Informative
    "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,"

    you are incorrect here. the non distribution only affects the soundboard recordings released by the band, not the audience tapers that are there. Just like DMB. DMB also does not allow soundboards to be released. And, at least, phish as resonable ticket prices, not the $75/person charged by dave.

    --
    Anything you say will be held against you. ... "tits"
  13. Re:The spirit of taping by RestiffBard · · Score: 3, Informative

    75$!!!

    um not the last time I saw dave. It was more like 35$ and that was towards the end of their last tour. good show too.

    --
    - /* dead coders leave no comments */
  14. Wow! by asv108 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    As someone who has listened to and taped phish over the years, this is fantastic news. Phataudio.org was orginally a jamband MP3 site way back in the day before bandwidth costs got too high and P2P came out.

    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.

  15. True for Phish, not all "musicians" by No+Such+Agency · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!"