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Instant Concert CDs?
NickRipley writes "Clear Channel (owner of every radio station in America) is purporting to offer a new service, whereby concertgoers can receive an official recording of the concert they just attended, within moments after the final note. How will the RIAA react to this, seeing as this is legitimizing one of the oldest forms of music pirating? Also, what kind of equipment will have to be used to produce these so fast? Will the recording process suffer due to the hurry?"
I don't see why the RIAA would care. They may consider the act of individual listeners recording and distributing concert recordings piracy, but Clear Channel will likely charge $20-30 per recording, making a decent incoming in the process, "legitimizing" the act and thus rendering "piracy" in this case a non-issue.
Assuming these will be highest-possible-quality recordings (who knows) this of course would be a boon for so-called "bootleggers" who would no longer need to participate in the act of recording these shows but instead simply need to buy one copy and run off as many dupes as they need.
Well, most of the time anyway.
I can only imagine that the RIAA would squash this one, since traditionally, there would be all sorts of copyright issues here. Royalties go to the Label, Producer, Studio, Artists, RIAA, and who knows who else. Beyond that, a lot of the great artists play cover songs and unreleased material, which they'd have to cover royalties or permissions for that.
However, I would say that I'd pay for concerts of a lot of bands. People like BNL, Dave Matthews, etc. that throw some of the best live shows on earth would be worth it. Of course, since this article implies that you have to attend the concert, and the RIAA has little sway there, this is something that benefits the artists (and Clear Channel).
This would be great, if you can afford a ticket or get a chance. But what about the people in South Dakota that never see anyone, or people overseas who can't make a concert?
If this is something that the artists support, it would be easy to have the recordings ready. Fast burners and digital recording equipment tied into the sound system would make it easy to get these discs out minutes after a concert ends. What would be sad is that most likely, encores and bonus sets would be lost if they cut the recording early.
However, since this looks like something they're going to start in club shows, I'd imagine it's meant to boost new and smaller artists, which is great. I've seen enough small bands that never even crossed the radar of most radio, and it would have been great to hear their sets again.
What about selling these CDs to customers who did not attend the concert? If my favorite musician is coming nowhere near my town, can I buy one of these CDs? I own all the albums of my favorite groups, so there's just nothing left in the music world for me to buy. Offering these concert CDs for sale to anyone would entice a lot of people in my position to purchase some new music.
Clear Channel (owner of every radio station in America)
LMAO!
This sounds like a great money making scheme... making the RIAA likely to fight it tooth and nail. Just like they did with radio, and tapes, and cds, and now digital music on the 'net. Yup. And in 10 years they'll wonder how they every got by without it.
This Sig Kills Fascists
Obviously, there will be no post-production editing or enhancing, so you're basically just buying a fancy bootleg, not a CD you'd buy from a store of a live performance. But it shouldn't suck too bad, and it'd sure beat holding up a mini-recorder in the crowd.
(probably a moot point, as I can't see the RIAA letting this happen - unless they're getting a healthy chunk out of the pie.)
From the article:
"the live CDs would probably sell for around $15"
Probably, eh? Lemme break this down: concert t-shirts are generally $10 at the mall, but $20 at the concert. By that same rule, band CDs are $15 at the mall, so I'm guessing they'll be closer to $30 at the concert.
What's your damage, Heather?
How is this "legitimizing one of the oldest forms of music pirating"?. Money from selling these recordings would of course go to the artists playing at the concert.
How does the fact that a concert promoter licenses the ability to create concert CD's legitimize music pirating. This is no different then them playing the music on stations, or selling the bands other CD's. In every case I'm sure that proper royalties are being paid.
-BrentToo bad Clear Channel isn't likely to sponsor concerts by bands I actually give a shit about.
Now that I think of it, they'll be sponsoring "acts" rather than bands. Performers with nameless backup musicians, rather than groups with musicians whose names are known.
I think $15 is a little excessive, considering for a Clear Channel concert you're already paying around $100 a ticket (from what I've read).
As to the "what does the RIAA think of this" quesiton, I'm sure the licensing and fees are already part of this. The RIAA is probably just trying to figure out how to get them to cripple these "instant" concert CDs...
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
C'mon, why do submitters feel compelled to throw baseless incendiary quips into their story submissions, and why do /. editors always fall for them?
This service does not legitimize piracy any more than a band providing a MP3 on their own website legitimizes piracy.
ClearChannel will have the recording and distribution rights to the concert, what they do with those rights is their business.
I for one am looking forward to this service, I think it's an interesting idea.
As for quality: this will come from the sound equipment straight to the recording device, and they will stamp out CDs. Much better than a crappy hand-held cassette-recorder can do. Yes, the quality will not be as good as a studio album, but you want the live album, right?
This is how it worked: we created a master tape on the fly during the program. At the conclusion of the program, the master was carried down to a workroom with tape duplication machines. We could have 16 tapes created within 4 minutes of the end of the presentation--with more coming.
This is not even rare. In fact, is very common. Most churches do this routinely. The equipment investment is modest. The convenience is great.
In fact, my boss was asking me questions about technology for doing this with mp3's. In his case, they were interested in making mp3's available on his church's website. They also wanted to make an audio CD. They did end up accomplishing their goal. I might be mis-recalling his final solution. I believe they used a modest PC to simultaneously record audio along with the tape equipment. As long as they were doing a decent job of "mixing" during the live recording, they could immediately start making cassettes or audio CD's after the recording was complete. And have an mp3 file ready almost immediately as well.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
The actual accounting (also reported in countless previous links) means that after the studio's self-declared expenses are deducted, the band not only rarely makes much beyond the initial advance, but often ends up owing the studio money on paper. This can lock them in, forcing them to sign for additional albums (to have the debt forgiven) and making it hard to switch labels.
I could enumerate many more abuses, but I'm sure others will -- if they're not sick of doing so.
NOW COMES THE EVIL PART
The studios (or RIAA) don't have any right to the music the musicians play in concert, unless there is a specific concert recording clause. This was the meat on the musician's table. but now the largest promoter in the nation will be making it a term of their contracts that bands must surrender most rights to the music in their precious live performances. Note: Clear Channel never said a word about paying artists. It's be a condition of the concert: "If you don't sign over the rights, you don't play in this town". [We've also seen plenty of articles on the strong-arm methods Clear Channel has used to build and enforce precisely this sort of monopoly.
This won't improve anything for most bands. It only applies to the known successes where Clear Channel expects to make a profit; the ones where CC is already profiting as the concert promoter. If Clear Channel didn't book you for a concert or performance, don't expect their audio truck.
In short: they are reaching deeper into the artist's pockets -- and removing (coopting) a potential source of revenue for the band itself. The recording industry was a historical artifact, like buggy whip makers. It gained its stranglehold because 100 years ago, musicians could not afford studio equipment. Now they can, so the strangle hold much be maintained in other ways.
This is a coerced corporate seizure of the band's rights to the proceeds of their own live *performances* (concerts, shows, etc.) which had been the last bastion of the musician. They are doing this preemptively, because it's now a small step from the club/concert audio feed to a burned CD -- and right now sales of such CDs could well belong to the musician, if the corporations are not careful!
Clear channel owns about half of the stations. If they don't promote/play bands that don't play along, the bands may feel there is no choice. If the band gets a cut I see no problem with this, but if they don't then it's pretty nasty, imho. ...
I would suck to loose almost half your fans because you didn't like somebody taking some profit off your only opportunity to make some ching. After all, most profits are from T-Shirts, and if CD's take sales from shirts
Please read the original "The Problem With Music" by Steve Albini from which Courtney stole much of her manifesto.