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Instant Live Concert Recordings
WebGangsta writes "The AP is reporting that there's a new device out that allows you to record a concert... legally. It works because it's run by the venue, direct from the mixing board. After the show, concert-goers visit an on-site kiosk and purchase a 128MB keydrive (which may or may not be proprietary to the system). Then they swipe their credit card again to download the concert they just attended to the keydrive. The MP3 can then be shared with whoever they'd like (no restrictions on copying the show to friends)." We've had some previous stories about a different system with CD-R's available after the show.
Depends on the band really. Some bands like The Greatfull Dead used to let you hook right into the mixing board to record the concert...which is why there are so many good Dead bootlegs out there.
I think Phish lets you do this also...and others. But then again, this may be a thing of the past.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Why are concert recordings illegal? Is it like taping a movie at the theater?
Yes.
But it wasn't always illegal if it was for private use. An ancient concept called "fair use" would allow many people in the past to record things for their personal enjoyment. Allas, such a thing no longer exists according to official sources such as the RIAA, the MPAA and the US Congress.
TW
Sounds awful. Most bootleggers (of the legal variety, I do not consort with thieves ... erm, yeah) would rather pluck off their own ears than listen to, let alone pay for, a crappy mp3 concert that they had been to live.
I've been active on etree, StG, and similar for years, and before that I traded hand to hand. General rule (not of thumb, it's just a rule): if it's compressed, it's crap. We don't want it, and we don't want it to propogate. Because, assuredly, some dope will take his mp3 keychain, and pop it into Nero or whatever they have these days, and print out his own CD. Which will then be traded, and there will be a very sub-standard concert floating around.
"What we were seeing is that a large number of people were taking their CDs home and ripping them to MP3s, so we thought it would benefit music fans to eliminate that middle step," Reilly said.
First of all, I've learned never to trust anyone else when it comes to encoding audio. Secondly, if you can download the concert immediately afterwards, there's obviously no quality check step to make sure everything came out okay.
128M for 110s of recording time comes out to approx: 160kb/s. Totally unacceptable for live concerts.
Congratulations on being the 1 millionth Slashdotter to completely misunderstand the concept of "fair use."
"Fair use" doesn't mean "I think it's only fair that I get to copy and use this." Fair use is a statutory defense to a charge of copyright infringement that is available primarily to those who use a portion of a copyrighted work (not the entire concert, program, etc.) for educational or journalistic purposes, and is especially effective when that use is non-commercial. Fair use protects your local t.v. newscast when they show you a 30 second clip of the band playing at your local arena, or when you quote some of the lyrics to a song in a review. It does not protect you wanting to make copies of CDs for your friends or taping entire concerts without the permission of the artist.
Phish has a system for this, and they have had it going for at least a year now. Plus, you can get it in either mp3 or lossless format (FLAC).
They do not tether DRM either, and still allow for audience to tape the shows with special taper tickets. Those can be freely traded, but the ones Phish provides is an honor system (what? a band that does not assume that their fans are out to rip them off? Someone call the RIAA)