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Clear Channel Buys Patent For Instant Live CDs
An anonymous reader writes "According to this Rolling Stone article, and this article at P2P, everyone's favorite monopolist, Clear Channel, is bullying DiscLive and other companies in the available-after-the-concert live CD business by forbidding them from operating in their venues.
Looking at the actual Clear Channel patent itself, it's obvious that, unlike what is said by their Instant Live program head Steve Simon, their patent is very specific, and doesn't cover all media types and all onsite production, so isn't CC just standing behind a bogus patent to continue to act like a monopolist? Anyone have prior art to invalidate their patent?"
It should be obvious to anyone whose ever used a multi-CD burner, or recorded a concert.
Anyone remember the Grateful Dead's policy on bootlegging, how they encouraged it and even gave a special area at the front of the stage for bootleggers to stand and get a decent recording?
Isn't this an instant recording of a live event? Hasn't this been going on for 20 years?
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
I support the general idea that CC shouldn't be getting a patent on something as simple as this.
I think, however that you lost sight of the big picture. Making Money. I support Open Source, but what takes priority, the client with 5k in his hand asking for a website, or my to-do list for my blog software, or another OS project.
Business today thrives on one company working against the others, being first to market still carries some value, I think that this is what CC is doing. Plus, If I'll say, If I see a concert at the Verizon Wireless Arena, and want to get a copy of the show, I'll buy one.
Maybe I miss the point, Maybe I'm too tired for this now.......
Umm, hello? When have media companies ever been interested in the advancement of technology. If it wasn't something that was specifically their hands only, they've resisted everything. Radio, tapes, CDs, DVDs, VCRs (didn't thank wanker at the head of th MPAA say something about it destroying civilization as we knew it) MP3 players. Maybe they liked TV, since they figured 28 minutes of advertising could profitably pay for two minutes of content. bah. When the revolution comes, the heads of big media should swing just after the Lawyers and the heads of organized religion.
ClearChannel acts immorally to make as much money as possible while producing nothing but law suites and noxious gas. Apple creates damn good products, ideas and such and then protect their creation. That's the difference. Your not + Insightful your + Short Sighted and - Thought.
vampirical
In its current format, it is just being abused by big business to stifle innovation, and as a means to create an income though suing anyone any everyone who even remotely does something similar to what they have a patent on.
This is the only solution, and should be done as well as a complete re-write of the copyright laws, and civil lawsuit laws, as they too are now just a revenue stream for big business.
This is also fast becoming the case here in Australia too as Australia becomes America through the FTA (Free Trade Agreement).
Well that is my AU$0.02 (US$0.014178) worth.
Third of Nine
Well, um, yes.
Screw patents.
If you can't get people to buy it from you, then move out of the way of those who can.
This is getting insane.Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
As far as prior art goes, the patent looks exactly what thousands of churches do every service, record to CD and cassette. Bigger churches actually mix the sound, make special tracks for special events within the service. Now wouldn't that be a nice media circus, big bad CC goes after America's churches, synagogues, and whatever-else-have-you.
What if you dont edit it, and simply burn it onto DVD as a great big WAV?
What if you burn it directly without ever storing it? How about if I record direct onto iPod or similar?
The best part about this patent is that it invalidates ALL their existing bullshit about months of work in a recording studio - if these disc mastering and audio cleanups are available in a short period as this invention clearly states, then surely the recording studio guys should be quaking in their boots!
I enjoyed reading this patent, because in an attempt to blind people with science, they explain how cd mastering and CD/R burning occurs and the media differences between them.
liqbase
Well, because if I brought a recorder into a concert, recorded the concert, then started handing out copies to my buddies I'd get arrested. Honestly -- people have been attempting to do this "on-the-sly" since the birth of portable cassette recorders -- and getting arrested for it too. I would say that it's not only a plain and obvious invention, but the only reason that there isn't a mountain of prior art is because: 1) the bands weren't interested / knowledgable / didn't care about it and 2) the fans couldn't do it themselves because the law prohibitted them from doing so (not that people didn't try).
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
There is a big difference between the two styles. But new patents must be non-obvious and non-trivial.
If the "church" method is well established, then it goes a long way into invalidating the new patent as being a logical improvement based on newly available technology.
sorry, i'm from europe, so i tend to not understand some things. i can understand if someone puts some nice things together with a lot of duct tape, calls this "bicycle with 8 wheels" or "telephone" and gets a patent for that. however, what i do not understand: someone buys some products and uses them exactly the way they are supposed to be used and gets a patent for that. really, i do not understand that.
beer as in "free beer"
The hard work of transparent windows is not to come up with the idea, but to implement proper support for it in your windowing system. By using transparent windows in your system, you automatically publish it, thus there is little or no value in the patent publication. Same with business methods: by using them, you make them known.
The patent system was never designed to allow monopolisation of every cool idea (otherwise we'd also have patents on book plots and drawing styles), because that results in blocking all independent creators who build something based on that idea. Of course, big businesses love that, because a patent on an idea is much broader than a patent on a particular implementation/invention and thus gives them a much broader monopoly, but it's bad for the free market and society as a whole.
Have a look at this presentation for more on the idea/invention difference, the goals of the patent system and how software patents work against them.
FWIW, I'm posting this from my iBook and my other computer is a G4, waiting to be replaced by a G5. So I'm definitely not some anti-Apple zealot, many would even claim the reverse :)
Donate free food here
I noticed on the clearchannelsucks webs site, just a bit farther down from their article, this item is siting there.
I wonder if CC is looking at the live disk as a promotional opportunity to sell to advertisers, and that's why they're barring artists use of their own live recordings? I guess they figure that if they have the patent, they can control the use of the technology, and then turn around and lisence advertising on the live CD to Pepsi, or Budweiser, or whomever is willing to pony up the cash to have their ads "inserted" onto the live tracks.
And I doubt there are many artists who would be willing to do that on their own, given the backlash from fans.
Corporate America has been telling us for decades that unregulated free markets, i.e., competition, is the best economic system. Now via patented business plans, they've essentially eliminated all competition. What's capitalism without competition? Corporate fascism.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
"In one embodiment, the present invention provides an event recording system that has an event-capture module, an editing module, and a media recording module."
That's a recording studio.
It just happens to be at the event, and the timeline is compressed to enable them to sell copies by the time the concert ends. There is no invention there at all, just a bunch of blue-arsed audio-engineering flies. As for prior art:
- recording a live concert off the radio
- recording a live concert off the TV
- any artist who has recorded a live album (although this obviously has the time issue)
- church services (we record ours to disk and master to CD when the service ends)
- any broadcast corporation that archives live programmes. That's all recorded to tape, ready to syndicate to other stations instantly.
- any of those 'cut an album in an hour' compos
In short, this is a crazy patent - they've simply patented doing something people have been doing for ages, but doing it slightly faster.What the devil did they see as "questionable" in this song?
Louis Armstrong "What A Wonderful World"
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"
I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world
The only thing that's even close is the colours/faces passage -- but if anyone's going to find offense in that, they should do society a favour and walk around with blinders & earplugs to protect their overly delicate sensibilities!
I'm really getting sick of all the business process patents. Selling concert CD's immediately after the show is nothing new; how many thousands of live albums are available on the market today? This method is just faster distribution than before; it's not an original process. Would you award a patent to a record company for selling live albums in stores a month after the concert? Of course not! So why do they get a patent for selling it 15 minutes later in the venue?
Maybe they could patent the actual recording/distribution kiosk design, because that would take some original, creative engineering to make it work. But the idea of "selling CD's after a show" is nothing new.
$8.95/mo web hosting
I bet there's not a single software-related patent that's been issued in the last ten years that couldn't be overturned by prior art. Stuff that seems cutting edge now was being mulled over twenty years ago, sometimes thirty or forty years ago.
At the risk of being off-topic but kind of still on-topic, have you all seen where PanIP's lovely "Automated Sales" patent got overturned recently? Unless PanIP can convince the USPTO to overturn its decision, it looks like there will be no more lawsuits against e-commerce companies coming from PanIP, unless they think they can stand on just their automated transactions patent, and that one under review, too.
There's a link to the story at the old website of the PanIP Group Defense Fund, at youmaybenext.com.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Because we all know, and ClearChannel and the RIAA have shown, that digital technology makes everything magically different. Just like the Internet.
While I strongly disagree with their actions, here are the general reasonings
"Imagine" : The line "imagine all the people" could potentially trigger some bad images of the victims
"Sunday Bloody Sunday" : see above "Obla Di, Obla Da" : the line "Obla Di, Obla Da, life goes on." could potentially be construed as a disrespect to the seriousness of the situation. as if to say, big deal, move on.
While I totally disagree with governmental censorship, this is an instance of a company trying to be respectful to it listeners. The ban was temporary, and based on the fact that things were hard enough on many people as it is.
So try and keep in mind, that no matter the intention of a song (promoting peace etc...) If the lyrics are taken out of context (say you tune in mid song) I can stir some really upsetting emotions. Last thing I need is someone breaking down in tears on the highway causing a stir when it could be prevented.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
Well, here's the thing: if a company conducts itself in such a way that this kind of story gets out, and causes everyone who hears it to kind of nod their head and say to themselves "yeah, it sounds like them"...
...whose fault is that? Your company's image is based not just on what it says, but on what it does and how the public perceives it. Right now, the public who care to think about it, think Clear Channel is a conniving bunch of monopolists who curry favor with the neoconservatives (who are ruining what was a perfectly serviceable Republican party) in the interest of expanding their monopolies.
Can't stand the heat? Get out.
The sheep that believe everything they hear?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I mean, there is no 'Freedom from being offended' in the Constitution, as far as I know. If there is, then it sure takes a LOT of fun out the 'Freedom of Speech'.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If you tune in to a song halfway through and it conjures up a bad image of a past event then you're the one who needs to get help. It isn't up to the rest of the world to use their psychic powers to determine what might offend you. If someone is that freaking depressed then they should just turn off the damned radio and enjoy the silence.
Songs like Sunday Bloody Sunday have nothing to do with a Wednesday on September 11. And the Beatles recording of Obla Di, Obla Da damn sure has little to do with it. Too bad if some knucklehead gets a little offended. People like that need to grow some skin. Why the hell can't people be depressed anymore? It pisses me off that we have to drug ourselves or make everyone else change just so one sad dolt can get half a smile on his or her face. To hell with these people. Sit at the damned traffic light and cry if the song makes you sad. It is what we used to do in this country and dammit we liked it!!!
'Same speed C but faster'
Monopolies are bad. That's why they're illegal in the US...
Except they're not.
Monopolies are perfectly legal. It's abusing a monopoly which is illegal.
If you make a great product, and everyone buys your product, so you end up with a 99% market share or whatever, you have a monopoly. But you haven't committed a crime.
If you then use your 99% market share to muscle in on other markets, or if you take any proactive measures to prevent people competing on your turf, or if you double your prices because you know your customers can't go anywhere else, you are abusing your monopoly. That's what the crime is.
If Microsoft went bust, and Apple folded, and Linux suddenly found itself on every desktop in America, would you start baying for Linus' blood? Not until he was caught posting "BSD is dying" trolls. Remember: competition == good, abusing monopoly == bad, monopoly == neutral.