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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?"
If your a big enough venue (read thosands of seats) then most likely your all ready owned by a large corporation. Clear channel does not support small venues, and in most cases goes out of its way to destroy them. So it britney can't play at the target center, so be it.
TruePunk | Games
Check with any large church. They have been recording and releasing their services immediately afterwards, some on CD, some on tape, depending on the size of the church and the length of the sermon.
Some of us consider that a performance, and its been done on tape for over 30 years.
You'll also need about $100,000 in bribe money.
can anyone name any patents in the domains that intrigue most /.'ers that have actually been invalidated because of prior art? any? even one?
A patent is supposed to be [1] Not immediately obvious to an expert in the field, and [2] provide some new and original technology.
However, this concept is rather obvious - record a concert from various audio and video sources then compress the data onto a CD. If they have a patent on this process, then it might be defendable. But I can't see how they can defend the concept of recording a live concert onto a CD.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
The idea is that your ticket to the event entitles you to "download" up to about 40 minutes worth of music (IIRC) from the event, using a "secure" DRM system.
My wife and I went last summer and I went to download my "fair share" of the music when I got home. Guess what? The music is in a proprietary format and you need a special client to be able to download and decode it. The client is only available as a Win32 .EXE
Sorry guys, I only have Solaris and Linux at home. I emailed and protested politely and was ignored. The client is called Wippit. I emailed them and got no reply, despite the fact that allegedly they welcomed feedback from non-Windows users asking for clients for other platforms.
Stick Men
For years our church would have a cassette of the day's sermon available immediately after the church service. This is going back like 15+ years. Maybe it's not the same as the parent that CC is seeking. I didn't really RTFA :-)
Come on, records of Live appearances are not a new technique, neither is selling CDs a new technique, so how can one patent the concept of recording and selling a CD, be it minutes after a concert or month?!
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
Nothing more to say
Honestly -- people have been attempting to do this "on-the-sly" since the birth of portable cassette recorders -- and getting arrested for it too.
And honestly, people have been doing it legally for years as well at venues that allow such things. Hell, concerts by less main stream groups like the Grateful Dead, Rusted Root, Phish, and such from that genre have vocally encouraged people to record their shows and then trade them with other fans, all legal, and all with the band's consent.
I have even been to several shows where recorders with high quality digital equipment were even allowed to tap in to the sound board itself to get pristine audio from the band without the majority of the audience cheers and such.
If you want prior art, just look up anyone who trades live Dead shows. Unless the patent specifically states CD recordable media and availability immediately after the show, there is no case. And even then, there is still no case, as such has been going on in the same venues I mentioned earlier for years and years via DAT (digital signal on tape), analog tape, and even CD as CD burners first became publically available.
If they really need the help, I have some old Dead shows on tape that are second gen from DAT originals I would be more than happy to let them listen to. Even have some first gen analogs that were pulled from the soundboard at a couple shows.
Either way, its all been done before, and this really looks more like a case of Clear Channel being their usual monoploistic selves. They already own the vast majority of radio stations in Amercia, and the FCC has told them that they cant buy any more, so they have to expand somewhere.
Wonder if I could buy some patents and start suing too! The new Americal dream:
Buy IP
?????
Litigate for fun and profit!!!!!
Jeff
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Why is it taken as assumed that acting as a monopolist is a bad thing in all cases?
Okay, so CC is coming down with even more restrictions, what are we to do? It's preaching to the choir, we already knew CC was evil in the first place, so this isn't informing anybody. Is this supposed to incite people to demand legal action as was taken by the government against Microsoft?
What about those of us who believe in capitalism and don't view monopolism as necessarily a bad thing or something which confers negative traits automatically? Must we all be indentured into group-think to survive the jungle of assumption here?
They take all the joy out of life! It makes me so depressed. One of the finest experiences I've had in the last year is getting a DiscLive CD right after the Pixies show in Spokane. The artists got a cut, I didn't have to lug around recording requipment and the DiscLive guys are AWESOME.
You can read more about them on the "All around the world - Pixies live" forum on frankblack.net for one. There service is a GOOD THING and it hurts no one but the greedy bastards at Clear Channel. You should have seen the smiles on the 1000 or so people who go CDs that night. Everyone was HAPPY.
In our corporate run world soon we will all be slaves to the patents and morals of a handful of monopolistic companies. We can line up and listen to whatever clear channel wants us to listen to and pay them a hefty sum to do so.
It just makes me sick to my stomach. Every GOOD THING in the world gets taken away. Call me a whiner, but this just depresses the SHIT out of me.
I just read the exact wording of the patent and the only thing it seems to incorporate beyond just recording sound to the media is that it does so "as it happens". And can be sent to multiple devices to record. Go to any recording studio in the world and they will have that exact same ability. The only thing this patent REALLY specifies is that it can be used at a concert. BS. Also, even if the courts ever upheld it, I believe you could technically get around the patent by just recording the audio first, and then just burn after the performance was over. Sure, you'd maybe have to wait another 5 minutes before you could leave with your disk but I sure wouldn't care if it meant those leeches didn't get my dime.
Unfortunately, we have some CC radio stations here in Indy. I've already made the conscious choice not listen to any of them. We have some very good independent stations here that are much better, anyway.
I don't know when they applied for this, but a 'large' number of churches record the pastors sermon and the make it available immediately after on tape, cd and even DVD's. The CD and DVD of course are newer, but many churches have been doing this with cassets since the mid 90's. Start calling all the large independent non-denominal churches in your area and ask them. Chances are some have been doing this since the early 90's.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
It seems to me there's a dual standard for prior art: If you want to invalidate a patent, you must show that someone did essentially the exact thing covered in the patent. This is generally quite hard, because generally the patent will have enough detail that everything anyone comes up with is just a little bit off.
On the other hand, when it comes time to enforce the patent, anything that looks vaguely like the patent is forbidden.
So, you could build a Direct-To-CD system with technology pre-dating the patent that isn't quite like the one in the patent, and even if you could prove that system was used for that purpose before the patent was filed, it would not invalidate the patent if shown as prior art. On the other hand, try to use that system today and you'll get sued.... you might win, but you'll probably lose.
Someday, I hope to see a defense to the tune of "I was using this system before the patent" for a system like the one described in the previous paragraph, and see what happens to the patent then when the two conflicting standards both come into play at once.
(Of course, there's a reason the patents are broad: A narrow view of these patents would be almost impossible to infringe, rendering the Patent Office nearly meaningless, and that's anathema to a bureaucracy.)
Anonymous yammering Coward, monopolies are bad. That's why they're illegal in the US, regardless of BushCo's fondness for them. The Sherman Antitrust Act, the landmark legislation protecting the people from monopolies, trusts, and cartels, was passed a century ago, after the robber baron monopolies squeezed people so hard that there was a near collapse of the economy outside the insular circuits of the monopolies' cabals. They're always bad. Believe what you want about capitalism - unless you're the monopoly, they're bad for you. Drop the crap about "group-think" and read a book.
--
make install -not war
It's not the business of some national conglomerate to decide what we can and can't listen to. That's up to individual listeners. If you don't like it, turn the radio off. Or call the station and politely disagree with their play lists. If enough people call and politely express their thoughts, the station might change their play list. But even if they don't, no one's under any obligation to keep listening!
I'm getting awful tired of NPR talking about war, war, mayhem, death, army, war, and I might write a polite letter to express my views -- but if I don't want to listen on my drive home (and I don't -- whatever happened to the varied stories of all kinds that got me listening in the first place?), I turn the radio off or switch it to the CD changer. That's it.
Being respectful of people is allowing them to choose. Not doing it for them.
i am a soviet space shuttle