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Led Zeppelin Agrees To Digital Distribution
cphilo points out a NYTimes article on Led Zeppelin's decision to sell its music online. The group is one of the last superstar acts to hold out against the digital tide. There was a months-long, trans-Atlantic bidding war for the rights to license the band's catalog. In the US, the only digital holdouts that outsell Led Zeppelin are the Beatles and Garth Brooks.
Under the original terms of copyright in the USA, which I believe was 17 years + 17 more optional renewal if author was alive and wanted it, much of Led Zep's catalog would be in the public domain by now.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
FINALLY!
The game.
In the US, the only digital holdouts that outsell Led Zeppelin are the Beatles and Garth Brooks.
What, you mean Ill Mitch doesn't rank?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Blame the green.
Typical.
(I check several times each day.)
I suggest you read Slashdot
IIRC when he went into retirement he inked a deal which granted exclusive distribution rights, going forward, to Wal-Mart; unless they get into downloadable music in a big way, or can grant digital rights to a big online player like Amazon or Apple, that may come back to bite him pretty hard.
...is that Garth Brooks outsells Led Zeppelin?!? Who knew?
My blog
The true Led Zap fans rip their vinyls to Mp3 :)
What took so long to get the led out?
Well, the fight with Apple music and apple computer is well known.
So it obviously makes sense that they won't be on itunes anytime soon (although as of last week, they are all on there solo). I wonder if apple would fight back if they did digital distribution, as it is now apple stepping on the toes of what they are doing.
Either way, it should be only a matter of time before the other guys realize that the old way of doing music is over, and it is time to embrace the new-fangled technology. I'm surprised it's taken them this long, but on the other hand people still want cds of their music as they are some of the most famous bands of all time, so it probably hasn't hurt them as much as it hurts the little guys who are just coming out.
What Zeppelin REALLY needs to do is stop being dicks about their live recordings. They should release some of the soundboard recordings they've got in their archives, and stop buying up master tapes from classic-era audience tapers to keep them off the bootleg market (not positive that's true, but I've heard about it happening a lot).
Yes, I am aware that Thinkgeek sells devices which facilitate the ripping of analog music to digital.
listening to Led Zeppelin, I can say they are easily one of the best rock bands of all time. Unlike a lot of recent 'talent' which seems to be concerned only with imitating others, Led Zeppelin pioneered rock and roll and actually brought creativity back to a genre which many had dismissed simply as hippie music.
Good to see their catalog online; however, a few years ago I had a rather revealing experience after buying one of their earlier works on CD: I could definitely notice the limitations of the analog equipment used for recording. I hope that the tracks offered online are of better quality, or it will be a little bit of a disappointment.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
must... stay... awake...
Christ that's pathetic.
And real Led Zeppelin fans would never admit to listening to anything but vinyl.
My peace of mind does not depend on
I absolutely will not purchase any music in any form. Until the bands start distributing via a company that is DRM less, and passes MAJORITY of the moneys back to the bands.
Don't CDs store data digitally?
:-)
Also why do marketeers always cal them "digital downloads", when can I get them on analogue downloads?
The boys would need to have written new hits and not glided along on a fluke
Wait a second...
Does this mean I have to put all my Zeppelin albums back in their sleeves and download brand new digital copies of the much superior-sounding vinyl discs?
Say it isn't so.
The older I get, the less I like everyone else.
if the stores are all closed, with a click she can get what she came for.
Amazon patents notwithstanding
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
cuz he is falling apart piece by piece. nose is dropping somewhere, ear in another and so on. will one need to talk to individual pieces of michael jackson or the falling pieces have decided on a spokesperson/representative among themselves ?
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Now they only need to go on tour and my life would be complete.
whats wrong with hippie music, pal ?
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My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I have everything by the Beatles and Zeppelin on vinyl, and I don't give a shit about Garth Brooks. So, all the big things are taken care of regardless.
Up for it.
Though if I remember my video games correctly, I think we're supposed to gather all the parts up and destroy them. :P
I was annoyed that Led Zeppelin wasn't on iTunes a while back, but it did lead me to the London Philharmonic Orchestra's Led Zeppelin cover album. Highly recommended (and they did a Pink Floyd cover album, too).
14 + 14 is correct.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
The Beatles were certainly original, and creative, but they were more of a pop-music kind of band. Led Zeppelin explored a lot of different styles, and did all of them well.
But just a few examples:
Yeah, so Willie Dixon sued them for copying him. They still produced a lot of completely original and very inspiring tracks.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Obviously the right-holders of the beatles catalog would stand to make more money from digital sales than a box set that resold ad naseum, but in their generousity they have decided that enough money has been made, and the fans should not be milked for any more money.
In the case of Garth Brooks, one assumes that he is going to have mercy on us by limiting the availability of his collections. This is quite acceptable to most of us fans, as Reba and George are widely available.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
You know, the interesting thing about satire and parody is that they often employ blatant copying, with a twist, for the sake of humor.
The interesting thing about Led Zeppelin is that they employed blatant copying, with a twist, to add a depth and a character to works that many had regarded as long since dead.
But, they weren't only about copying other artists. They were fairly creative in their own right, and added more to music as a whole than they took away from it.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Just got the torrent a month back, every album ripped pristinely. Damn good thing, too, seeing as my records and audio cassettes are all futzy and not a good source for ripping at this point. Oh, but did they mean "legal" digital distribution? Piss on it, I've still not forgiven Jimmy Page for doing a video with Puff Daddy.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Just like the Beatles' entire catalog. "Holding out" only means ceding complete control of digital distribution to pirates.
There's nothing Led Zeppelin has published that isn't available through illicit means. The fact that they took so long to negotiate rights only marks them as greedy fools.
You're full of shit first because you claim that using the blues as source material for new music is somehow 'ripping someone off'. Shows you just have an axe to grind. Are you going to say the same thing about the Stones? How about Clapton/Cream/musical chairs band? How about Elvis? How about every blues-playing 60's band? They were 'ripping off' old artists in the same way, if that's what you're going to term it. But by your standards people should stop playing blues because there's nothing that's not been done before. That's ludicrous, by the way.
You're also full of shit because if the compositions of the original authors were so great, they would have had the same success that Zeppelin had. Well guess what, they all died drunk in cheap hotels partially because their records didn't sell. If you could get them into a recording studio in the first place, that is, because they were hard to drag away from the bars and floozies (and heroin in some cases). The Crossroads thing is a myth born of a real phenomenon, the early death of many blues musicians. Bottom line, their music was fringe in their lifetimes and didn't sell. The ones that survived into the 60s had more success, but only marginally so.
Lastly, you're full of shit because no one accused Robert Johnson - for example - of particularly being original. The truth is, no one really knows what the hell was his composition and what he borrowed from other fellow musicians who he learned from or played in proximity to. Interchange and borrowing were just as commonplace then as now. So is he a thief too now?
Obviously Zeppelin added something to the mix that others didn't have. A sound, a mystique, a reputation for fucking every woman that came within 10 yards of them - whatever. They had it, the others didn't. But it's all the blues.
Anyway, you can shove your hatred right up your ass. You're full of shit, and the fact that your post is currently modded informative is just indicative of the ignorance of the mods.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I may get flamed for this, but I think one major reason why Led Zeppelin were a major holdout against legal downloads was the fact the former band members feared most of the downloads will be the song "Stairway to Heaven," causing people to ignore the numerous other music the group wrote. Besides, sales of the group's music was still quite profitable in album form for the surviving band members, so there was no real incentive for legal digital downloads until the recent announcement.
Wouldn't that be nice? The Black Sabbath 1996 Castle Remastered releases were amazing compared to the original releases. I hope Led Zeppelin does the same. We could finally hear what they are saying before the songs (not even yet?). If iTunes had their say I'm sure the quality would be reduced. Would Verizon be able to get reels or would they use CDex like everybody else? So... I guess I already have all the digital Zepp?
Does this mean they finally got the Led out?
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Seriously, who doesnt have all the Zep songs in MP3 by this point already if they like them? I dont get this concept of downloading bands that have been purchased over and over and over again in the past. If I didnt have the MP3's I could get them in short order from rip of my cd, or a library, or have em dropped off on my server by a friend, or turn on any classic radio station for more then 20 minutes.
I was a big fan, I even have hours of boots, back when that was interesting, and I still like them, but think about it, even 20 years ago (1987) you didnt have to buy an album or cassette because someones big brother or friend would give you one. They were very common during the transition to cd. And about 8 years after that I think you could pick up a cd in the $2 used bin.
No AC/DC on iTunes, last time I checked.
Not a problem for the end users. If it isn't for sale on any legal channel, many will fail to see a copyright violation as theft as it isn't stopping any legal sale of any kind.
Examples of others who started down this treck was Disney who will never release movies on Videotape, along with George Lucas and the first Star Wars film release.
The Music industry is also condemmed to repeat hsitory as they failed to learn from it.
The truth shall set you free!
It's true, the band should have been more up front about the music they were covering, but you are exaggerating the case. They did not "steal everything." They did cover some songs and there were lawsuits to force them to credit Willie Dixon and I don't know if they've ever credited Jake Holmes. But that is a small handful of songs in a large catalog -- Led Zeppelin has plenty of "original" songs. Sure, they were basically a blues band, but they used the blues to basically pioneer a new hard rock sound. Rock n Roll is itself basically ripped off from the blues and country music. And a lot of heavy metal ripped off Led Zeppelin. And so on.... that's how progress occurs in the open source world of popular music history. You're right that they should have credited (and paid respects -- not to mention some percentage of their profits -- to) the musicians whose work they used. But I don't think you can define all of their work by that.
Does this mean that there could be some Zepplin in the future of Rock Band or Guitar Hero? That would be so awesome.
as if they they care about music or the people
personally, I don't know whose worse, the artists or labels
it seems like they're all evil selfish sell-outs
If you melt down a vinyl copy you can pour it through the intertubes ...
The first thought that came to me was "what? doesn't any LZ fan already have all their music ripped to MP3's?" They've had decades....
The original poster is criticizing the fact that copyrights were extended.
your friendly neighborhood grammar Nazi
... all those Led Zep CD's I bought? Weren't those digital already? If you wanna talk about selling the music as m4a, I can understand, but that's no less digital than the Complete Studio Recordings Box Set.
Maybe if I put a witty nerd joke in my sig, someone'll appreciate my comment a little more, but i'm too lazy to get one
What kind of a world do we live in where Garth Brooks outsells Led Zeppelin rights? Faith in humanity--;
So I can only get their music on compact cassette or vinyl records?
M'kay, silly that they've held out for so long, just about everyone and their mom already has their albums, I'm sure people would rather buy their actual CDs than buy digital versions. Also, is it just my ears, or does every album after Physical Grafitti suck ass?
Jimmy Page's house was broken into back in the early '80s, and a lot live soundboards and rough studio tapes were stolen - not that they actually recorded a lot of their shows.
Some have made it into circulation, Zeppelin was one of the most heavily bootlegged groups. Many complete shows are available, and fragments of others. The recordings are available on various websites, usually as (torrented) FLAC files. A certain amount of video is available, mostly fragments, but there are several nice versions of the 05/25/75 Earls Court show in circulation.
Some of the recordings sound pretty heinous, but others, especially the Millard ones, are wonderfully clear. The version of The Song Remains The Same on one DVD's menu clips on the DVD is from the 06/21/77 LA Forum show is part of a Millard tape. Some boots have been re-equalized, and others, where both a dry-sounding soundboard and more atmospheric-sounding audience tape exist, have been "matrixed" to yield a fuller sound.
The real question is, when will the hoarders of shows that are known to have been bootlegged, release those tapes...
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
who will hold the copyright when they are destroyed then
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Huh? Led Zeppelin CDs have been for sale at least 20 years. Were those CDs analog? Were they published without Led Zeppelin's permission?
What a stupid headline, kdawson.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This guy has a wife-- he must be doing something right.
I was as big a fan as the next guy. I had a scrap book for christs sake. Now I see Jimmy Page going to court on record companies behalf. What a fucking dweeb, he cant even play that well either, now that I think about it.