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More Performers Are Demanding Audiences Lock Up Their Phones (nytimes.com)
More performers -- and other venues -- are discovering a new anti-piracy technology called Yondr -- including comedian Dave Chappelle. Slashdot reader HughPickens.com quotes the New York Times:
Fans are required to place their cellphones into Yondr's form-fitting lockable pouch when entering the show, and a disk mechanism unlocks it on the way out. Fans keep the pouch with them, but it is impossible to snap pictures, shoot videos or send text messages during the performance while the pouch is locked.
'I know my show is protected, and it empowers me to be more honest and open with the audience,' says Dave Chappelle...But some fans object to not being able to disseminate and see live shows via videotape...
"In this day and age, my phone is how I keep my memory," one live-music fan told the Washington Post, adding "If you don't want your music heard, then don't perform it." But the device is becoming more common, and according to the Times it's now also being used at weddings, restaurants, schools, and when movies are being prescreened.
'I know my show is protected, and it empowers me to be more honest and open with the audience,' says Dave Chappelle...But some fans object to not being able to disseminate and see live shows via videotape...
"In this day and age, my phone is how I keep my memory," one live-music fan told the Washington Post, adding "If you don't want your music heard, then don't perform it." But the device is becoming more common, and according to the Times it's now also being used at weddings, restaurants, schools, and when movies are being prescreened.
I'm guessing the man would be all for tying a body camera to every police officer on earth, but god help you if you point a camera at HIM. Do that and you'll have to put it in a DRM-enabled "satchel" and pay a few hundred bucks for a ticket to see his drugged out ass.
Maybe someone should mention to Chappelle that he hasn't been relevant since he literally clicked his heels three times and went back to Africa.
I can't wait to read all the "Help! Help! I'm too mentally weak to survive for an hour without my phone!!!!" whining.
.. holding mobiles and tablets. That is why I do not go to concerts anymore.
and like on-call Doctors who couldn't care less if they're ruining the end of "Star Wars" for you because they have to go and err you know? save-a-life.
sag
Use your eyes. And brain.
If you are on call 24/7, you really need to re-evaluate your life choices...
+1
If you're on call, regardless of your profession, you assume a responsibility.
Don't burden others with the consequences of your choices.
The fix for this problem is easy; don't go to a location where your phone will not work.
If you can't do something that easy, you shouldn't have been trusted with it in the first place.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I guess if you're selling out every show and can't find a bigger venue in town then you can get away with this.
As a D-list performer? Please, tag yourself at my show, throw a couple pics up on social media, drop a clip on youtube. Selfies at the merch table after our set.
Tomorrow night we're in Sheboygan, tell your friends there how awesome tonight was...
Why would he care at that point? He got his money. They're the immature brats who think they're entitled to his performance.
If your life revolves around your phone, you need to reevaluate your life.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Not wasting a cent on any performer who engages in this nonsense.
Good. You stick to your guns and never go to another live show again.
I'm sick of people like you trying to film shows and blocking my view. Instead of me being able to enjoy a show, I have the experience stolen from me so while some narcissistic tool holds their iPad above their head to take shakycam footage with abysmal audio, and all I can see is their poorly exposed image on the iPad's screen.
It's a LIVE performance. The entire point of the exercise is what's happening right in front of you at that very second. Whatever you're recording on your phone or iPad is a miserable substitute. Try actually paying attention to the show instead of fiddling with your widget.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
Been better if the audience just said a collective "Fuck you" and walked out...
I'll now ask you to kindly elaborate as to exactly how your recommendation would have helped anyone.
You can try and make a point about being an "adult" and "choices" and all the usual BS excuses, but nothing you will bring forth can excuse the stupidity of paying a LOT of money to see a live performer in order to disrespect and ignore the piss out of them and their performance all evening with a cell phone in your face or theirs.
"In this day and age, my phone is how I keep my memory," one live-music fan told the Washington Post, adding "If you don't want your music heard, then don't perform it."
If you don't want to see the artist's performance enough to abide by their wishes and see it live rather than filtered through your smart phone, then stay home. Those of us attending the concert will be quite happy not to put up with the jostling, distracting light from your device's display, and the general assholery of a self-entitled little prick who believes he has some kind of divine right to be accommodated.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Don't agree to it. Walk away. Convince your friends not to. A wedding? Really? How about just announcing that the bride and groom don't want people holding up their phones. Then it'll be obvious who really respects them.
Just another performer that I wouldn't go and see live then.
Sorry, but recording devices are not new.
Interruptions from the audience are not new.
Why we feel the need to act on them now that copyright law is VASTLY in favour of the artists, whereas before it wasn't, I can't fathom. But that also seems to be the trigger for this kind of reaction.
If you want me to effectively cripple my phone, something that stays with me all the time EVEN THOUGH I WORK IN SCHOOLS, then we're going to clash heads. I either won't come and see you perform, or I have to jump through a specific, special, nuisance every time I want to do so. Like a form of DRM on a live performance. That will affect my enjoyment, and the rate I'd be willing to pay for that performance.
There's a time and a place for smartphones. I happily agree with you throwing out ANYONE whose phone goes off at a classical concert, for instance. No problem at all. Their own fault for failing to manage their device when they were given the opportunity to voluntarily manage their device.
Even chicken-wire cages around the venue, or whatever. Fine. But to demand I start putting useful items in little bags, you're just trying to be like the TSA and other places who are overstepping their remit under the name of something else (terrorism, etc.). And do you demand the same of, say, a smartwatch?
I can get a mobile phone with camera and wireless and bluetooth that's the size and thickness of a credit card. Literally, now, on Amazon, for 30 GBP. You can't police that kind of thing. And you're at a large venue with people who've paid to see you and you object to them immortalising that special performance?
Wholesale copyright infringement is an entirely different problem. Taking people's phones away doesn't solve that either.
But the problem of "how can I convince an audience that they want to pay money to come and see me?" That's a difficult enough prospect as it is without adding obstacles for yourself.
If I ever did want to go to such a thing, and there was a warning on booking that this was required, I'd cancel. If I turned up and this was an ad-hoc policy, not notified and only implemented on the door? We're going to have an argument and I'm going to seek a refund for more than just my ticket and time wasted.
Or someone will upload the video to youtube or bittorent... where others will watch the show and guess what? Fewer ticket sales. If money was not an issue, most of these performers would not mind cameras. But they have to make a living... so no cameras, no piracy.
Nonsense argument. The Grateful Dead was a band that allowed recordings of their concerts and it didn't affect attendance one bit as far as anyone can tell. They cultivated a genuine relationship with their fans unlike too many of the overly entitled "artists" we see today. If a crappy cell phone recording of your concert makes people want to go less then you probably weren't selling anything worth attending in the first place. A good concert cannot remotely be replicated by a shaky video taken on an iPad. I think a lot of performers are trying to hide behind this stuff to cover their lack of actual ability and the poor value for money of their concerts.
You millennials have nobody to blame but your own narcissistic asses for this.
Like emergencies. Can the phones be retrieved quickly enough in the "fog of war". Can a police situation be recorded?
Are you one of those people who panic when the little notification on the phone says "No Service"? I know several who have become so worried by the "what if" scenarios that they get all nervous even if it dips out of LTE these days. I do have personal experience in students losing letter grades because they wouldn't put their cellphones in a pouch for a required lecture attendance. Which is all to say that they were more worried about (fill in the blank) than passing a course
This isn't aimed at you specifically, but what I am seeing in society. If it is so important to you as an individual that you never are witout immediate access to that little smartphone, you probably shouldn't go to any shows. Something that 20 years ago didn't exist is now controlling your life, and as likely as not, you don't feel even a little more secure.
That's why I am really concerned about the home surveillance systems offered today. They always show some parent - usually a mother, all pleased and relieved because the surveillance camera shows her children getting home from school, or the pets are safe.
If this follows the smartphone path, mom or dad will be checking more and more often - after all "what if one of the children hurts themselves while I'm not looking, or what if a burglar or rapist breaks into the house at that moment when I'm not watching?" So next thing you know, mom and dad are paranoid as all hell, and watching over their house at all times. Work/vacation/ during sex....
If smartphones are any indicator, this is the future.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Nope. Pagers are still quite common for doctors. They have batteries that last weeks at a time, and use frequencies that penetrate buildings much easier.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I can tell you're not a performer. When you're performing, you're not thinking about the money. You're thinking about the show, and the energy of the crowd. At its best, you get a high better than anything else you will ever do in your life short of skydiving or (I assume) going into space. When the crowd sucks, it will piss you off and ruin your day, even if you've been paid.
Look at it this way: You're coding for two months on a project, and you're really proud of the work that you've put in and the way the project is going. When you show it to your boss, he barely looks up from his phone to see what you've been working on, sending a clear message of "Meh." Does the fact that you've been paid make you immune to being upset that your boss doesn't value the work you're doing?