Subject: Live Recordings? Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
Is it true that the RIAA does not have control over live recordings made either by the band or by audience members allowed in with recording devices?
If so, what then is to stop bands from encouraging fans to record their shows and trade those files. Portable recording devices are getting better and better all the time, to the point where "over-the-air" recordings sound pretty damn good.
Or, why couldn't bands figure out some way, perhaps a lottery situation or contest, where DATHeads could get a feed straight off the mixing board?
This way the band gets the exposure it wants, it pleases the fans, and the music once again becomes the center, without the industry fucks lining their pockets or overproducing the music into the corner of banality it currently resides.
Perhaps live music is the campaign we should embrace. Live attendence, live recordings, and live trading. Start on a local level, and once the national acts realize the audience has gone into the local clubs, perhaps they would follow suit.
Thoughts?
furrball316
Subject: Re: Live Recordings? Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
I'm not sure if the RIAA has control over live audience recordings or not. I've heard that depending on the contract of the individual artist(s) that the label actually may have claim to ANY performance by the artist for the duration of the contract, but I don't have any verification of this. This is a subject that I was pretty sore about when AudioGalaxy was forced down by the dirty bastards...ummm...I mean the RIAA. I know there are bands that do allow the recording and trading of their live performances, yet the RIAA demanded such a wide reaching filtering system that even those recordings allowed by the various bands were unattainable. This is where I feel the judge in the Napster case was wrong in ruling that Napster's filtering system had to be 100% assured of filtering out all "offending" files. In order for a filtering system to be 100% effective in filtering out the "offending" material, non-offending material, such as allowed live recordings, would be caught up in the filter as well, thus violating the user's rights to trade files that, for all intents and purposes, have been granted a public-domain like status by the artists. A filtering system this strict would also tie up other "legit" files as well. For instance, let's say that I had a band and we wrote and recorded a song titled "Ode To Metallica" (which would of course be the biggest rip-fest on Metallica anybody had ever heard). Let's say after we recorded the song we decided we wanted to throw it out on the net for free distribution, which, as the copyright owners we have the legal right to do. Unfortunately, because we have the name "Metallica" in the title of our song, the filters are going to catch it and deny us the ability to trade it over the system. In effect the RIAA has succeeded in preventing us from engaging in the legal distribution of our own copyrighted material. When the courts ordered Napster to make the filtering system 100% infalliable, they also trampled the rights of many users and artists to legally distribute files that do not fall within the realm of the RIAA's copyright claims. Granted, WinMX, Kazaa, Morpheus, etc don't have filtering systems because they're not using centralized servers, but at the rate the RIAA is going who knows when they'll be forced to place copyright filters in those programs as well? The next problem is proving the file you up/downloaded was a live audience recording and not the RIAA copyrighted studio recording. The RIAA could tie users up in court just long enough to financially bleed them to death even if they knew up front that the file was a legitimately traded recording allowed by the band. A few "examples" made by the RIAA of Joe Blow filing bankruptcy because his pockets weren't as deep as theirs and a lot of users could be discouraged from even trading legit files, which is really what the RIAA wants since it cuts into their bottom line.
How can this happen in America? I just don't get it. Once again, Marx was right about capitalism.
W-B
Subject: Re: Live Recordings? Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
Recently, the Ad Council put out a series of ads with the tagline, "What if America wasn't America anymore?" -- purportedly to underscore our supposed commitment to freedom.
However, if you saw those ads, you get the idea: This ISN'T America anymore; the scenarios shown, especially in the context of an issue like this, is far closer to real life than one may admit. And the RIAA is but one of many bodies seeking to transform this country into a heavily repressive police state, all for their selfish, greed-driven ends.
StephenHinkle
Subject: Re: Live Recordings? Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
It is interesting. Live Recordings are in many cases copyrighted. However, some artists do allow live recordings to be traded, such as taping being allowed, and over Peer-to-Peer.
Even Metallica did not mind their live show files on Napster. They only minded if album files were being traded.
furrball316
Subject: Re: Live Recordings? Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
OK, I'll give Metalligreed credit for the fact that they have allowed trading of their live shows, but as I said before, even that is more difficult, and in part because of Lars' pissing and moaning about file sharing. Look at how many people were banned off Napster for sharing live recording files that Metallica said they didn't mind. Why were they banned? Because the "powers that be" only saw the name Metallica on the file and never took the time to verify whether it was an allowed or disallowed file to trade. Same thing is happening yet today, look at an article that was posted on this site recently, a child's book report on Harry Potter showed up on a list of supposedly illegal trading of copyrighted material. Why? Because the corporations don't care if it's really a "legal" file or not, they just want to squash any potential competition. They think if we're out there trading ANY files, including legal files, that we're not spending money on their product and that just kills them to think they might be losing a penny to anything else. Like I said before, it's to their benefit if they can tie up somebody in court over a legal file because they eventually win by default, which makes them look like the "good guys", and bleed the poor shmoe who happened to walk in front of their crosshairs to death, sending a message of warning to anybody else who might dare cross them, even legally, that they could be the next to financially die at the hands of the RIAA. Sad fact is, these court cases aren't decided by who's right, they're decided by who runs out of money to spend on attorney's fees first. And who do we have to thank for helping to open up that can of worms? Metallica! So no matter what "good things" they may have said/done, it can't make up for the fact that it was their bitching that helped pave the way for this mess to begin with.
kneo24
Subject: Re: Live Recordings? Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
Sadly, if it wasn't Metallica, it would've been someone else. What really pisses me off is that Metallica got to their claim of fame by people boot-legging their albums and spreading it around. They're doing what they shouldn't be doing - biting the hands that fed them. To me, that's a sign of losing integrity. In this case, I mean selling out. They have more than enough money for them, and their children, and their children's children to live comfortably.
I understand the need for musicians to make money off of their songs if that's their only job, but hey, people forget about the struggling musicians who work 9-5 and still manage to make some awesome sounding music. In my opinion, if the starving musician can manage to make an album once a year, there's no reason why these other musicians that you see on MTV can't be doing the same, and putting out music that sounds even better! They have all of this time to practice and experiment. They could write music outside of the studio with the other band members. Why is that it now takes bands longer than a year to put out an album and it still sound like crap? The music industry is in an extremely sad state of affairs.
goldenpi
Subject: Re: Live Recordings? Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
Recording concerts without permission is illegal, im not sure which act says so through. Its in one of them. In any case the recording would still be copyrighted. And most of the big names now have started recording their own concerts to sell on DVD.
Of course this has only added to the fun of recording live concerts. No longer content with dictation machines, concerts now are recorded by some people with more gadgets than Bond. Typical techniques include taking a very wide sign and a mic at each side for stereo, using a digital UHF transmitter to send high quality audio to recorders which are too large to sneak in and, by personal favourite, a particually ingenious trick where someone made a camera-periscope-walking stick which they could poke above the crowd heads. There is a website somewhich which lists some of these, or it might be a file on p2p.
The long album waits are simple to increase sales. They are sold at rediculous prices at first when all the fans buy them, then slightly less for the less dedicated fans, then at a comparativly low price for everyone else. Then the next one comes out and it all starts again.
furrball316
Subject: Re: Live Recordings? Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
I would tend to agree that recording concerts without permission is illegal, but for this matter, I'm not including those recordings in my arguement. The recordings I'm referring to are the ones that are made with permission. For instance, Metallica at one point in time had special "taping sections" established at their concerts. If your ticket was in the "taping section" then you were allowed to bring a recorder into the arena and tape the show. There's the Grateful Dead and Dave Matthews Band who I've heard speak out in favor of fans sharing "bootlegged" concerts. The viewpoint I've heard more often than not is that the majority of bands really don't mind if their material is traded, so long as it is not currently available (in-print) and they have no plans to officially release it. I lost my bookmark to the site a while ago, and I'm not even sure if it's still up or not, but there was a site I found devoted to bootlegged concert recordings and on the site they kept a somewhat updated list of the recording policies of various bands. You would be surprised at the number of well known bands on that list who allow the recording of their concerts, and even more surprised at the number of bands that will allow direct soundboard link ups to a limited number of fans on a "first come first serve" basis. One thing I got from that site that really stuck with me is that a number of artists who allow their shows to be recorded have a problem with these shows being packaged and sold at ridiculous prices, but encourage the shows to be given away for free, and will voice no complaints over a nominal fee being charged, just enough to cover the cost of the media used to record the show on for whoever they are distributing it to, but no more than that. This all goes back to my previous arguement as to why the RIAA needed to relax the grip a little and allow a little play in the filtering systems. I'd like the RIAA to take a poll and find out how many of these bands who allow recording/trading of their shows really intended for their fans to worry about whether they're going to be served a summons to court for trading permitted files, simply because the RIAA doesn't like it and/or refused to take the time to verify that the files in question really were "illegal" files before they started screaming for blood.
furrball316
Subject: Re: Live Recordings? Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
After a little bit of searching, I managed to find the site again that I was talking about in my last post.
It looks a little different than I remember it, but I'm positive it's the same site I was on before. It's pretty good about describing the specific taping policies of the bands listed there.
Well, let's consider also, the fact that anything these guys do, according to most RIAA contracts, is owned by the label. If they write a hook during the duration of the contract, it's now the "property" of the label.
If Metallica makes a 2 minute song of just their beer-farts, Elektra owns that recording.
Of course, this scenario would have been better than anything found on "Reload".
If someone stuck a DAT on the mix board, so what? Metallica obviously isn't in the mood to release any of their recordings. What's amazing is that when it was in THEIR interest, in the height of THEIR popularity, it was "cool". Now it's "stealing".
What the fuck, Lars. Make up your mind already. We're waiting!
Hence the name.... sigh.
goldenpi
Subject: Re: Live Recordings? Date: November 30, 2003 @ 9:12 PM
I have a parody of one of metallicas songs. Its their music, with lyrics of them complaining about napster. Almost as fully as "will the real slim shady please shut up".
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