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Pearl Jam Releases Video Under Creative Commons

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sat May 20, 2006 10:58 PM
from the popular-to-be-free dept.
Media Music
minitrue writes "Pearl Jam released their first music video in quite a while under a Creative Commons license allowing anyone to "legally copy, distribute and share the clip" for noncommercial purposes. Creative Commons thinks this may be the first video produced by a major label ever to be CC-licensed. So although the file is only available as a free download via Google Video through May 24, fans can continue sharing it online themselves in perpetuity."
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  • Kudos to Pearl Jam (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sheehaje (240093) on Saturday May 20 2006, @11:03PM (#15374287)
    These are guys who've been in the arena trying to fight unfairness with Ticketmaster and the bigger Music Houses. While they might not be everyones flavour musically, they are definately on of the bands trying to break molds with how their music is distributed. Maybe this is a little bittersweet, but damn good to see someone trying to get paid without ripping half the world off.

    • Re:Kudos to Pearl Jam -- DRM free downloads (Score:5, Informative)

      by SlashdotOgre (739181) on Saturday May 20 2006, @11:37PM (#15374425) Journal
      Another cool thing the band does is sell all their concerts via download in either MP3 ($9.99) or FLAC ($14.99); in the previous Canadian tour the downloads were often available within 24 hours of the show, now they're a couple days later. These shows are soundboard quality (pretty much the best you can hope for in a "bootleg") and completely DRM. The band is even cool about people trading shows; they've stated in the past they don't expect the average fan to buy every show -- just get a couple, like the ones you go to, and trade with your friends. In the 2000 tour, they were selling actual CD's of their shows for near cost (9.99 for a double CD), I don't believe the band themselves made a profit from the sale. This was in order to stop the ridiculous prices their old bootlegs went for on eBay despite that fact that you can get almost any show for free by just asking on alt.music.pearl-jam.
    • I applaud their sentiment.

      But, I gotta say:

      musically, this video sucks.
      • i fail to see what changes and conditions they added to the license they directly link to the creative commons copy of the license, format is debatable but what at all is wrong with google video where you can download the file also? you know its right there on the right of the video in the flash player.
      • Instead of paying to have your album advertised, give the advertisement away for free! Not only that, release it under a "free" license you don't really understand in a format nobody can do anything with! And then, get your lawyers to add some stupid conditions to the license so it really isn't "free" anymore! Then have marketing post a link to slashdot.

        I'm sorry you've had such a bad day, dear -- why don't you go to bed and get some rest, you'll probably feel a whole lot better in the morning.

      • Except music videos aren't advertisements; how does adding a cinematic dimension to the musical content reduce it to advertising?

        Music videos may be used to advertise the album, but so are the songs on the album when they're played on the radio or broadcasted elsewhere--does that the album itself an "advertisement"? Touring also helps sell albums--does that mean concert goers are just being suckered into paying for "advertisements"?

        And just because you can't make money off of the video or create derivativ

      • Re:IT'S OFFICIAL (Score:5, Informative)

        by stuboogie (900470) on Sunday May 21 2006, @01:00AM (#15374664)
        I don't think a band that debuts at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 chart is "an over-the-hill burnout band, trying desperate internet publicity stunts in order to stay relevant."

        Considering Tool was at #1 that same week, I would say Pearl Jam is still quite relevant. Will they sell as many albums as quickly as they did with Ten or Vs.? Maybe not, but they have gone Platinum on every album they have released. IIRC.

  • This might sound stupid, but.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fredwick.com (975970) on Saturday May 20 2006, @11:04PM (#15374292)
    why wouldn't a band want people to share their videos? I could understand if they were a primary source of revenue for the band, but as far as I know they're not. These days it's not like someone's going to go to thr trouble of ripping the audio out of a video stream to obtain an illegal copy of the song (since there are other [bittorrent.net], easier [bearshare.com] ways to do that), so all in all it's just free publicity.
    • Because most of their revenue probably derives from concert sales. Allowing the sharing of their videos only serves to get more young people introduced to Pearl Jam. The more 14 year olds discover Pearl Jam, the more 14 year olds might go out and discover their old albums like Ten and Vs, and also come to see them live.

    • Re:This might sound stupid, but.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lysergic.acid (845423) on Sunday May 21 2006, @02:58AM (#15374944) Homepage

      If the artists actually cared about getting their music out, they wouldn't mind people sharing videos or even the albums. The reason why the record labels care is because they're too shortsighted and greedy. Most record execs just can't stand the notion of people enjoying the content for free. It doesn't matter that this creates more buzz, more fans, more sales in the long run--it's the principles. It's just like people who complain about hand-outs being given to the less fortunate (I mean, are you really jealous of people who get hand-outs because they actually need them?). They're the kind of people who worry more about welfare going to a few freeloaders than taking comfort in the fact that it also helps millions of single mothers and dispossessed families keep food on the table.

      It's irrational stinginess that serves no purpose, but is just ingrained in prevailing industry attitudes. So most labels don't put out music videos for free because they want everyone to buy the DVD if they actually want to watch the music video. They don't see that a music video played on millions of people's computers has the same marketing value as one played on millions of television sets on MTV or VH1. There's really nothing wrong with selling music videos on DVDs, but it is in the best interest of the musicians and the label to also provide the content for free.

      It has nothing to do with fear of people extracting the audio layer from the music videos. That's just ridiculous. What Pearl Jam is doing is definitely appreciated by a lot of fans, and it isn't being done by most mainstream musicians so I don't get why people are accusing them of just pulling a "publicity stunt". Just because it's in their best interest doesn't mean it's a publicity stunt. This is actually good for the fans as well, and it might encourage others to follow suit.

      Sentiments like yours only hinder the adoption of these rational approaches to content distribution. I work for an indie record label, and I'm always trying to convince my boss that it makes sense to allow people to share music and to be more genrous with the content. But it really undermines these efforts when people like you react so cynically whenever a label starts thinking more progressively than others.

      Why can't you simply accept that Pearl Jam is trying to do something nice for the fans?--which in turn also benefits the artist, which has always been the case. It's not good enough that they're derogating from conventions in a way that benefits the fans, but they must hurt themselves in the process for it to not be labelled as simply a "publicity stunt"?

      I think people like you are a bit too jaded and don't really understand or appreciate what the music sharing movement is about. Artists and record labels don't have an obligation to take losses just so you can enjoy the music they produce, however, there are practices that are mutually beneficial. Just because the artists/labels stand to benefit from the content they produce doesn't mean that they're evil or something. So stop ragging on the good guys in the industry who are actually embracing free content and music sharing.

  • Harvey Danger (Score:4, Informative)

    by From A Far Away Land (930780) on Saturday May 20 2006, @11:07PM (#15374297) Homepage Journal
    If you're looking for other Slashdot advertized "free" music, check out Harvey Danger [harveydanger.com] who had an article about them here last year. Their album is distributed via Bit Torrent.

    • Re:Harvey Danger (Score:5, Funny)

      by Firehed (942385) on Sunday May 21 2006, @03:12AM (#15374978) Homepage
      Almost every album on the planet is distributed via BitTorrent. Some less legally than others, I suppose, but they're still there.

    • shouldn't the quotes be around "advertized"?

      I don't get why people complain about IP and anti-piracy laws, but when artists actually start embracing the whole music-sharing rhetoric people get upset that it gets reported and accuse the artists of pulling a publicity stunt.

      I mean, are we trying to convince artists that we don't want them to let people download/share music for free? What is the problem here? What does it take for people to stop complaining about the music industry?

  • Won't somebody think of the lost sales? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Sathias (884801) on Saturday May 20 2006, @11:07PM (#15374299)
    By releasing this for free I'm sure they would be missing out on some lost sales, maybe the RIAA will sue them.

  • well now (Score:2, Interesting)

    by VirionNW (936737)
    It's an interesting move, though in a way it feels a bit like they're jumping on the bandwagon. Of course, the bandwagon can always use some big names on it, right? The quality of the file is pretty nice, beats the usual tiny mpeg smattered with MTV and various other station logos, especially in the day of dumb animated logos and advertisments.
    • Actually, I just remembered, this could have been so much better if they opened up the licensing to allow remixing and editing, didn't NIN do that and give out Garage Band files of the work too? Maybe they'll open it up by hosting it past the 24th, even torrent it, that'd at least add some credibility and promote the "share" aspect they seem to be pushing, at least one would hope.
  • It's amazing to me that virtually all music videos for singles, which are essentially commercials for albums, aren't under a similar license, and that that hasn't been the status quo for some time. Of course, legalities aside, I guess it has been the status quo....

  • Brilliant! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 20 2006, @11:17PM (#15374344)
    This is genius! If the concept of a video is to promote your album, why not make it free to distribute? I mean MTV isn't going to play it unless your target audience are preteens. And even then they'll only show 30 seconds of it with somebody saying something stupid like "OMG! Ponies!" in the background.

  • Great pre-sleep video (Score:4, Funny)

    by Danathar (267989) on Saturday May 20 2006, @11:21PM (#15374368) Journal
    Thanks! That was EXACTLY what I was looking to watch JUST before hitting the sack at night :(

    Thanks slashdot for giving me nightmares
  • Aren't they just a nice bunch of guys...
  • Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 You are free: * to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work Under the following conditions:

    by Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
    nc Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
    nd No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

    * For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
    * Any of these condi

  • Did you LISTEN to that monstrosity, or just watch it with the volume muted? Surely Eddie V could have invested in an auto-tune plugin for his sequencer, at least...

    • Re:Ahhh!! My ears!! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by idugcoal (965425) on Sunday May 21 2006, @01:44AM (#15374765)
      I disagree wholeheartedly. That unfamiliar, not-exactly-in-tune-to-the-cent pitch you hear from Eddie's voice (and at some point throughout the song, from every other harmonic instrument, as well), is something missing in today's soulless and sterile music enviornment. Call it "blue notes" (actually bluer "regions" around notes), emotion, angst, feeling; even call it "out of tune," if you want. I'll take it every day over whichever plastic, overcompressed "prostitute with a thug posse"s the labels (albeit, the same bastard labels) give us as options. Auto-Tune (and the like) do have their uses, but this is NOT one of them. There are other places to go if that's the sound you prefer.
  • Pearl Jam is also pretty opposed to the MTV way of music video, they only had 2 music videos on MTV their entire career.

    • Re:no MTV (Score:3, Informative)

      by dido (9125)

      I remember at least five: 1. Evenflow, 2. Alive, 3. Jeremy, 4. Animal, 5. Daughter. All 1992-1993 thereabouts, before MTV started becoming totally wussy. Damn I'm old. :(

          • Re:no MTV (Score:4, Informative)

            by dark_panda (177006) on Sunday May 21 2006, @02:04AM (#15374826)
            That's Todd McFarlane, of Spawn and Spiderman comics fame. Seth MacFarlane is the Family Guy/American Dad dude.

            That definitely would have made for quite a different video.

            J

  • ... but I don't think they took into account the fact that RMS doesn't like the Creative Commons [linuxp2p.com]. My guess is fans will avoid the video in droves for that reason alone.

    • That's a pretty broad statement considering he actually said:

      Some Creative Commons licenses are free licenses; most permit at least noncommercial verbatim copying. But some, such as the Sampling Licenses and Developing Countries Licenses, don't even permit that, which makes them unacceptable to use for any kind of work. All these licenses have in common is a label, but people regularly mistake that common label for something substantial.

      I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons

      • lumping them together (Score:4, Insightful)

        by theantix (466036) on Sunday May 21 2006, @03:58AM (#15375057) Journal
        I know some people don't like RMS, but he nailed this one for sure. Just look at the Slashdot headline for this article "Pearl Jam Releases Video Under Creative Commons"... lumping them all together just as RMS suggested people would. "Creative Commons" without describing the varient doesn't mean anything at all, yet that is the message the headline gives and a real problem with the suite of CC licenses. Certainly, people can specifiy which CC license you are talking about (as the body text of the slashdot article does), but it's still overly confusing.

        Consider the analogous slashdot heading "Company Releases Program Under GPL" -- the GPL is a title that unlike CC has a specific meaning, if it's GPL you know what to expect whether you like that license or not. The problem with CC is really worse than the similarily vaguely defined label "open source" because some of the CC licenses are really quite restrictive.

        I do understand what the people behind CC are trying to do, and I respect that. I just wish that they had put more effort into promoting the use of individual specific licenses instead of the CC 'brand'. GNU does this well, they have GPL, GFDL, LGPL as their own separate brand instead of just calling it a "GNU license" which doesn't convey the specificness those different concepts represent.
        • Oh, give me a break! 99% of the people out there are completely unfamiliar with content licenses and will only know that 'Pearl Jam released the video for free'. Add to that the fact that, if you were truly interested in the details, determining which Creative Commons license was used to release that video is a trivial task, it becomes obvious that RMS's and your subsequent rantings are completely misplaced. RMS has an interest in content and software licensing that adheres to some philosophical model th
  • In essence, video clips are just advertising, and based on that, this move would not qualify too much on the revolutionary side of things. But, if you think about it as a political statement, it's a very good thing to do in dark times like these. Think about how many folks are going to see such a license for the first time on their lifes. Think about all the fan-kids out there with garage bands that will start seeing open licenses as something cool. Think about how many media droids are going to need to educate themselves on the "open" movement to be able to write a comment on that. Of course, none of this could happen, but how can we know?
  • I don't get it. Why is it only available on Google until May 24th? What's preventing us from re-uploading it permanently to Google Video?

  • Mirror (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ann Coulter (614889) on Sunday May 21 2006, @03:16AM (#15374989) Journal
    Here is a copy of the videos [131.96.244.7] on a school server. Cheers.

  • DRM (Score:3, Funny)

    by daybot (911557) * on Sunday May 21 2006, @07:04AM (#15375386)
    Are you guys nuts?! This is a Sony BMG release; by exploiting a vulnerability in the handling of each video frame, simply playing this video in any format installs a rootkit :O

    • Re:Publicity stunt (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Chubaca" ??? Who or what in the hell is that? If you meant CHEWBACCA from STAR WARS, may I have your nerd membership card back? We have several Star Wars nerds on standby to beat you inefectually with foam light sabers.
    • Stunt by who?

      Google? The band? The label?

      Since Google probably paid for the "exclusive" I'd say Google.
      • Google? The band? The label?

        Band or label. And I guess the label. I don't think Google even has any idea this video's been hosted there.

        Since Google probably paid for the "exclusive" I'd say Google.

        You don't pay for something released under Creative Commons license. That's the whole friggin point. Dude, like I said, IT. MAKES. NO. SENSE.
      • They're saying "we're going to distribute it ourselves up to 2006-05-24, let others distribute it after that, P2P, Torrent or otherwise.

        They are distributing it via Google, not themselves, there are thousands of videos on Google available for free forever.
      • get a clue, asshole

        Shit, AC, after I've read this extremely informative and useful post of yours I got a clue and now I live a better, more meaningful life.

      • Re:Bettermen (Score:4, Funny)

        by bigbigbison (104532) on Saturday May 20 2006, @11:57PM (#15374484) Homepage
        So sales are the most accurate mesurement of quality? Who knew that Kelly Clarkson and the Black Eyed Peas were so awesome?

      • Re:Bettermen (Score:5, Insightful)

        by lysergic.acid (845423) on Sunday May 21 2006, @03:32AM (#15375016) Homepage
        "Another band that releases shit for the sake of money just because they can"

        What is that supposed to mean?

        They produced a music video, as musicians sometimes do.
        They released it under a Creative Commons license, which is rare.
        This allows people to do rare things with a mainstream artist's creative content, like download it/enjoy it/distribute it for free.
        Most artists would have prohibited the above mentioned activities in their license.
        Thus, what Pearl Jam has done is interesting news for most of us, and it would benefit fans if other artists followed Pearl Jam's lead.

        So what is there for you to possibly complain about? That they haven't sold many CDs at your store? What does that have to do with anything?

        Do you have a coherent point to make, or did you just want to post incoherent ramblings?

    • Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)

      by shawb (16347)
      It could be two things

      1)The realize that they already have enough money and now are just trying to let people listen to some music they make.

      2)The record companies gets the feeling that the band/artist/whatever is likely to do this in the future. That's when the career ends.

      Oh, and another thing. Pearl Jam's career really isn't dead. They're currently on tour [pearljam.com]. It looks like they even have double bookings for some stadium sized venues. As in they sold out a stadium... twice. That's pretty good

      • Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)

        by Poppler (822173) on Sunday May 21 2006, @01:23AM (#15374722) Journal
        I don't think you'll see any young rising stars embracing free distribution licenses with their content on the internet.

        True, I have seen very few bands embrace free disitribution licenses, but I doubt most artists are even aware that these licenses exist. What I have seen is bands explicity stated that they don't mind their work being shared freely.
        The first example that comes to mind is Wilco [wired.com]. Given, they're not young, but they never had much success on the charts until recently. After they produced an album [pitchforkmedia.com] that was deemed too 'experimental', they were dropped from their label.
        Instead of giving up, they put an mp3 stream of the whole album on their site and openly embraced file sharing. The album started to get a lot of buzz. Soon enough an independent label agreed to release the record, despite the fact that "hundreds of thousands" of people had already downloaded it (at least according to singer Jeff Tweedy in the Wired interview).
        The album was critically acclaimed and became their greatest commercial success to date, reaching #13 [wikipedia.org] on the Billboard charts. Their next album sold even better, reaching the top ten [wikipedia.org].

        Another example - Sufjan Stevens [mtv.com], who actually is a "young rising star", recently said in an interview [pitchforkmedia.com]
        [My music is] definitely not public domain. I have a publisher and I make money from the publishing of the songs. That's a big part of an income, so I'm not going to pretend that I'm that socialistic about my music. But I'm not so possessive about it that I would sue anyone who misused it. If someone were to sample my work, I would have a hard time seeking payment for that. I don't even have a problem with people illegally downloading that stuff.[emphasis mine]

        Not everyone giving away their music is over the hill - and some of them are still making a living making music.

    • You raise some interesting points. As background, what sort of artistic works have you produced, and how have you licensed them? Have you ever undertook something as big and costly as a music video, and then released it with less restrictive terms? In particular, has it been something related to your livelihood?

      It's easy for us, as consumers, to state that creators should give away their stuff for free and unrestricted; and when they don't, it's also easy for us to rationalize ignoring others' copyrigh

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