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Music Open Source News

Radiohead Helps Fans Make Crowd-Sourced Live Show DVD 103

Kilrah_il writes "After having a go with a Name-Your-Price album and an open-source video, Radiohead is again breaking new ground, this time with a fan-based initiative. A group of fans went to one of the band's shows in Prague, each shooting the show from a different angle. By editing it all together and adding audio from the original masters provided by the band, they have created a video of the show that is 'Strictly not for sale — By the fans for the fans,' adding, 'Please share and enjoy.' Can this be the future of live show videos?"
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Radiohead Helps Fans Make Crowd-Sourced Live Show DVD

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  • by longacre ( 1090157 ) on Saturday September 04, 2010 @10:25PM (#33479314) Homepage
    ...sort of.

    NIN unofficially released 400gb of raw, professionally shot concert footage and told the internet to turn it into a DVD, resulting in Another Version of the Truth [thisoneisonus.org].
    • by hex0D ( 1890162 ) on Saturday September 04, 2010 @10:30PM (#33479348)
      IIRC, the Beastie Boys had their fans shoot video for a live DVD as well. But they didn't give it away. Thumbs up for Radiohead! They're not really my style but they seem to have more integrity than most bands out there and I got to respect the hell out of that.
    • by digitalunity ( 19107 ) <digitalunity@yaho[ ]om ['o.c' in gap]> on Saturday September 04, 2010 @10:37PM (#33479378) Homepage

      As Trent Reznor pointed out in an interview with Digg's Kevin Rose, this business model can only work for those who are already well established or can accept not being megastars.

      Getting traction in a market flooded with crap when you don't have advertising money is a losing battle.

      • by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Sunday September 05, 2010 @12:06AM (#33479776)

        As Trent Reznor pointed out in an interview with Digg's Kevin Rose, this business model can only work for those who are already well established or can accept not being megastars.

        I have to say - that's a good thing. I'd rather 1,000 productive artists making a living wage than 10 megastars living the life of luxury. After all, being a megastar today is mostly an artifact of the monopoly on distribution enabled by the monopoly of copyright.

        What I think is likely to ultimately happen though is that we'll just end up with another avenue to megastardom. People really seem to like to be the same as their neighbors, so I think one way or another they will tend to converge on a handful of artists in order to share in that common experience that comes from listening to the same music (and watching the same movies and reading the same books, etc).

        I just hope that whatever new avenues to megastardom become popular, that they don't have the same level of deleterious effect on society and culture that modern copyright law has.

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        ANY 'business model' (method of promotion) for a music artist requires an established artist and/or crapload of advertising money to work. There is still yet sadly no such thing as an artist who makes it "big" via merit virally on the internet. (Die Antwoord and those treadmill guys actually had label backing and/or were signed beforehand. Don't believe the BS that they "made it" otherwise! Do a little digging if you don't believe me.)

        But the age of music superstardom has come to an end. (Unless you call Am

        • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          It bacame this way... Originally artist sent demo tapes to radio stations and depending of the DJ's taste he either played them on the air or did not play them, but that was when I was young and beautiful in the 1950's and 1960's.

        • by Smauler ( 915644 )

          The Artic Monkeys [wikipedia.org] had very little paid for advertising prior to their no.1 single "I bet you look good on the dancefloor". Much of what has been written about their popularity prior to their success has been exaggerated, but their success was not due to marketing primarily, at least. They signed to a small label only a couple of months prior to the single's release.

      • by dov_0 ( 1438253 )

        As Trent Reznor pointed out in an interview with Digg's Kevin Rose, this business model can only work for those who are already well established or can accept not being megastars.

        Getting traction in a market flooded with crap when you don't have advertising money is a losing battle.

        I don't think Radiohead care if they are megastars or not. They just want to do what they do and they do it very well. I agree with you though that this really would not work for the general consumable background noise that the record companies make most of their profits on.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I don't think Radiohead care if they are megastars or not.

          Says the 'already-Megastars' band Radiohead.

          I think they would care if they were NOT already mega-stars and just starting out.

          Integrity is a nice aspiration, but human nature (and the desire to acquire 'wealth' and/or fame) unfortunately isn't so glib.

    • by pksyn ( 1456523 )
      Exactly. The "gift" footage was released almost two years ago.
    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes. I downloaded the main DVD in (checks timestamp) January and it's great (if you like NIN :-)). It's available in Blu-ray, DVD, and several other formats (1080p MOV, 1080p + 5.1 audio in mkv format, etc.) with nice, high-quality audio options. You could download the mp3 and FLAC audio for months before that, and there's a ton of additional stuff available [thisoneisonus.org].

      So, yes, what they are doing is cool, but Radiohead is not breaking new ground here.

  • by Simmeh ( 1320813 )
    The pay-what-you-want album was new ground, this is just Creative Commons work with some official help.
    • by catbutt ( 469582 )
      Except the pay-what-you-want idea was kinda lame. Great for a band that already has a huge following and more money than God. And for one album, where the novelty effect makes a huge difference.

      I think it turned out to be a distraction from actually finding an intellectual property solution that worked for the long term.

      Regardless, Radiohead will always be associated for me with this most brilliant "review" of their Creep video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It6VWk1yT5o [youtube.com]
  • but in argentina... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ltcdata ( 626981 ) on Saturday September 04, 2010 @10:29PM (#33479338)
    when they came here (argentina), last year, the tickets were VERY expensive... almost 100USD each... impossible to buy for many of the fans, like me :(
    • by bm_luethke ( 253362 ) <luethkebNO@SPAMcomcast.net> on Saturday September 04, 2010 @11:23PM (#33479586)

      They have to make their money someplace. They really do not have many choices.

      They can have normal day jobs - which means the likely hood of seeing them outside of a 200 mile radius of their residence is quite unlikely. Not really a good option so we will cross that one off the list. There are others in the "cross off list" category too - say a life of robbing banks and such, I'll assume (though given posts here I have to recall what assuming does) that we will not go there.

      They can make it from album (or CD, or MP3, or whatever the format of the day is - I'm old enough to use that term generically) sales. We here do not like this type of thing - recorded music wants to be free and it is my Right to make all the copies I want of it. So for the most part that is not going to happen. Indeed, while I do not agree with that sentiment it *is* reality. It is too easy to copy and that makes it too expensive to purchase for most. Things like jackets, art work, and such are nice - but too many of us will take a decent MP3 over a high quality loss-less digital recording with full artwork for the latter to be a money maker without artificial legal protections. Even with said protections that models days are numbered.

      So that pretty much leaves us with live shows. Not movies of them - they end up being a version of the second method to make money but with video. It will suffer the same fate. Therefore it leaves it up to live performances. Since they are popular it is going to be expensive. Given how they sell at 100 dollars a pop the chances of you getting in at 20 dollars a pop was just as slim (if not slimmer) due to demand.

      The expense has to come in some area. Maybe you already know this - after all even knowing it I wouldn't be happy if I couldn't afford tickets to something I really wanted to see - but they have to make their money someplace. Further things like "supply and demand" mean something, even were they to drop prices to cheap and their expenses somehow magically get payed you would *still* most likely be putting frowny faces on a post for the tickets being sold out and a huge number of fans angry they didn't get to go. In that case almost no one is happy other than the small group that got cheap tickets. That isn't going to be a workable long term market either.

      It's like complaining that some Open Source company want to charge for support - umm, yea.

      • Live shows may be a non-starter, too. Most bands have a flat (or somewhat negotiable) fee for the show and a promoter or venue hires them for the gig and sells tickets, for which they set the price, pay the advertising, accept the risk and keep bulk of the profits, if any. Where most touring bands make their money is off merchandising. There's a reason those cheap black concert shirts are $25-30. My (very limited) experience in promotions and negotiation with bands indicates that NOT having a house cut

      • by ltcdata ( 626981 )
        Yes, but they do all this "free" or "cheap" things in everywhere, but when they come here, they go to a very small place, called "Luna Park" with capacity for a maximum of 16k people, when the can go to other places like the river stadium that can hold almost 80k people, they can have cheaper tickets and earn the same quantity of money, or more. When pearl jam came here, they had tickets for $60 (almost USD 15)... and also they did 2 shows! and in a stadium!. Radiohead is like Zack de la Rocha from RATM,
      • Sorry, but I disagree with some of what you've said. I agree that I'm probably not going to plunk down $10 for an album of some band that I have a passing interest in, but this is where NIN really has it right. He's built up a loyal fanbase and gives them a reason to pay. Like you mentioned, he released The Slip for free on the web, but he also had a few "for pay" options available ranging from a few bucks up to about $300 IIRC. The free version was MP3, and the $5 or $10 option got you lossless FLAC an
  • by KingSkippus ( 799657 ) on Saturday September 04, 2010 @10:43PM (#33479408) Homepage Journal

    ...but damn if stuff like this doesn't make me want to go out and buy some of their albums, even if I just give them away, to support what they're doing.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kainosnous ( 1753770 )

      That's exactly my reaction. I have no interest in their music. In fact, I don't currently listen to any contemporary music, and I haven't paid for music in years. However, seeing something like this almost makes me want to find a way to contribute. In reality, I'll probably never get around to sending any cash their way. Nevertheless, if I can be swayed a little, I'm sure that there are many almost fans who will get to know them and like them because of this move. I don't know if this type of marketing coul

  • Good for them! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by StuartHankins ( 1020819 ) on Saturday September 04, 2010 @10:44PM (#33479416)
    In today's world, it's nice to see people who "get it" and are finding new fans and publicity by doing something which hurts no one, by giving of themselves. I wish them continued success!
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Yeah, I hope more bands start realizing this is the right message to give to their fans. A lot of big artists would rather tell you to go stick your head in a pig.

  • The first? Really? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by matt-fu ( 96262 ) on Saturday September 04, 2010 @10:48PM (#33479438)
    A group of fans went to one of the band's shows ... each shooting the show from a different angle.

    ...editing it all together and adding audio from the original masters provided by the band

    So this is exactly like the making of Bon Jovi's video for _Bad Medicine_, then?

    • by EDinWestLA ( 453682 ) on Saturday September 04, 2010 @11:27PM (#33479614)

      A group of fans went to one of the band's shows ... each shooting the show from a different angle.

      ...editing it all together and adding audio from the original masters provided by the band

      So this is exactly like the making of Bon Jovi's video for _Bad Medicine_, then?

      Bon Jovi didn't do it for a whole concert then give it away for free.

      • by matt-fu ( 96262 )
        I love Radiohead considerably more than Bon Jovi, but the difference between one song and a whole concert isn't enough to make what they did some kind of revolutionary move. The "free" thing might have been, but when you consider that in those days almost everybody who could afford MTV had a VCR (just like everyone these days who can afford the Internet has a disk drive), and the video was shown ad nauseum when it was released and continued to be played until the mid '90s happened (just like Radiohead's vi
    • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
      Metallica did it a year earlier with Cliff 'Em All [wikipedia.org]. There is probably an even earlier precedent.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    with Awesome, I Fuckin' Shot that.

    Handed out cameras to fans and let them go crazy during a show in 2006. That one was sold, however.

  • Clear Channel (Score:5, Interesting)

    by countertrolling ( 1585477 ) on Saturday September 04, 2010 @11:57PM (#33479740) Journal

    They could raise a fuss [techdirt.com]...

  • I like it, worth watching.
  • I was at that show (Score:2, Informative)

    by dorpel ( 1331133 )
    It is interesting to note that cameras weren't allowed in the venue. The tickets had a very distinct notice about that, and I personally witnessed at least one person who had to go back to the safety deposit booth to store her camera when the security guards found one in her bag entering the park. Of course there were thousands of cameras at the show, all of which must have been sneaked in. Seeing this great project and knowing the band's reputation, I assume it was the venue's idea to ban cameras. Maybe ne
  • 3d aspect (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sheriff_p ( 138609 ) on Sunday September 05, 2010 @03:40AM (#33480412)

    I skim-read this, and was disappointed on closer reading when I realized they hadn't created a 3d montage from the video shot from all the different angles :-/

  • Huh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Sunday September 05, 2010 @10:22AM (#33481500) Homepage Journal

    Please share and enjoy.

    Eh? I thought we were talking about Radiohead here.

  • Except they hadn't intended to.

    At one of their "Alive 2007" concerts, they noticed many fans were filming the concert, so they asked fans to send in their concert footage. They paired segments of many different fan videos with the master audio recording of the concert to make the "Alive 2007" video album.

    Sadly, the video isn't available in the USA. Only in PAL DVD.
    • by synth7 ( 311220 )

      You're close, but you've got quite a few of the details wrong. Daft Punk did film a couple of their massive Alive 2007 tour dates, but were completely unhappy with the result... it was all just the same overly-slick swooping camera shots. There is at least one live video posted to youtube that comes from this footage, and it's reminiscent of every other concert video out there. The fan-made video is not "available" in Europe, as it's just as bootleg there as it is here... so you have to find a copy to do

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Can this be the future of live show videos?"

    Not until fans can hold cameras steady.

  • May not be the future of this area but certainly will be an important step. Hopefully that will be enough though popularized.dezmembrari auto [auto-tip.ro]

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