Wednesday, July 11, 2007

YouTube, VMix, Virb

Just in a little follow up to the whole Band of Horses thing, I got a well written e-mail from a Sub Pop publicist suggesting permission should be granted by an artist to avoid my whole experience. While I appreciate the e-mail, I still don't understand one thing. How exactly does posting a band's material on YouTube, Virb, VMix or any other medium hurt the artist? And am I not doing a publicist's job for free? I know all the "record sales are down" stuff, but I just don't understand how watching a video of a band could hurt an artist or dent their sales. Unless they suck, which you can tell even from the grainiest video. Can someone clarify, please? It kinda reminds me of my first speeding ticket when the officer told me "it's speeders like you that cause traffic". Huh?

13 comments:

al said...

The concept of "fair use" seems to have been largely forgotten now that we have all of these nifty digital tools and distribution channels. To me, it's absurd that anyone would need anyone else's permission to distribute for free (!!) any content they captured/created themselves. Obviously, if you were charging then there should be an equitable revenue sharing or licensing fee in place; however, there is a journalistic precedent of doing exactly what you're doing.

In 20 years when these issues have been largely worked through (and the dinosaur record conglomerates are fossils), our future selves are going to think we were all suffering mass delusions at the turn of the 21st century.

\m/ said...

it's an issue of control, labels and band's have lost it and are scrambling to maintain whatever fleeting shred they think they still hold onto as the continued technological revolution speeds right by them.

Unknown said...

I waffle on this. I think it's fine to take some personal video of a band. But to post crappy-ass cell phone video in which it sounds like whales being destroyed by guitar-weilding Transformers... I think that's really un-cool. As a fan of their work, I think the person posting is doing a real disservice to the band they supposedly like. If I were in a band, I wouldn't want to spend thousands of dollars on high-quality live video for my fans (if i were in a band) and then have it lost amid crappy cell phone video on YouTube.

That's just from the aesthetic side of things. The whole "fair use," as mentioned by Al, is a whole other debate--one that's shifting every day and will have hundreds of days in court over the next few years.

Rosemary Bystrak said...

There are plenty of videos on YouTube that sound shitty because of the gadget used to capture, but I think most people can separate the sound quality from the band's art. There's a simple thing to do with crappy video: don't watch. But sometimes, I'd prefer crappy video than no video, like all those amazing clips of Arcade Fire in the church lobby in London. Those were the strongest influence on me going to see them when they came here and it was a religious experience for me. I owe that in part to all those cell phone cameras.

adamg said...

In going through my cd's alphabetically, I'm stuck listening to Rookie Card cd's for a couple of weeks. Some of the live stuff sounds good but a lot of it doesn't. Live recordings RARELY sound good, even at a good show.. Go see a great show and you'll think about how great it was in your head. Watch or listen to a video or recording of it and you usually notice the flaws WAY more. Years ago, illegally taping shows seemed perfectly logical, whether it was for profit or not. Now, bands looks like jerks for not wanting it. I saw a local band freak out on a friend of mine for taking photos of them & it seemed ridiculous. It still does. Free publicity is great. What's right? I dunno, I just felt like typing.

Reelmandy said...

FUck yeah Rosey. That shitty cell-phone captured video of Arcade Fire really brought our their spirit as a band and was truly moving. I could not stop watching it. I think that people need to get over the fact that comsumer digital products ARE shitty and everyone has them. If I were in a band (and will be soon :-), I would spend whatever money I had on a professional cameraman, so that once people had seen the shit videos, they would also have an alternative to it as well.
On another note, I have never seen a band/not seen one because of a good/shitty youtube video. If they are good, in my opinion, I will see them.
Also, Rosey's video of BOH was actually pretty good.

Unknown said...

No one, and I mean no one, has provided me with a specific instance of harm created by the proliferation of user-generated, yet music-focused, content on myspace, youtube, etc. Everyone knows not to judge the performance by the sound quality because--ta da--everyone generates content, so they know that the sound quality will be marginal at best. Users like it, fans like it, it makes more buzz around the band...what's the problem here?

I wish I'd saved Rosey and I's back and forth on IM and reposted it here...let's just say that I find it odd that a publicist would rather spend an hour writing a letter to a fan who was pissed about an interaction with a band--an interaction that's gotten them more attention than they would have had otherwise--than spend five minutes setting one of their artists straight about appropriate ways to act in public. Having been on both sides of the artist/journalist fence, I can say that it's ludicrous to think that the potential harm of a youtube video outweighs the very real harm of pissing off someone who cares enough to video in the first place.

Unknown said...

I still disagree that it's a cool thing to post personal video without the band's approval. You're essentially "stealing" their art--their livelihood--and making it widely available. While I agree wholeheartedly that such "bootlegging" does help the band in viral ways, there's no doubt that it also hurts them in other ways (dilutes the retail value of their professional live videos, the poor audio quality of certain videos possibly dissuading would-be fans, for example).

I just think a band should be in charge of their art, and that we as fans don't have the right to make those decisions for them. If they come out and say, "Hell yeah, take what you want and distribute it," then awesome, do it. If they say, "Hey, we'd prefer you not do that," then I think you should honor that. (Even if they say it in a really pissy way like Birdwell apparently did.) I feel that our inability to recognize a band's music as "intellectual property" is a shortcoming.

I realize that's a very neo-con way of thinking about things. Now I'll go kiss my cardboard cutout of George Dubya.

Unknown said...

See, now Cullen makes a good point for HIS band (or former band). He says it's fine, so go ahead and put your videos of The North Atlantic on Youtube.

I just don't really comprehend when artists say, "Hey, please don't do that with our music" and fans go ahead and do it anyway. I guess I respect my favorite bands' wishes of how their music is used more than I respect my right to videotape them and do with it as I see fit.

Unless, of course, their demands were egregious and not in line with intellectual property laws.

Unknown said...

Good point--I am speaking from a particular point of view.

Hey, if they don't want it done, fine. I guess that's their right. I just can't understand their position in wanting to exercise that right. It's like the filesharing issue with the music business: they fought it for so long, even though they never stood a chance to really win. They could have co-opted it, or at least got on the bandwagon with turning it into a revenue stream at the outset, not now when a generation of internet users grew up expecting free music all the time and coming to view the RIAA as the great Satan.

And still: show me the harm?!?! Everyone alludes to it, but I think it's an urban myth in the same way that downloading exerts a limited substitution effect on music purchases, because most downloaded music would not have been bought otherwise by the user. The economics literature on this subject is pretty clear. I think it works the same way with Youtube. People who want to see the actual music video will find it. And people who want to see 45 seconds of poor audio and blurry images will find that, too. The marketplace of people's tastes will work out the relative balance between the two.

Are bands worried that their live show is going to put people off buying their records? If so, there's a remedy for that. It's called practice :-)

See, I even managed to get a free market argument in there. Who knew?

Perfik said...

hey rosey, Scott Catdirt's friend here, funny thing, I read about this and of course was totally miffed by it and couldn't believe the band of horses would do that. Even funnier, a close friend of mine was being courted by them to be their management, so I decided to tell him that I now see them as Band Of Assholes. So, the moral of the story is that, your experience isn't for nothing, and my buddy probably won't work with them as he had concerns anyway....maybe that was the kicker. Not really a good story, but worth sharing none-the-less.

Unknown said...

Best. Comment. Ever.

cody said...

Fair or unfair is debatable. What isn't debatable is that the vibe at Cane's sucked. I think Band of Horses played a great show with what they were given. The crowd was very lame and I don't blame BOH for their outburst at all. I caught the show while on vacation and missed them while they were playing at home in Portland. I am from SD so I'm not going to judge the people, but I can guarantee that the show was a lot better in the NW.