Bootlegs Go Corporate
Record Companies Sell
Instant Recordings of Concerts
In Effort to Combat Piracy

By ETHAN SMITH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 27, 2005; Page D1

Bootleg concert recordings are going legit.

The music industry has been fighting a losing battle against illegal recordings of live shows that circulate among fans. That fight is part of wider piracy problems the record labels blame for a steep decline in CD sales. But, now, some of the biggest music companies are betting on the unlikely solution of making and selling their own recordings of concerts, sometimes making them available just minutes after a performance ends.

The idea, which has been gaining momentum during the past year, took a leap forward yesterday when Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Music and Instant Live, owned by Clear Channel Communications Inc., announced a blanket licensing agreement that lays the groundwork for Instant Live to issue concert recordings by Universal recording artists -- provided the acts want to participate.
[George Clinton]
George Clinton, whose recent concert was made available online.



Other music companies are launching their own efforts. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG, operates a Web site called ShopBootlegs.com, which sells live recordings of a handful of its acts, including Tori Amos, Jeff Beck and Los Lonely Boys, for $6.98 to $13.98. A new venture backed by Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Anschutz Entertainment Group Inc. launched last week and is set to broadcast concerts live on the Internet and through other channels.

That is on top of the efforts by individual bands like Pearl Jam, which has been selling live recordings for several years. This year the band has begun offering digital versions almost immediately after a show ends.

The new services are part of the music industry's efforts to pull itself out of the doldrums. The industry has been battling declining sales since 1999. World-wide sales have fallen 13% in the past six years, to $32 billion. This year in the U.S., album sales are down by more than 8% compared with last year. That decline has been mitigated -- though far from offset entirely -- by the rapid growth in online sales of digital tracks through outlets like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store. In addition to selling tracks online, music companies have experimented with trying to give customers more for their money by packaging bonus DVDs with some CDs, or selling so-called DualDisc albums, which include video content on the reverse side of a standard CD.

Clear Channel's Instant Live was founded about two years ago; the company typically works with bands to record a series of concerts on a tour, quickly turning out 1,000 to 2,000 CDs that are sold to fans for $15 to $40 as they leave the venue. Those that aren't sold are distributed both online and through independent music stores, where they often are sold as collectibles.
[Tori Amos]
Singer and songwriter Tori Amos plays the Carling Apollo Hammersmith on June 3 in London.



The service is still working out some kinks. Fans can pay ahead of time for a recording of a concert they are going to. But for now, it can be tough for fans to know if that option is available. The "Tour Dates" section of the Black Crowes' Web site, for instance, doesn't mention the Instant Live option. Fans have to go to the Instant Live site itself to find nearly a dozen coming dates by that band, for which they can preorder a CD.

At concerts themselves, Instant Live hangs signs and hands out fliers advertising the service. The discs are typically available for sale as quickly as six minutes after the end of a show, usually near the T-shirts and other souvenirs. Instant Live says it is working on an option to let fans prepay for an authorized "bootleg" when they buy their concert tickets. The company also plans to add a digital-download option.

Until now, Instant Live and its primary competitor, Immediatek Inc.'s DiscLive, have focused on a specific niche: acts that record for either small independent record labels or that have no record contract at all. They also have targeted bands with a following of hardcore fans who are likely to want recordings of multiple concerts. Those would include groups such as the Allman Brothers Band and the Black Crowes: The company has released recordings of more than two dozen shows by the Allmans alone.

The Universal licensing agreement, which removes a major logistical hurdle from the process of recording major-label acts, aims to expand the roster of artists that are likely to participate. That is because nearly all record contracts give the label exclusive rights to any recordings a band makes while under contract -- requiring complex negotiations to work out exceptions. Universal recently road-tested the concept with a 10-show run by a developing act called ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead.

Larry Kenswil, president of Universal's eLabs, the unit that is responsible for digital music and other new initiatives, says the new deal represents an important way to reach out to a "key group" of potential customers: concertgoers who already have demonstrated a willingness to pay for music.
BEYOND THE CONCERT T-SHIRT
A handful of companies are offering authorized recordings of concerts, often available minutes after the show ends. Here are a few recent options:

SITE OFFERING PRICE
InstantLive.com1 George Clinton/Funkadelic, Atlanta, 2004 $16.00
InstantLive.com2 The Black Crowes, San Francisco, 2005 $26.00
ShopBootlegs.com3 Tori Amos, Chicago, 2005 $13.98
DiscLive.com4 Billy Idol, Verona, N.Y., 2003 $20.00



Nonetheless, it remains to be seen just how widely the new products are embraced -- both by fans and by artists. Some bigger acts, like Universal's U2, may not ever participate, given the more challenging task of distributing recordings to their large audiences. "When someone's doing a stadium show, getting these thousands and thousands of CDs ready and pressed at the end of a show -- the logistics would be much greater," says Mr. Kenswil.

Also, bands that are more particular about how they sound to fans, he adds, may not welcome live recordings that are mixed on the fly. Those can sound muddier than more painstaking productions, and can end up including blown notes or other mistakes.

Network Live, the venture backed by XM, AOL and AEG, aims to sell live music not directly to consumers, but to content distributors, including some of its backers. The company was launched last week with a Bon Jovi concert in New York City. Network Live licensed its feed for rebroadcast on AOL's music service and on XM satellite radio, and on television in foreign markets. The company also plans to beam concerts live to movie theaters in dozens of cities, where fans will be charged around $15 each, and is in the process of negotiating a domestic cable-television deal. Network Live plans to produce seven more concerts before the end of the year, including one next month by Green Day. Next year, says Chief Executive Kevin Wall, the company plans to carry about 70 concerts