Topic: Money for nothing/taping?

[rvman]

Hey guys -
 
I'm one of the mods involved in purelivegigs.com, a bittorrent live concert sharing site, & wanted to get your feedback on s/thing that we thought could be very cool for tapers -
 
Our feeling is people are doing a great job providing the community with live shows, but often times the only thanks is a leech and run, or a question/accusation about the audio quality. 
 
In addition to a heartfelt thx to everyone who's posted material at purelivegigs, we're planning to offer the option of an additional meaningful thanks to the guys on the front lines getting the best new shows: 

We're going to institute a method whereby people can donate funds to help defray the costs of your ticket if you provide a show (if you want people to pass the proverbial hat for you - it's not required, just an option).  While it might not add up to a lot of money, at least it might help pay for the cost of your ticket or taping supplies.  We're not saying people should pay for the shows, but we for one would like to pitch in when someone pays for a ticket to a show & brings their gear for the good of the community...
 
My question is if you would support such a system and if you had any thoughts about how best to institute it.  Wanted to hear from the folks in the trenches before we did it...
 
Thx for your input -

[Gordon]

only time I would want money for a ticket would be if it was a show I had no interest in taping but was asked to.

[Teen Age Riot]

I'd say no thanks.

[rvman]

We're trying to do s/thing good for all involved if possible.  Just an idea.  I think it's a cool notion -maybe it's better to think about it as buying you a drink as a "cheers" or more likely a gumball, as the case may be - we're not trying to offend anyone or suggest people should pay for the music -

Back in the day, didn't people get "sponsored" to follow Dead tours & tape?  That's somewhat of the feeling here.  No harm meant.

[firmdragon]

deep inside i also have an uneasy feeling, but i'm not against this. i just can't ignore the fact that at some shows, the media i spend on a show costs more than the ticket itself.

[leegeddy]

imho, it's best to separate money entirely out of the picture, no matter how good the intentions may be.

marc

[rocksuitcase]

Been taping almost 25 years, owned a sound company for about 8 years.  when a client offered to pay for taping, we would let them.  But that is on a professional basis.  OTH, if a client asked for "no taping" we usually wouldn't even stealth it, just my own sense of propriety. 
I think this concept. while noble in it's origins, may lead to less than noble outcomes.

As for the idea of folks "sponsoring" other folks on Dead tour, my mentor ( Prescolito are you out there?) loaned me all his gear for two dead tours ( spring/summer 1982) as I was going and he could not.  I paid for everything else. I then bought my own gear and haven't been the same ever since

[spreadheadtom]

imo,... It would make it too easy for artists to tie us into bootlegging with monies offered/exchnaged, regardless of intent.

agreed

[kfrinkle]

Being a poor grad student, I decided to let my friend buy me a ticket to a Social Distortion show.  Being all cocky and only being busted once before, I decide to take him up on that offer.  The poor guy spends 30 bucks on me, I get to the venue, and guess what?  Yeppers, thats right, i get busted.  They were checking people for packing pistols where the sun dont shine... So they were doing THE patdown, if you know what i mean.  So seeing as how my buddy bought me the ticket, I felt like I owed it to him to try to get in.  So eventually, after a long argument and some vulgarity, I end up being thrown to the side of the curb by 3 big dudes and my chances of getting in zero.  Moral of the story for me:  If i cant affford to go on my own funds, then I wont go, no matter what.

[Swampy]

Maybe if you just wanted to donate some CDRs or DATs, or even money to this site people might be more receptive to that... I donno, its grey anytime money and legal taping are involved, you dont want to upset bands at all, so its usally best not to involve the two...

[Ray76]

I concur with everyone else here. intent good, but would turn ugly perhaps.. You sure as heck came to the right place for info though. This is a mecca of info.
Ray

Good luck, BTW

[Tall Adam]

I think it's a cool notion -maybe it's better to think about it as buying you a drink as a "cheers"

i wont go on about why we shouldnt get money, but if you encourage people to go up to tapers and (quietly) offer to buy us a drink, THAT im sure no one would mind.

[Chanher]

EDIT: posted in the wrong thread

[DAT grl]

i wont go on about why we shouldnt get money, but if you encourage people to go up to tapers and (quietly) offer to buy us a drink, THAT im sure no one would mind.

QFT.  I've made friends with other fans purely from meeting them at shows I've taped.  More valuable to me than money have been the favors they extend me in the form of saving me a spot in line or a prime place in the sweet spot when I've been late to a show.  They do blocker duty and sometimes help me get gear in and out.  In our circle we spread the good karma by buying food, drinks or cover charge for tapers once we're all inside and usually as an unexpected spontanteous gratuity, not a prearranged deal.  We've also had offers of exchange of services.  We've had web developers offer their services on website maintenance and design, and graphic designers have done really nice cover art for shows we've taped.  If you get to know a taper from the shows, find out if they could avail themselves of something you're good at, just like they're good at taping.  I know I appreciate those expressions of gratitude, even when I can't use the offers - sounds like your intentions are good.

[rvman]

Thanks for all the responses - great input as always -

I wanted to make a couple things clear in reading some of the responses about what we were thinking -

- This would be totally optional for the taper and the leecher - niether side has to participate

- It would be a voluntary contribution only after the show is taped & seeded & again purely optional on both sides, not paying someone to tape for you

**Ultimately, we're trying to figure out the best way to do tapers a solid and encourage more tapers to seed online - any thoughts?**

[sml42]

One of the biggest concerns a number of tapers have, is of their recordings ending up on ebay. So how about... for all the shows that get seeded on your tracker, commit resources to monitoring ebay on a regular basis? A torrent site that is proactively self-policing would, I think, go some way to easing some worries.

best regards,
stephen

[rvman]

Could be the most interesting idea yet -

[eric.B]

[size=07pt] Money for nothing/taping?
« on: Today at 12:33:45 AM »   

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey guys -

I'm one of the mods involved in purelivegigs.com, a bittorrent live concert sharing site, & wanted to get your feedback on s/thing that we thought could be very cool for tapers -

Our feeling is people are doing a great job providing the community with live shows, but often times the only thanks is a leech and run, or a question/accusation about the audio quality. 

In addition to a heartfelt thx to everyone who's posted material at purelivegigs, we're planning to offer the option of an additional meaningful thanks to the guys on the front lines getting the best new shows: 

We're going to institute a method whereby people can donate funds to help defray the costs of your ticket if you provide a show (if you want people to pass the proverbial hat for you - it's not required, just an option).  While it might not add up to a lot of money, at least it might help pay for the cost of your ticket or taping supplies.  We're not saying people should pay for the shows, but we for one would like to pitch in when someone pays for a ticket to a show & brings their gear for the good of the community...

My question is if you would support such a system and if you had any thoughts about how best to institute it.  Wanted to hear from the folks in the trenches before we did it...

Thx for your input -[/size]

While I agree that the "end users" of DAUD tapers are not as grateful as those in the past, I think someone has their bad idea jeans on...

nice thought though..  +t

[rvman]

Removing bad idea jeans - close your eyes... 

[mmmatt]

I think it's a cool notion -maybe it's better to think about it as buying you a drink as a "cheers"

i wont go on about why we shouldnt get money, but if you encourage people to go up to tapers and (quietly) offer to buy us a drink, THAT im sure no one would mind.

yeah... this is, and should be the limit of "payment"... just a new friend buying a guy a beer to say thanks with no strings attached.  If you want to appease the taping community you can inform people about how to conduct themselves underneath mics during a show, or how (and when) to approach a taper.  You can also inform people about posting shows that they get from tapers.  Most tapers prefer to post their own torrents, but I have let people do it in rare circumstances.  I can't speak for everybody, but I know I like to get the occasional e-mail saying "thanks foir seeding this, sounded great!"  I get thoes sometimes, but usually the email says "Hey man, I'm stuck at 60%, can you reseed it?"  Most of us tape for our own purposes, and simply share what we get.  That is how the "rules" are laid out, and there is to be no personal gain to a taper unless it is a business deal with the band or the venue.  IMO money should never exchange hands otherwise.
     If you want to include a FYI on your site with some good ways to show appreciation to tapers, I'm sure many here would contribute info for you.  That type of thing might help you get more seeds.

Matt

[NewHomebrew]

You're right, it is a drag to post a show only to get hit up for more requests from people who are going to burn the show right off their hard drive and then trade it out with no history info.  But maybe 1 in 100 reads that text file and decides to buy some gear and tape a show down the road.

I would feel bad about accepting money in the way you propose.

[steve-o]

**Ultimately, we're trying to figure out the best way to do tapers a solid and encourage more tapers to seed online - any thoughts?**

IMO: Rather than worrying about money, edumicate these ppl about not buying copies of shows on ebay.  (This is priceless.)  Also try to present a healthy environment on the site that promotes sharing and spreading of the tunes.  By charging ppl, the excuse will soon be, "well I need to make up for my losses" or something of that sort.     

EDIT: Didn't mean to repeat what "sml42" stated.  Sorry.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

Thanks for all the responses - great input as always -

I wanted to make a couple things clear in reading some of the responses about what we were thinking -

- This would be totally optional for the taper and the leecher - niether side has to participate

- It would be a voluntary contribution only after the show is taped & seeded & again purely optional on both sides, not paying someone to tape for you

**Ultimately, we're trying to figure out the best way to do tapers a solid and encourage more tapers to seed online - any thoughts?**

It doesn't matter if it's optional on either end, it's the wrong thing to do.  Anytime you offer cash in exchange for taping, it undermines the "hobby" argument that we all use to justify out sport to skeptical performers.  A cash transfer is never going to be defendable as a friend offering a ticket or another fan buying beers.  I think that overtly doing this has a greater chance of doing harm to the community than doing good.

If you want to encourage tapers to offer up the goods, offer to provide blockers, seat swaps for sweet spot, and mostly offers to do the transfer and tracking work.  I have about 120 hrs of recent masters sitting on my desk awaiting transfer and tracking.  I don't have time to do them.  Out of those, the only recording of mine to make it onto a download site is the xmasjam because the guy patched out of me was kind enough to convert and track it all. 

If you guys could come up with a way to offer that service, I think that would help a great deal in general.  I wouldn't even mind transferring to raw files if I could send them to someone who would return them tracked and flaced.  But I would not participate if I knew that money was changing hands as part of the deal.

Set up a site where people who are otherwise attending a show can offer up their seats in the sweet spot in exchange for the ticket that the taper got in a bad position.  I can't count the times I've taped from the section simply because I could not get a decent seat up close.

[rvman]

Some good ideas - thx 

Just so I understand, are you saying you & others would appreciate a service that took the WAV file you made from your master, cut it, flaced it, added all the relevant digital info/md5 fingerprints, etc and then posted it for you (giving the taper full credit of course).  I think this is a good idea, not the least of which is if we can help post it, it won't eat up your bandwidth to share it! 

We are also looking into protecting the files from ebay pirating.

Asking you guys is always a great help.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

Just so I understand, are you saying you & others would appreciate a service that took the WAV file you made from your master, cut it, flaced it, added all the relevant digital info/md5 fingerprints, etc and then posted it for you (giving the taper full credit of course).  I think this is a good idea, not the least of which is if we can help post it, it won't eat up your bandwidth to share it! 

Yes.  That kind of help is especially useful when I tape a band that I don't really know well and I can't tell a random segue jam from a tease of a regular song.  Sometimes I spend more time trying to correctly track an unfamiliar band than the length of the set. 

For me personally, I would want to get back the 48k (or 96k) and 44.1k flac sets.  Someone who could offer to author the 24/96 DVDA would be really nice but not expected.

I don't know if this would get the response you are looking for, but I know that between me and my regular taping partner, we have probably a couple thousand hours of masters between us that have never been transfered to CD and mostly because of the amount of time it takes in post.

[rvman]

I'm going to discuss it with the team - what format are your masters and what type of bands do you have? 

We're interested in everything, but the site and users are most heavily focused at the moment on newers bands and more recent shows, although the great classics are always welcome.

[airbladder]

I don’t like the idea of any money being involved.  If someone wants to thank me for taping they can just buy me a drink or smoke me up.  I tend to have a stash of cd’s to give away at all times.  Cds are so cheep I encourage everyone to burn a few shows to give away every time they go out.  It brings everyone together when people start giving away cd’s and buying each other beers.  That how you make new friends and draw people in to the community.  I have random people give me blank cds as a thank you for taping.  Can’t have too many blanks.   

I hardly pay to go to any local shows.  Every time I go to a venue I bring discs from the last show I taped there.  Give them to the promoter, bartender, and club owners.  They eventually stop charging you for tickets and beer.  This does not work if you ask for a free ticket or beer.  You have to guilt them in to it.         

[Craig T]

good intentions, but I think this could easily snowball into something negative.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

I'm going to discuss it with the team - what format are your masters and what type of bands do you have? 

We're interested in everything, but the site and users are most heavily focused at the moment on newers bands and more recent shows, although the great classics are always welcome.

My stuff is all on DAT.  Different bands but mostly the usual stuff people tape.

I was just discussing those recommendations in general.  A lot of what I have is already out there in some form.  I any case, I wouldn't seed into this until well after the money issue is discussed and I am confident that it would never go that way.  I mentioned my own backlog just as an example of why I don't get stuff out as actively as I did when I started taping.

[rvman]

Fair enough - we're just trying to get the best recommendations down & will probably report what we think for further input before we institute anything - money, while well-intentioned, sounds too sticky...

[rvman]

OK - thx guys, going to have a specific proposal to bring to the team -

I'll prob'ly sanity check it here afterwards, though, seeing as the opinions are very informative

[phrazelle]

wait, wait, if someones handing out money, i need a new set of {insert most outrageous set of mics possible}