How to capture the Roadburn Festival webcast to disk

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On 26/05/2006 12:02, pete howe wrote:
> There was an interesting article in the respected Guardian Newspaper.
> A certain band were the FRONT PAGE featured band at myspace.com(the 
> bands section of myspace)Being a featured front page band is a  big coup 
> on a site with 73+million members....Some interesting statistics were 
> gathered...
> 1) Number of new FREE downloads(each band can make 4 songs free to 
> download)- the number ran into hundred of thousands.
> 2)Number of new fans-AGAIN, the number ran into hundreds of thousands.
> 3)Number of people who purchased their cd, or paid to download their 
> album at "pay sites"......ZERO....
>   What does  this tell me???Were they THAT bad?Judging by the people who 
> snapped up the FREE downloads..clearly not...

Myspace.com is not iTunes Music Store, nor even a site that sells 
concert recording downloads.  Do the sell anything?  Being most popular 
on myspace means nothing; being popular on iTMS means money in the bank.

Over a *billion* songs have been sold via the iTunes Music Store.  A 
*billion*!  And since launching video downloads last autumn, over 25 
million of those have already been sold.  It's pretty clear where demand 
is headed.

> ..We basically sadly now live in a world where(especially regards your 
> ipod/Mp3 youngsters).. we'll gladly grab something for nothing..but as 
> for digging into our pockets for a measly few pence/cents to help a 
> band..well, hell, no..lets find some more free stuff on the web 
> somewhere....

Only "now"?  What, like, in the past people nobly paid for things they 
could have had for free?  I must have missed mention of that golden age 
in my history classes .... ;)

There's no Nobel Prize for figuring out that people listen to free stuff 
much faster than they listen to stuff that costs money.  If I can check 
out a band's song for free, then you can be sure I'll check 'em out much 
faster than if I have to pay.  If I don't like them, then I'll have 
downloaded their song -- one notch in the statistic-o-meter -- but I 
might well never listen to it again.  There's so much legitimate and 
free music online that I couldn't hope to download and listen to it all 
-- so why I am I going to pay for something just to try it on?  I don't 
have to do that when buying trousers ;) so why should I for music?  I'll 
only pay for something when I know it's worth paying for.

>  ...Which brings me back to the Roadburn festival stream.If Hawkwind HAD 
> made this PAY TO DOWNLOAD, which they PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE DONE, IN 
> HINDSIGHT...it would have  been  interesting to compare figures ..

_Of course_ they should have made it pay to download, in MP3 and 
CD-quality files alike.  That's the whole point!  That was the first 
thing I said on this list after the availability of the Roadburn stream 
was announced.

Case in point: The most popular download on livedownloads.com right now 
is a Widespread Panic gig from last month.  It's 3 CDs worth of music, 
all mixed from the soundboard, and costs USD 16 for FLACS and USD 11 for 
MP3s (and includes printable PDF jewel-case inserts).  Of course, you 
can also go to etree.org and within seconds find an audience recording 
of exactly the same gig for free in either CD-quality or (if that's not 
good enough) _24-bit_ FLAC downloads 
(<http://bt.etree.org/?search=2006&cat=13>).  But, nevertheless, enough 
people are still buying the official soundboard release for 11 to 16 
bucks to make its sale a viable, revenue-producing business.

It's a simple fact: If you are making good music, you can let people 
give swap the audience recordings for free and still make money selling 
your soundboards (and studio albums).  So, if we all agree Hawkwind are 
making good music, then ....

Hmmm.

Cheers,
Carl

-- 
Carl Edlund Anderson
mailto:cea at carlaz.com
http://www.carlaz.com/