Originally posted by Chip Chanko:
How can they patent this?? Where's the patent in recording a live show and then burning it to disc? I bet it's all done with off-the-shelf equipment (fast cd replicators, blah blah). PLUS people have been doing this for years recording straight to DAT or MD and then giving copies to people. Clear Channel's threats sound ridiculous to me.
I wonder if anyone has a patent on cutting a steak with a knife. If not, I'm going to make bajillions.
PATENTS How to Take the Concert Home By SABRA CHARTRAND
Published: May 3, 2004
DIGITAL technology has put the "instant" into many forms of instant gratification. Instant messaging, instant photography via cellphones and instant-answer Web sites are just a few areas where people no longer have to wait for real-time satisfaction.
And now, in a growing number of nightclubs and music arenas, audiences leaving a performance can buy a CD recording of the live concert that is still ringing in their ears.
David Griner, 43, a lawyer in Austin, Tex., first dreamed of an instant recording in the early 1980's as he left a Bruce Springsteen concert wishing he could listen to it all over again in his car on the way home.
"The technology wasn't available to produce these recordings," Mr. Griner said recently. "Once CD-burning technology started to appear on the scene, it clicked and I thought, 'now we have the technology to do this.' "
Mr. Griner and his brother, James, have received the first patent for "creating digital recordings of live performances." Their process uses microphones, recording and audio mixing hardware and software, CD burners and a method of executing the recording and burning process to make it unique.
"It's the organization of the existing CD-burning technology that makes all this work," Mr. Griner said of his patent. "We record the show and do some minimal manipulation of cutting into the tracks, and whether it's on a hard drive or master CD, there are a lot of slave towers, and we pop it in and start burning copies."
"So as each song finishes, we start burning that song onto a CD," he explained. "So at the end of the show, we only have the last song to burn on each CD."
But the Griners' system is not the only one for churning out instant CD's for jazz musicians, independent bands and classic rock acts. Several companies are licensed to record live performances and sell the CD's to audiences immediately afterward. Some also offer them for delivery within a couple of days, and several say they have patents pending. The two largest use huge trucks to move their recording and CD-burning operations from venue to venue.
The Griner brothers have sold their patent to one of those, called Instant Live, which is owned by the radio and concert promotion behemoth, Clear Channel Communications. Like its competitors, Instant Live says about 20 percent of audiences are buying instant CD's. The recording industry says these audiences already spend $400 million a year on concert merchandise like T-shirts, posters and other souvenirs - so everyone is hoping the Griner brothers have hit on the next big thing.
But the Griners just wanted a way to amplify their enjoyment of their favorite bands.
"The genesis of the idea is that I'm a big live music fan, and always have been, especially for some of the lesser-known bands," David Griner explained. "With bands at that level, a lot of what goes into a concert and what you go to see can't ever be captured again. A lot of it comes across in what they say and do. It doesn't come out on the studio CD or live recordings. I've always been bothered that it was lost forever. I wished I could bottle it and carry it home."
He and his younger brother James, 40, an electrical engineer who lives outside Seattle, also wanted their invention to combat bootlegging.
"Bootlegs are less appealing because someone else gets the money, and the artist is not getting anything," David Griner said. "Especially for the people I go see. Most are starving to death anyway. So I didn't want to take away their money."
The Griners' idea did not take off right away. Early CD-burning technology was too slow to make hundreds or thousands of copies within minutes of a concert's end.
"The main thing was proving we could get the CD's out right after the show was over," Mr. Griner remembered. "We didn't think the audience would sit and wait for half an hour, which is what it took to burn CD's then.
"In 1999 and 2000, there wasn't a peep about this," Mr. Griner continued, even though it was possible to burn CD's by then. "But once burn speed got up, people started moving into it. That's the only thing that makes this commercially feasible."
The Griners' first working model was compiled from off-the-shelf recording equipment.
As the first batch of CD's is being sold, follow-up batches are being created.
Mr. Griner believes that Instant Live will also be able to use his patent to eventually make instant DVD's of concerts.
"The patent addresses video, too, and the technology exists to do DVD's," he said. "DVD burn technology is a lot slower, but I still think it can be done."
But technology has not been the only hurdle to instant recordings.
"As the industry took off, we found probably more resistance from record labels than from technological limits. The record companies were afraid they'd lose CD sales." Mr. Griner said, who disagrees with their stance.
"People who buy these CD's are genuine fans and they own every CD already," he said. He said he thought those fans would buy a live concert recording because a band might play an older, more obscure song, cover someone else's song say something original to the audience during the show. It's less like a concert T-shirt, he added, and more like a coffee table book from a museum exhibition.
"I think these CD's are more valuable to people who were at the show," he added. "If you were there you want to re-experience it."
The Griner brothers are not involved with Instant Live, and a confidentiality clause prevented any discussion of the terms of the patent sale.
"I always hoped that when this got put together, I'd get to go on the road with the Boss," Mr. Griner said, referring to the sobriquet that pop music fans have given Bruce Springsteen. "But I guess I'll have to buy my ticket like anybody else."
Even Mr. Griner's respect for pop stars has limits, however.
"I don't know how popular this would be at a Britney Spears concert," he said. "She doesn't do a lot of covers or unique songs, so consequently the concerts all sound the same."
David and James Griner received patent No. 6,614,729.
Patents may be viewed on the Web
atwww.uspto.gov or may be ordered through the mail, by patent number, for $3 from the Patent and Trademark Office, Washington, D.C. 20231.
NY Times
