Did Pearl Jam Enlist Fan Club To DMCA Fan Videos? Probably Not...

from the but,-still-is-odd dept

Mon, Sep 12th 2011 6:59pm — Mike Masnick

Kaden sent over this article from an OCWeekly reporter who had a short video he had shot of Pearl Jam performing live taken down from YouTube. What struck the reporter as most interesting was that the DMCA notice came from Ten Club, which is Pearl Jam's fan club. Oddly, we've even used Pearl Jam's Ten Club as a great example of how a band can give fans a reason to buy. In fact, Pearl Jam has actually been really good on issues like copyright. The band embraced the internet early on, has always worked hard at connecting with fans, used the Ten Club to give people extra reasons to buy, shunned DRM, and recognized early on that giving away free music can actually help a band make more money.

So, I'm a bit confused about this strategy of DMCAing short fan videos. However, despite the claims in the article and Ten Club's refusal to respond to the reporter's questions, I doubt that (as the article implies) that it's really "the fan club" itself that's issuing the DMCA notices. Instead, it looks like the corporation that's set up for Pearl Jam is called Pearl Jam Ten Club LLC and that covers both the band's business and the fan club. You can see the full name on various DMCA takedown notices at Chilling Effects. So while it's still a bit surprising that the band would run around chasing fan videos, rather than embracing them, at least it doesn't appear to have reached the point of deputizing fans to file takedowns for the band...

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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, fan club, pearl jam, takedowns, youtube
Companies: pearl jam ten club

12 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2011 @ 7:10pm

Some fan clubs are actually run by record label employees. It would not be surprising to find some of them taking it upon themselves to act out label-induced fantasies and issue DCMA notices in an effort to "help" the band.
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Ima Fish (profile), 12 Sep 2011 @ 7:34pm

Remember back, I think it was the 90s, when Pearl Jam released like 20 live albums in the same year. They were pissed about bootleggers so they released their own concerts.

That is some screwed up thinking. The bootleg live recordings did not diminish the sales of Pearl Jam's studio albums. Nor did those bootleg recordings diminish the sales of tickets to Pearl Jam concerts.

But selling CDs and concert tickets was not enough for the members of Pearl Jam. To Pearl Jam it was a zero sum game. They not only had to get a lot of money for themselves, they had to make sure no one else made any money either.

After that I stopped being a fan. They're mean-spirited money-grubbing pricks.
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- Himey, 12 Sep 2011 @ 8:22pm
  
  Re:
  They didn't do it as a money grab. They were pissed off that the people recording their shows were doing it with crappy quality equipment and ripping off other fans for sub standard recordings. They decided to try to stop that sort of thing by selling shows recorded directly from the sound board rather than some guy just holding a tape recorder in the air.
  
  Every concert was a double CD and sold for only $10. Probably not much profit in that for having to mix them down and do very limited releases of those CD's.
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  - CarlWeathersForPres, 12 Sep 2011 @ 8:33pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Exactly. They still do it with every show, for $10 an album which usually has 25-30 songs on it. If you'd tell me that I could either have a rustling copy made from my phone or one right from the soundboard, I'd pay for the one from the soundboard.
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  - Ima Fish (profile), 13 Sep 2011 @ 4:24am
    
    Re: Re:
    "They didn't do it as a money grab."
    
    I never said it was a money grab. I said it was to stop other people from making money. The Grateful Dead allowed other people to record their shows and sell their shows, without throwing a hissy-fit. I had several friends who made money in the summer traveling around with the band, recording and selling the shows.
    
    And if the quality of anything is poor, people won't buy it. The market will solve that problem very quickly. But yet, for nearly a century, the market for bootlegs still exist. Maybe, just maybe, it's not about the quality? Bah bah, little sheep.
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    - aikoaiko2, 13 Sep 2011 @ 5:39am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      "The Grateful Dead allowed other people to record their shows and sell their shows"
      
      Close, but not quite. The Dead never had a problem letting people record and distribute audience recordings, but they NEVER permitted people to sell those recordings. For that, like PJ, you could buy the official release CD for $15-20. (still a good deal)
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CarlWeathersForPres, 12 Sep 2011 @ 8:34pm

For some reason I thought PJ allowed recording devices to be brought onto the premises...
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- Himey, 12 Sep 2011 @ 8:42pm
  
  Re:
  If it were up to them, they probably would. The venues don't allow it. They also hate cameras too. I almost got kicked out of a show for being a "professional photographer" just because I had a D-SLR instead of a crappy point & shoot camera.
  
  I think in the early days, they would let people hook into the sound board to record if you had the correct cables and stayed out of the way of the guy running the board..
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  - jupiterkansas (profile), 13 Sep 2011 @ 8:04am
    
    Re: Re:
    Yes, Pearl Jam has no problem with people recording their shows, but they also figured if there's a market for recordings of their live concerts, why not make them available themselves and make money off of it? People can still make their own recordings to sell, but there's almost no reason to do it. Personally I think if I pay over $50 for a concert, I should be able to go home afterwards and download it for free using my ticket stub.
    
    Also don't forget Pearl Jam tried scheduling a tour without using Ticketmaster, and found it next to impossible. I think they eventually caved, and lost a lot of fans who just thought they were being greedy or whiny or something.
    
    This was all back when "keeping it real" stopped having any meaning.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Sep 2011 @ 12:51am

Legal Boy In Action
Chances are, the DMCA abuse is being done by a young inexperienced lawyer (legal boy) who has insufficient understanding of the music industry. Somebody senior is about to come down on him like a ton of bricks.
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theDude, 13 Sep 2011 @ 8:36am

muscians versus celebs
"Pearl Jam has actually been really good on issues like copyright. The band embraced the internet early on, has always worked hard at connecting with fans, used the Ten Club to give people extra reasons to buy, shunned DRM, and recognized early on that giving away free music can actually help a band make more money. "

That is because this is a band of musicians, who enjoy PLAYING music for a living. This sort of philosophy always brings me back to the great Jerry Garcia line about people bootlegging Dead shows (which built likely the largest continual following any band has ever enjoyed). He said "once Ive played a note, Im done with it, you can have it".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
theDude, 13 Sep 2011 @ 8:43am

muscians versus celebs
"Pearl Jam has actually been really good on issues like copyright. The band embraced the internet early on, has always worked hard at connecting with fans, used the Ten Club to give people extra reasons to buy, shunned DRM, and recognized early on that giving away free music can actually help a band make more money. "

That is because this is a band of musicians, who enjoy PLAYING music for a living. This sort of philosophy always brings me back to the great Jerry Garcia line about people bootlegging Dead shows (which built likely the largest continual following any band has ever enjoyed). He said "once Ive played a note, Im done with it, you can have it".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]