Pearl Jam offers streaming 'bootlegs'

(Credit: Pearljam.com)

Pearl Jam, a band with a reputation for delivering great live performances, is offering to sell "bootleg" recordings of the group's concert shows.

Fans can go to Pearljam.com and purchase streaming downloads or burn-to-order CDs of each of the band's performances during its 2008 concert tour, which launched last week in Florida. Internap is overseeing the audio streaming.

Pearl Jam is taking liberties with the term bootleg. Typically bootlegs are pirated material that are given away or sold at bargain-basement prices.

That's not the case here. Each concert performance will sell for $9.99 (MP3) and $14.99 (FLAC) and be made available two weeks after the performance. But fans may give Eddie Vedder and the group a pass on this one.

Why?

Because at least Pearl Jam is offering the music free of digital rights management. This means fans can burn the songs to disc or transfer them to their digital music players. Another reason is that Pearl Jam is a longtime advocate for fans.

Pearl Jam once canceled a concert tour to protest the high price of concert tickets. The group sued Ticketmaster and requested that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate the company. Nothing came of the lawsuit.

[theonlybuster]

Wow CNet... Kinda late there. It's a FACT that Pearl Jam has offered recordings of over 90% of their concerts, so this was one of those obvious things.
Regardless thanks for the reminder

[MarkBentley]

I'm glad to see the trend continuing, but Phish is the pioneer here. They built their fan base over 20 years ago by allowing distribution of fan-recorded shows. They have offered free broadcast streams of live performances for years (go to livephish.com) and, for just as long, have been offering downloadable DRM-free mp3 and flac at prices comparable to Pearl Jam (with proceeds going to their own non-profit). Still, glad to see more groups join the trend.

[JoshCatone]

Actually, the Grateful Dead is the real pioneer there. ;)

But yeah, CNET is pretty late on this story. Pearl Jam has been doing this since their 2000 tour on CD, and via MP3 downloads since 2005. Brad Serling, the guy behind nugs.net, which is the company that powers Phish's download site and hundreds of other, consulted with Pearl Jam in 2001 about how to do it. I wrote about Nugs.net here last summer: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/nugs_live_music_downloads.php

I know I'll be buying a PJ bootleg when I go see them in 2 weeks, as I have for every other show of their's I have seen since 2003. :)

[atxrocks]

Actually, the Grateful Dead started that trend with Dick Latvala and "***** Picks" tapes (CDs, MP3s whatever). But, same basic cool-band theory.

[BlueToolsOne]

Pearl Jam totally Rocks. Anything Bootleg is cool in my book.

JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

[ryanhgwu]

It's pretty great that they do this. When I caught them in D.C. a couple years ago, they had the whole concert available for download less than 24 hours after the show! That was especially good, because Verizon Center is the worst venue on earth, and the downloads gave me a chance to actually hear the concert I paid $60 bucks to attend.

Also, the quality of the Pearl Jam bootlegs are superior to anything someone in the audience would record. Keep it up Eddie!

[LesHeifner101]

What really bothers me is that this is CNET, and yet they assume these bootlegs are "streaming," simply because they are being offered on a website. When one downloads mp3's from Amazon are they "streaming?" Come on. I just imagine two people in a room, not paying attention, and one person says, "Are they streaming the bootlegs," and without checking, the other person says, "Yep, they're streaming them." Good enough, huh.

[grateful72]

Hey Mark Bentley, phish was and soon will be a great band again but you have to dig a little further back. The actual pioneering band of letting fans record and trade amongst themselves was the Grateful Dead. They created this powerful phenomena long before phish even was. Now if the rolling stones would make their library of live concerts available for the fans, even at a price, I would gladly disregard the crap' they have been putting out since 1975. Let us here those wonderful mick taylor years and before.

[benjaminstraight]

Pearl Jam, once again, trying to bring the music to their fans.