(longer update below)

Ouch. More litigation in the music biz: Wolfgang’s Vault is getting sued.

I had planned for Wolfgang’s Concert Vault to be another key part of my “stream the day away series” but this certainly puts a damper (though it appears that the site is continuing to stream its archived concerts).

The Vault was set up after William Sagan bought the assts of legendary rock promoter Bill Graham. It hosts a large archive of vintage concerts mainly from the 60s and 70s, and sells related merchandise (presumably the streaming shows were a way to draw fans onto the site where they could buy merch). But several major rock bands including Carlos Santana, Grateful Dead Productions, and members of the Doors and Led Zeppelin, have filed suit against Sagan over the streaming shows, saying he simply has not legally license the recordings. It seems like the Vault was just starting to pick up steam and get some buzz, but if it is clearly streaming shows that it has not licensed, then that’s a “no no.”

Update: And according to this WaPo story, the lawsuit is not only about the unlicensed concert recordings, but also the merchandise being sold.

Wired also has coverage on the story. I found it interesting that, in its blurb on the story, Wired singled out the Grateful Dead as a surprising addition to the groups that filed suit. A lot of folks assume that, because of the Dead’s historical openness to non-commercial tape-trading, they have a completely open policy towards copyright infringement and the band’s concert recordings. But the band has also been a more litigious group than most folks would ever expect, which at least, goes against the image of their “counter-cultural ethos” carried over from the late 60s and 70s. While the Grateful Dead has been open to its audience recordings being hosted on sites like the Live Music Archive, they have consistently been strict about any sites that host officially released recordings. It appears that the Grateful Dead and other classic rock acts are increasingly seeking to squeeze more income out of their large concert archives (especially the coveted soundboard recordings). So, in that context, this move isn’t entirely surprising.

Hopefully, they’ll find a way to keep the vintage concerts flowin’ but they may have to pull the plug if they can’t settle the dispute over licensing. We’ll keep an eye out.

(sidenote: if any of this is of interest to you folks, it is a topic I have discussed in quite a bit of depth in “My Research”, which is available over there on the right side of this page).

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Comments ( 1 Comment )

Hi, Mark

Honestly, I just saw your blog after writing this post on my blog!!

I hope you can understand some of it. It is written in Portuguese…

Miguel Caetano added these pithy words on Jan 05 07 at 5:45 am

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