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Pearl Jam Releases Video Under Creative Commons 240

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the popular-to-be-free dept.
minitrue writes "Pearl Jam released their first music video in quite a while under a Creative Commons license allowing anyone to "legally copy, distribute and share the clip" for noncommercial purposes. Creative Commons thinks this may be the first video produced by a major label ever to be CC-licensed. So although the file is only available as a free download via Google Video through May 24, fans can continue sharing it online themselves in perpetuity."
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Pearl Jam Releases Video Under Creative Commons More

Pearl Jam Releases Video Under Creative Commons

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  • Kudos to Pearl Jam (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sheehaje ( 240093 ) on Saturday May 20, 2006 @11:03PM (#15374287)
    These are guys who've been in the arena trying to fight unfairness with Ticketmaster and the bigger Music Houses. While they might not be everyones flavour musically, they are definately on of the bands trying to break molds with how their music is distributed. Maybe this is a little bittersweet, but damn good to see someone trying to get paid without ripping half the world off.

    • Re:Kudos to Pearl Jam -- DRM free downloads (Score:5, Informative)

      by SlashdotOgre ( 739181 ) on Saturday May 20, 2006 @11:37PM (#15374425) Journal
      Another cool thing the band does is sell all their concerts via download in either MP3 ($9.99) or FLAC ($14.99); in the previous Canadian tour the downloads were often available within 24 hours of the show, now they're a couple days later. These shows are soundboard quality (pretty much the best you can hope for in a "bootleg") and completely DRM. The band is even cool about people trading shows; they've stated in the past they don't expect the average fan to buy every show -- just get a couple, like the ones you go to, and trade with your friends. In the 2000 tour, they were selling actual CD's of their shows for near cost (9.99 for a double CD), I don't believe the band themselves made a profit from the sale. This was in order to stop the ridiculous prices their old bootlegs went for on eBay despite that fact that you can get almost any show for free by just asking on alt.music.pearl-jam.
      • These shows are soundboard quality (pretty much the best you can hope for in a "bootleg") and completely DRM.

        think you meant DRM free, but good to know.
      • "they've stated in the past they don't expect the average fan to buy every show -- just get a couple, like the ones you go to, and trade with your friends"

        Do they own the all the copyrights to their songs? Most bands don't. So if they are like most bands, it doesn't matter what they say, they don't have the legal authority to grant you the rights to copy their stuff. Once all rights are signed away in a recording contract, you could be just as pwned by the RIAA for copying, despite what the "artist" says.

    • Re:Kudos to Pearl Jam (Score:3, Informative)

      by mad.frog ( 525085 )
      I applaud their sentiment.

      But, I gotta say:

      musically, this video sucks.
      • Yeah, the song is probably great in a stadium, but not really something to have on while reading a book.

        The video seems pretty lame to me. The Do the Evolution video they did with Todd McFarlane is the one I'd like to see put into CC.

  • This might sound stupid, but.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fredwick.com ( 975970 ) on Saturday May 20, 2006 @11:04PM (#15374292)
    why wouldn't a band want people to share their videos? I could understand if they were a primary source of revenue for the band, but as far as I know they're not. These days it's not like someone's going to go to thr trouble of ripping the audio out of a video stream to obtain an illegal copy of the song (since there are other [bittorrent.net], easier [bearshare.com] ways to do that), so all in all it's just free publicity.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:This might sound stupid, but.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lysergic.acid ( 845423 ) on Sunday May 21, 2006 @02:58AM (#15374944) Homepage

      If the artists actually cared about getting their music out, they wouldn't mind people sharing videos or even the albums. The reason why the record labels care is because they're too shortsighted and greedy. Most record execs just can't stand the notion of people enjoying the content for free. It doesn't matter that this creates more buzz, more fans, more sales in the long run--it's the principles. It's just like people who complain about hand-outs being given to the less fortunate (I mean, are you really jealous of people who get hand-outs because they actually need them?). They're the kind of people who worry more about welfare going to a few freeloaders than taking comfort in the fact that it also helps millions of single mothers and dispossessed families keep food on the table.

      It's irrational stinginess that serves no purpose, but is just ingrained in prevailing industry attitudes. So most labels don't put out music videos for free because they want everyone to buy the DVD if they actually want to watch the music video. They don't see that a music video played on millions of people's computers has the same marketing value as one played on millions of television sets on MTV or VH1. There's really nothing wrong with selling music videos on DVDs, but it is in the best interest of the musicians and the label to also provide the content for free.

      It has nothing to do with fear of people extracting the audio layer from the music videos. That's just ridiculous. What Pearl Jam is doing is definitely appreciated by a lot of fans, and it isn't being done by most mainstream musicians so I don't get why people are accusing them of just pulling a "publicity stunt". Just because it's in their best interest doesn't mean it's a publicity stunt. This is actually good for the fans as well, and it might encourage others to follow suit.

      Sentiments like yours only hinder the adoption of these rational approaches to content distribution. I work for an indie record label, and I'm always trying to convince my boss that it makes sense to allow people to share music and to be more genrous with the content. But it really undermines these efforts when people like you react so cynically whenever a label starts thinking more progressively than others.

      Why can't you simply accept that Pearl Jam is trying to do something nice for the fans?--which in turn also benefits the artist, which has always been the case. It's not good enough that they're derogating from conventions in a way that benefits the fans, but they must hurt themselves in the process for it to not be labelled as simply a "publicity stunt"?

      I think people like you are a bit too jaded and don't really understand or appreciate what the music sharing movement is about. Artists and record labels don't have an obligation to take losses just so you can enjoy the music they produce, however, there are practices that are mutually beneficial. Just because the artists/labels stand to benefit from the content they produce doesn't mean that they're evil or something. So stop ragging on the good guys in the industry who are actually embracing free content and music sharing.

  • Harvey Danger (Score:4, Informative)

    by From A Far Away Land ( 930780 ) on Saturday May 20, 2006 @11:07PM (#15374297) Homepage Journal
    If you're looking for other Slashdot advertized "free" music, check out Harvey Danger [harveydanger.com] who had an article about them here last year. Their album is distributed via Bit Torrent.

    • Re:Harvey Danger (Score:5, Funny)

      by Firehed ( 942385 ) on Sunday May 21, 2006 @03:12AM (#15374978) Homepage
      Almost every album on the planet is distributed via BitTorrent. Some less legally than others, I suppose, but they're still there.

    • shouldn't the quotes be around "advertized"?

      I don't get why people complain about IP and anti-piracy laws, but when artists actually start embracing the whole music-sharing rhetoric people get upset that it gets reported and accuse the artists of pulling a publicity stunt.

      I mean, are we trying to convince artists that we don't want them to let people download/share music for free? What is the problem here? What does it take for people to stop complaining about the music industry?

    • Bittorrent distribution of music like Harvey Danger and Pearl Jam brings another aspect of the whole net neutrality spat into focus. The protocol allows the vast majority of the bulk data to be exchanged freely and legally amongst peers while the centralized distribution site need only host a tracker (if that).

      The greedy telcos are bitching about big companies using their pipes to feed large amounts of bandwidth to the users. What are they going to say once most of the data has been passed down to thei

  • Won't somebody think of the lost sales? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Sathias ( 884801 ) on Saturday May 20, 2006 @11:07PM (#15374299)
    By releasing this for free I'm sure they would be missing out on some lost sales, maybe the RIAA will sue them.
    • "By releasing this for free I'm sure they would be missing out on some lost sales, maybe the RIAA will sue them."

      The sad thing is that the RIAA did lose sales from my downloading of MP3s. I downloaded a few songs from CDs I thought I wanted and decided that the songs (and therefore, the albums) sucked. Frankly, I'm happy with the end of their "open your mouth and close your eyes" business model.

  • well now (Score:2, Interesting)

    by VirionNW ( 936737 )
    It's an interesting move, though in a way it feels a bit like they're jumping on the bandwagon. Of course, the bandwagon can always use some big names on it, right? The quality of the file is pretty nice, beats the usual tiny mpeg smattered with MTV and various other station logos, especially in the day of dumb animated logos and advertisments.

    • Re:well now (Score:3, Insightful)

      by VirionNW ( 936737 )
      Actually, I just remembered, this could have been so much better if they opened up the licensing to allow remixing and editing, didn't NIN do that and give out Garage Band files of the work too? Maybe they'll open it up by hosting it past the 24th, even torrent it, that'd at least add some credibility and promote the "share" aspect they seem to be pushing, at least one would hope.
    • I don't think so. Pretty much inline with their other things they've done, like take on TicketMaster.
  • It's amazing to me that virtually all music videos for singles, which are essentially commercials for albums, aren't under a similar license, and that that hasn't been the status quo for some time. Of course, legalities aside, I guess it has been the status quo....
    • Playing a music video on MTV may be considered advertising for the album, but so is playing the single on the radio. That doesn't make the actual content devoid of artistic & entertainment value in itself. I collect music videos, both downloaded off the net and purchased on DVDs, so I don't think that they're just advertisements. They should be available for free in addition to for purchase on DVDs, but saying that their just advertisements is an insult to the people who work on the videos.
    • been the status quo for some time. Of course, legalities aside, I guess it has been the status quo....
      Wow even Status Quo [wikipedia.org] are relasing videos now ?

  • Brilliant! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 20, 2006 @11:17PM (#15374344)
    This is genius! If the concept of a video is to promote your album, why not make it free to distribute? I mean MTV isn't going to play it unless your target audience are preteens. And even then they'll only show 30 seconds of it with somebody saying something stupid like "OMG! Ponies!" in the background.

  • Great pre-sleep video (Score:4, Funny)

    by Danathar ( 267989 ) on Saturday May 20, 2006 @11:21PM (#15374368) Journal
    Thanks! That was EXACTLY what I was looking to watch JUST before hitting the sack at night :(

    Thanks slashdot for giving me nightmares

    • I find that no matter how grusome, synthesized imagery has absolutely no affect on me. However, if I watch someone pull their toenail out [ebaumsworld.com], I cringe and shudder. The moral of the story is: people need to work harder at distinguishing reality and fantasy.

      • I find that no matter how grusome, synthesized imagery has absolutely no affect on me. However, if I watch someone pull their toenail out [ebaumsworld.com], I cringe and shudder. The moral of the story is: people need to work harder at distinguishing reality and fantasy.

        He didn't say it offended him. The imagery struck something in his head and he (jokingly) suspects that it will give him nightmares. There's nothing stupid about this at all.

        The video is full of rather nightmarish, dark imagery. Something do
  • Aren't they just a nice bunch of guys...
  • Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 You are free: * to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work Under the following conditions:

    by Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
    nc Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
    nd No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

    * For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
    * Any of these condi

    • You're missing the important part.
      You are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
      Previously, all of those were illegal, under all conditions, unless you paid someone lots of money.

  • Ahhh!! My ears!! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hereschenes ( 813329 )
    Did you LISTEN to that monstrosity, or just watch it with the volume muted? Surely Eddie V could have invested in an auto-tune plugin for his sequencer, at least...

    • Re:Ahhh!! My ears!! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by idugcoal ( 965425 ) on Sunday May 21, 2006 @01:44AM (#15374765)
      I disagree wholeheartedly. That unfamiliar, not-exactly-in-tune-to-the-cent pitch you hear from Eddie's voice (and at some point throughout the song, from every other harmonic instrument, as well), is something missing in today's soulless and sterile music enviornment. Call it "blue notes" (actually bluer "regions" around notes), emotion, angst, feeling; even call it "out of tune," if you want. I'll take it every day over whichever plastic, overcompressed "prostitute with a thug posse"s the labels (albeit, the same bastard labels) give us as options. Auto-Tune (and the like) do have their uses, but this is NOT one of them. There are other places to go if that's the sound you prefer.
  • Pearl Jam is also pretty opposed to the MTV way of music video, they only had 2 music videos on MTV their entire career.

    • Re:no MTV (Score:3, Informative)

      by dido ( 9125 )

      I remember at least five: 1. Evenflow, 2. Alive, 3. Jeremy, 4. Animal, 5. Daughter. All 1992-1993 thereabouts, before MTV started becoming totally wussy. Damn I'm old. :(

      • Agreed, but their "filmclips" they were mostly just live performances of their songs, as opposed to the full on short-film filmclips of today.

        I was suprised to see that this video isnt a plain (and good) old live one.

        • Re:no MTV (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Puff Daddy ( 678869 )
          They've also had excellent videos completely devoid of live performances, I'm thinking specifically of "Do the Evolution." Pearl Jam with Seth McFarlane animating the video. That might be my favorite video ever.
    • earl Jam is also pretty opposed to the MTV way of music video, they only had 2 music videos on MTV their entire career.

      MTV plays music videos?

  • This is great and all... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Sunday May 21, 2006 @12:34AM (#15374589) Homepage Journal

    ... but I don't think they took into account the fact that RMS doesn't like the Creative Commons [linuxp2p.com]. My guess is fans will avoid the video in droves for that reason alone.

    • That's a pretty broad statement considering he actually said:

      Some Creative Commons licenses are free licenses; most permit at least noncommercial verbatim copying. But some, such as the Sampling Licenses and Developing Countries Licenses, don't even permit that, which makes them unacceptable to use for any kind of work. All these licenses have in common is a label, but people regularly mistake that common label for something substantial.

      I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons

      • lumping them together (Score:4, Insightful)

        by theantix ( 466036 ) on Sunday May 21, 2006 @03:58AM (#15375057) Journal
        I know some people don't like RMS, but he nailed this one for sure. Just look at the Slashdot headline for this article "Pearl Jam Releases Video Under Creative Commons"... lumping them all together just as RMS suggested people would. "Creative Commons" without describing the varient doesn't mean anything at all, yet that is the message the headline gives and a real problem with the suite of CC licenses. Certainly, people can specifiy which CC license you are talking about (as the body text of the slashdot article does), but it's still overly confusing.

        Consider the analogous slashdot heading "Company Releases Program Under GPL" -- the GPL is a title that unlike CC has a specific meaning, if it's GPL you know what to expect whether you like that license or not. The problem with CC is really worse than the similarily vaguely defined label "open source" because some of the CC licenses are really quite restrictive.

        I do understand what the people behind CC are trying to do, and I respect that. I just wish that they had put more effort into promoting the use of individual specific licenses instead of the CC 'brand'. GNU does this well, they have GPL, GFDL, LGPL as their own separate brand instead of just calling it a "GNU license" which doesn't convey the specificness those different concepts represent.
        • Oh, give me a break! 99% of the people out there are completely unfamiliar with content licenses and will only know that 'Pearl Jam released the video for free'. Add to that the fact that, if you were truly interested in the details, determining which Creative Commons license was used to release that video is a trivial task, it becomes obvious that RMS's and your subsequent rantings are completely misplaced. RMS has an interest in content and software licensing that adheres to some philosophical model th
  • In essence, video clips are just advertising, and based on that, this move would not qualify too much on the revolutionary side of things. But, if you think about it as a political statement, it's a very good thing to do in dark times like these. Think about how many folks are going to see such a license for the first time on their lifes. Think about all the fan-kids out there with garage bands that will start seeing open licenses as something cool. Think about how many media droids are going to need to educate themselves on the "open" movement to be able to write a comment on that. Of course, none of this could happen, but how can we know?
  • I don't get it. Why is it only available on Google until May 24th? What's preventing us from re-uploading it permanently to Google Video?
  • Pearl Jam just played a show here in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago. To be fair to the people living around there, they sold their tickets disciminating by zip codes on credit cards. If you didn't have a zip code that fell within their accepted proximity to where they played (santa barbara bowl) you would not be able to buy a ticket. A band that supports the cause and does things that make a lot of sense. I have a lot of respect and admiration for Pearl Jam because of this. Oh, they also make incredibly
    • I know they are trying to be all "down with the people" and all that... and that isn't a bad thing, really. But the whole idea of only accepting orders for tickets based on credit card zip codes isn't the way to do it. What ever happened to music fans line up for shows, pay cash at the door, and that was that. Only middle early 30s adults are gonna be paying a lot of money , via credit card, to see Pearl Jam. The whole buying $100 tickets 6 months in advanced is a whole stadium rock thing that is totally th

  • Mirror (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ann Coulter ( 614889 ) on Sunday May 21, 2006 @03:16AM (#15374989)
    Here is a copy of the videos [131.96.244.7] on a school server. Cheers.

  • DRM (Score:3, Funny)

    by daybot ( 911557 ) * on Sunday May 21, 2006 @07:04AM (#15375386)
    Are you guys nuts?! This is a Sony BMG release; by exploiting a vulnerability in the handling of each video frame, simply playing this video in any format installs a rootkit :O
  • It's this license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ [creativecommons.org] the 'selfish unfree license with no permissions'.

    You cannot derive the work, nor can you use it commercially. Bang go freedoms 0 1 and 2. The work is still copyrighted, like a photograph licensed online, our only freedom is to look at it.

    'Redistribution' doesn't mean anything online. Redistribution of a mars bar or a patented camera would mean building the product yourself using the original design. With anything digital rather than physic
    • Correct, you can download Audioslave's video. And if you send it to your grandmother, no one will know. However: you say "videos are available to view for free a million places on the web." Most of these sites (from Youtube to ebaum) would be in violation of copyright to host that video, and will comply with a cease-and-desist rather than face legal action. "Guerilla hosting" is not reliable, as witnessed by the fact that, for every music video you can find surreptitiously hosted, there are fifty you ca

    • Re:Hah. Some license. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by shark72 ( 702619 )

      You raise some interesting points. As background, what sort of artistic works have you produced, and how have you licensed them? Have you ever undertook something as big and costly as a music video, and then released it with less restrictive terms? In particular, has it been something related to your livelihood?

      It's easy for us, as consumers, to state that creators should give away their stuff for free and unrestricted; and when they don't, it's also easy for us to rationalize ignoring others' copyrigh

  • CC'd music video is pretty pointless. If you have noticed while you were watching the PJ's "Life Wasted" video, there are other Sony BMG Entertainment music videos you can watch as well. Yes, the video file can be freely distributed, but it's like distributing guitar tabs under CC license. It's just not going to make much sense for fans and average music lovers. If PJ wanted to make change, release their composed music under CC, not mp3 or music video. Effects will be same, but it makes stronger statem
  • "Music video for "Life Wasted" by Pearl Jam. New release of latest Pearl Jam video. Free until 5/24/2006. Musical Category: Pop
    The license for this video is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ [creativecommons.org]"

    Free until? Is this DRMd? What good is creativecommons if there is DRM?

    And how do I import this into video editing software? WTF is "GVI" format?
  • Just watched the video and about 3 minutes, 35 seconds into it there appears to be a very short clip of ghengis or one of the 6 legged MIT robots walking up something with a red lit background. It's in silhouette so I can't be sure. Anyone else see that?

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