LiveMusicSource

October 12, 2003 2:31 PM

SharingTheGroove.org Trade concerts at this site where BitTorrent tech is combined with DAT concert taping audiophiles. You can read the boards to find music or you can just check their bitTorrent tracker. If you want to go low tech they also have Blanks & Postage or Tree/Vine forums.
posted by srboisvert (17 comments total)

i've been a member since july.....it's a pretty cool site if you're patient enough to find what you're looking for. while there's a good bit of audience recording of concerts (where you're not really sure about the quality of the recording you're getting), there's also 'liberated bootlegs' that aren't under copyright (like imports, stealth soundboard concert recordings and long forgotten vinyl).

while just looking at the site....you might get turned off by the amount of 'jamband' material, but since i've been a memeber i've obtained some incredible stuff like: tom waits, lous armstrong, dizzy, miles, jimi hendrix, bill monroe...and the list goes on....and all of these were crystal clear concert recordings in lossless formats. and of course...i've shared some of my own personal stash.
posted by oliver_crunk at 6:25 PM on October 12, 2003

I grabbed a copy of Ben Harper's Toronto show. I really wanted to catch the concert - Ben Harper and Jack Johnson - but had other commitments i couldn't break so this was an excellent second best. The guy who posted the Harper part of the show promised to seed the Jack Johnson part of the show as well. I've also snagged Calexico, The Police, The Tragically Hip, White Stripes, Bob Marley, etc.. The quality is typically excellent and the community is mostly friendly.

If you download stuff you will want to get some tools.
Shadow's experimental bitTorrent client, Shorten, and Flac.

There is another community site, Etree, with an excellent wiki/FAQ.but they seem to have server trouble with their forums.
posted by srboisvert at 6:42 PM on October 12, 2003

Downloading legitimately shareable shorten files with Bittorrent is extremely addictive. You know you're in trouble when you only have time to listen to one out of three shows you download, and when your computer starts to crap out because you can't burn stuff to CD fast enough and your OS is out of swap space.

Great for Christmas gifts, too. I know several people who will really appreciate a high quality recording of a CSNY concert from the Fillmore East in 1970...
posted by alms at 6:47 PM on October 12, 2003

Open source music, another huge threat to the RIAA's bad faith interests, and unassailable as well.
posted by BentPenguin at 7:00 PM on October 12, 2003

What's this? Stevie Wonder? 1973?

[this is very good]
posted by grabbingsand at 7:27 PM on October 12, 2003

I've always felt concert recordings to be a resource vastly underexploited by record companies. Each band might release one official, patched-together "live" album in their career. Pearl Jam almost got the idea when they released a whole series of concerts, but spat in the face of their fans when they charged almost the same price as a normal CD.

I think fans have a right to access bootleg concert recordings, if record companies refuse to recognize the market for them and make them accessible at reasonable prices. This is a great site - now only if BitTorrent was in any way useful over my poor 56k modem...
posted by Jimbob at 8:04 PM on October 12, 2003

My ISP is about to become very, very mad at me. The Jazz selection is purty good.
posted by zsazsa at 8:30 PM on October 12, 2003

srboisvert,
That Calexico you snagged, was it from the concert in Toronto last week? The Friday, first date at Lee's Palace?
posted by alicesshoe at 10:42 PM on October 12, 2003

Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:02 AM on October 13, 2003

Remember, kids, leave those torrents open for a while after they're finished. Play nice in our beautiful peer-to-peer wonderland!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:07 AM on October 13, 2003

Open source music, another huge threat to the RIAA's bad faith interests, and unassailable as well.

Can someone in the know clarify the legality here? I did a search on the web and found this...

Anti-Bootleg Statute {Title 18 U.S.C. Section 2319A}: This statute criminalizes the unauthorized recording, manufacture, distribution or trafficking in sound recordings and music videos of "live" musical performances. Comparable provisions also exist at the state level. This statute carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

So what makes people think that the unauthorized concert recordings at Share the Groove are fair game?
posted by chill at 5:19 AM on October 13, 2003

Some bands say taping & trading is OK. There's a list of bands that allow taping, but bands that allow trading and free distribution of those recordings are a smaller subset, however. Looking at the Share the Groove website, it looks like they're only about 50% in the clear.
posted by zsazsa at 6:40 AM on October 13, 2003

it looks like they're only about 50% in the clear

If you want a source for bittorrent music that is more carefully screened, I recommend the etree site.
posted by alms at 7:33 AM on October 13, 2003

That Calexico you snagged, was it from the concert in Toronto last week? The Friday, first date at Lee's Palace?

Nope.

Calexico
Germany, Berlin - Columbiahalle
2003/04/08
posted by srboisvert at 9:06 AM on October 13, 2003

Pearl Jam almost got the idea when they released a whole series of concerts, but spat in the face of their fans when they charged almost the same price as a normal CD.

I don't know where you shop, but I'd love to get three disc sets for $9. Oh wait, you mean they're $21+ where you live too? Oh... so, I guess that's not really spitting in the face of fans, especially since you can just download them, legally, online for free?

(They're currently revisiting the 2000 tour on this site, the 2003 tour was available for months...)
posted by togdon at 9:23 AM on October 13, 2003

Cool, srboisvert. As a matter of fact, two of his musicians were from Germany. Interesting.
posted by alicesshoe at 10:26 AM on October 13, 2003

Well I'm glad they are actually doing that now togdon, I wasn't aware of that.

My experience with the Pearl Jam bootlegs was seeing a rack full of them at a local CD store, and finding them all available for not less than AU$25 each (some seemed to cost more than others - maybe they were the multi disc sets). Fans would want to buy a whole pile of these albums - and were being charged close to the price of a studio album for each. At the time I felt that was pretty pathetic, given the lack of post-production required on the recordings, and the fact that each concert was already "paid for" by the people in attendance.
posted by Jimbob at 5:25 PM on October 13, 2003