{"id":437,"date":"2006-07-28T14:40:34","date_gmt":"2006-07-28T18:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mathewingram.com\/work\/2006\/07\/28\/cellphone-concerts-a-tax-on-the-stupid\/"},"modified":"2006-07-28T14:40:34","modified_gmt":"2006-07-28T18:40:34","slug":"cellphone-concerts-a-tax-on-the-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2006\/07\/28\/cellphone-concerts-a-tax-on-the-stupid\/","title":{"rendered":"Cellphone concerts — a tax on the stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

So the Rolling Stones — arguably the world’s oldest rock band — are the latest lure to get eager music fans listening to a concert via their cellphone<\/a> (other such concerts have featured lesser lights such as Daddy Yankee and Rihanna). As Carlo at MobHappy and others<\/a> note, you get just 7 minutes for your $1.99, and you can only listen for 14 minutes in total no matter how much you want to pay. Why? Because of fears of bootlegging, believe it or not — like someone is going to rip the entire concert from their cellphone.<\/p>\n

Even without that kind of asinine restriction, the Listen Live Now service leaves me cold. Yes, I would love to hear the Stones live without having to fly to Paris and pay $350 or whatever their tickets cost now. And yes, I know that the sound doesn’t come from some drunken groupie holding their phone up in the air but straight from the Stones’ soundboard, as BusinessWeek breathlessly informs us<\/a>. But it’s still $2 for 7 freaking minutes — and it could easily be the 7 minutes when Keef forgets where he put his guitar, or when Charlie has to be taken backstage to refill his oxygen tanks.<\/p>\n

I’m with Ethan Kaplan, director of technology for Warner Brothers, who wonders<\/a> on his blog Blackrimglasses: “When will (most) bands realize that bootleg recordings of shows are the best inner and post record cycle marketing tools they have?” Of course, the Stones need marketing like I need another hole in the head, but Ethan’s point is a good one. More bands should do what Pearl Jam does, and sell their own “bootlegs” of every concert directly to their fans.<\/p>\n

But then they wouldn’t be able to get $2 for 7 minutes, nor would they be able to help the evil phone companies find new ways of extorting money from their hapless users. And thanks to commenter Peebs for this link.<\/a><\/p>\n

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So the Rolling Stones — arguably the world’s oldest rock band — are the latest lure to get eager music fans listening to a concert via their cellphone (other such concerts have featured lesser lights such as Daddy Yankee and Rihanna). As Carlo at MobHappy and others note, you get just 7 minutes for your … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Cellphone concerts — a tax on the stupid”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}