moe.'s new photo policy

thats retarded.

huh,,, that sux.. greed is a bitch. im sure it dosent apply at roo and i plan on seeing them. you can bet your ass i will be right upfront with my camera. im kinda saddened. i hate to see my favorite bands do retarded stuff

You know damn well you'll still be able to get shots at any festival... They just dont want video recordings out there of every damn show they play, and there are alot of high quality video captures that dont look like anything more than a still shot... Theres ALOT of other bands and venues that dont even allow cameras at all...

the band responds:

Vinnie says:

Hey man, We are not trying to piss people off. We love our fans and would not exist without them but we have rules and they have been broken. IT has gotten too hard for us to tell the difference and stop video from being made and poor quality stuff fom being released without our permission. If this were not happening we would not be doing this. You should look at it from our point of view. I am and we are sorry that you are not happy, but we are going to try this out for a while and see what happens. Ok....Thanks for giving a shit..........Vinnie

Al says:

every picture tells a story don't it?

hey.
just wanted to distill the uproar regarding our recent announcement concerning digital cameras at our shows. we have made it our policy for years to allow photography while prohibiting video recording (does anyone remember the fallout when we announced no more video? how about when we discontinued soundboard patches?).

despite the fact that we have made it clear that we do not allow video taping, there have been many videos distributed over the last year. due to technological advancements, we are left w. no choice but to restrict all photography to disposable cameras. I'm sure over time, we'll eventually have to ban them too (once they start making disposable video cameras for $5) - right after we ban cell phones. & then there will be a restriction on the types of microchips one can have in his/her neck while being allowed to save show to internal hard drive...

in this day & age, when musical recordings are so cavalierly traded free of charge w. little or no concern for the artist, it is difficult to know where to draw the line. do you pay for all of your music? should you? radio is free. some tv is free. should downloads also be free? cds? videos? concerts? where do you draw the line? if there is no art patronage, there will still be art. it just won't be as widely available to you. it will exist only as local folk art - the stuff of backyards, garage sales, & hobby shops. people will still make it. it's what we do. I'm going to make music regardless of whether or not it also happens to be my career. it's just that it happens to be my career. it happens to be a music business. sure, $250 may seem like a lot to pay for that photo hanging in your local cafe or restaurant, especially when you could just get it as a free download or email attachment. maybe art should be free. but where do you draw the line? what about other creations? recipes? building design? furniture design? which ideas should be free? perhaps anything above & beyond the mundane & utilitarian? it's difficult to know where to draw the line in this modern capitalist world in which everything is a commodity, including food, shelter, clothing, education & healthcare. ideally, all of these things would be free, including the creative spirit which ultimately leads to advancement. we are a long way from the days hunting & gathering. I digress. I also need to go run so I am not late for rehearsal (so we can play better. so we can make better music. so we can make more money. so we can have more time. so we can rehearse. so we can play better. so we can create better music. so we can make more money. so we can have more time. so we can rehearse. so we can play better. so we can create better music...)

we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. i wish there was an alternative. if you have a better suggestion, email me. (al@moe.org).

meanwhile, we will still allow audio recording. we will still allow photography. if you are a professional photographer & need a photo pass, please contact our management.

I says:

Vinnie -

I really appreciate you taking time to respond to my concerns. It rewards my faith in you guys as being concerned about doing the right thing. And I do wanna understand where you're coming from.

moe. still allows audio taping of your shows, yet you have no QC control over that media when it's released among the community. the community itself decides, promotes, and trades the good quality boots, and the crap sifts down into data oblivion. the same is going to be true of any video footage that comes out. and at the end of the day, your fans are still going to go out and buy the official release DVDs - not only on principle, but because there will ostensibly be a huge quality difference. As an audiophile, and video production professional there's absolutely no comparison.

Really the whole thing that rubbed me (and I think many of the others whom are upset) wrong is the blanket ban on everything but disposable cameras. First - because those are crap, and people are going to get crap pictures off them. Second - do you really think that any more than 1 or 2% of a given audience at a show have a) the technology and b) the tenacity for video bootlegging? Seems highly doubtful, and that makes the camera ban that much more harsh on the remaining 98-99% of people at your shows. I have three or four pix from a show you guys did in Kalamazoo a few years ago on my phone. It makes me smile every time I turn that piece of shit on or off, and I hate to think that the next time I tried to do so, it would get me hassled by some security clown...

Thanks for giving a shit!

peace,
Mark

This is incredibly poorly thought out. You can't stop to people taking clips of shows by banning digital cameras, and you can't simultaneously distrust your fans ability to handle video technology responsibility but then count on them to pay you for digital downloads.

Hand-held digital camera videos from shows are generally short and poor quality. They're all over the web because the devices are tiny and very difficult to weed out of a crowd in the middle of a show.

The short videos that make it onto Youtube do little but offer free hype for a band. Plus, from what I see the reason these bands get bent out of shape about these things is because they lack the technological prowess to maintain a regular supply of decent content on their own sites.

I mean, what is their real concern here? Do they think that live videos showing up on youtube will cut into their DVD, album or ticket sales?

What you have here is a band that is running on its own record label trying to make use of digital downloads to make up for a weak distribution method and marketing channel. Like it or not banning normal cameras from their shows is anti-fan because 99% of those doing it are doing so for their own personal enjoyment of the clips.

What they don't realize is that you can't mix anti-fan practices with trust based practices which is trust fans to pay you to download your stuff instead of simply torrenting the hell out of it.

What they should do is run a contest for the best assembly of fan created video clips then include it on their next DVD, giving a free copy to the winner.

Without question they'll reneg on this policy, or they'll just stop enforcing it. It isn't practical and it's misinformed.

all I know is that I'll be front and center for moe. with my brand new Kodak Z740 snapping away.

I hope they see me so I can point out to them that it's not a video camera (although it has some video capabilities, but that takes up waaaay too much space).

well, if they allow me to bring my camera, I might go.