Live stems - remixes and copyright

[Jackson89]

Hi Guys,
I'm doing a 'market a gig in an innovative way' as part of a module for my BA
I've heard about gigs where you can walk out with a USB stick with the desk mix (or similar) on it, which seemed pretty cool

I was wondering, if (you had the time to bounce down), what would be the legalities of giving the public access to stems of a recording?

I know Lamb of God did this with mastered multi tracks and just released it under standard copyright licenses, is it that simple?

[KMuzzey]

The copyright to the composition belongs to the writers and publishers, and the copyright to the audio belongs to the label or band, whether you recorded it with your phone, from the desk, or anywhere.

Kerry

[Steve A]

Do you mean from the perspective of the artists giving away stems of their own live performance on the night? As stated, the legalities of ownership are the same however the method of distribution but if we assume that the performance consists of entirely the band's own songs that they wrote themselves then as long as their publishers agree to it I can't see any obvious legal impediment.

Problems might arise from what people did with these stems afterwards. Wherever I've seen artists distribute stems for mixing competitions etc (admittedly studio ones) it's usually a requirement to sign-up to T&Cs which often stipulate that ownership and distribution rights of any mix are retained by the band providing the stems. Difficult to see how you could obtain an enforceable contractual agreement in an on the night gig merchandise scenario (if that's what you mean).

Some larger venues will most probably demand a facilitation fee for allowing recordings for commercial release to be made on their premises.

There are other artistic implications of whether or not you want to let people have access to stems from a live gig without any window for any editorial approval by the band - e.g. what if you made a howling mistake? And bear in mind that individual live stems can often sound horrid on their own out of the context of a professionally created mix and in the wrong hands could mean mixes that get into the public domain that give a drastically false impression of what the band actually sound like live. Although I appreciate that's not the question you asked.

[Forum Admin]

This news from Native Instruments might be of interest to you:

Developed by Native Instruments, Stems is an open, multi-channel audio file format designed for creative DJing and live performance. The new format introduces the ability to freely interact with a track’s different musical elements. Each ‘stem’ can be controlled independently to create instant new mixes, mashups, instrumentals, a cappellas, and more.

A full list of labels, retailers, and distributors, as well as some of the initial music to be released in the Stems format is available at: www.stems-music.com

Labels with confirmed Stems releases at or near launch date
50 Weapons, Abstract Architecture, Autofake, Baroque Records, Black Hole
Recordings, BluFin, Cadenza, Chapter 24 Records, Cocoon Recordings, Cr 2
Records, Deeptown Music, Dirtybird, EPM, Factor City, FLASH Recordings,
Formatik Records, Get Physical, Ghostly International, Green, Herzblut
Recordings, Hotflush Recordings, Hydrozoa, Hypercolour, InFiné, KD Music,
Kling Klong, Lapsus Music, Large Music, m-nus, Manufactured Music, Milk
& Sugar, mobilee Records, Monaberry, Monkeytown Records, Moon Harbour,
Myth Music, Nervous Records, Noir Music, Objectivity, Octopus Recordings,
Ovum Records, Pild Records, R&S, RAM Records, Rejected, Room With A
View, Sci + Tec, Simplify Recordings, Shogun Audio, Spektra Recordings,
Spinnin Records, Systematic Recordings, Toolroom Records, Turbo
Recordings, Upon You Records, Watergate Records and many more...

There's an intro video on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0feFSzCn1Q