Chuck Warner wrote:
>>Clear Channel - the Evil Empire who makes Ticketmaster look like 
>>Mom's Diner - wants to implement contract clauses giving them 
>>permission to record and sell their concerts immediately after the 
>>show in the lobbies of arenas.
>
>I'll admit I'm too old and cranky to catch many live shows myself 
>these days, but this strikes me as the first really smart thing that 
>the traditional music industry has come up with in the past five 
>years.  It's a brilliant way for "cash-strapped" labels to make money 
>essentially ex nihilo, and without harming the fans (and a nice way 
>for the bands to make some money as well). Think about all the people 
>who do NOT swap tapes now, but who would happily pop for a $15 
>instant CD-R of a great concert with maybe an unreleased song or two.

This segues nicely into a comment by Todd Rundgren in a new Onion
interview:

 O: What do you think is going to happen to the music business? 
 
 TR: I think the following should happen: First, artists should
 re-emphasize performance and de-emphasize recording. You always make
 more money if you have a healthy performing life than you will if you
 have even a moderately healthy recording life. Don't make recording
 the most important thing you do. Make performing the most important
 thing you do, and then you can make recordings and sell them at your
 shows, because record labels aren't going to be around to help you
 get on the radio stations, and the radio stations probably aren't
 going to play you anyway. The next thing in music is going to be more
 like Internet radio. Then, if I were in the record business, I would
 start getting out of the brick-and-mortar side of it and stop
 thinking of music as a commodity, and start thinking of it as a
 service, and develop models that more resemble cable television,
 where you pay a monthly fee and listen to as much as you can consume.
 If they can manage to do that, hey, if you get a million people
 paying 20 bucks a month, that's $20 million a month. That's $240
 million a year, just off of a million people. So I think by that
 model, there's plenty of money to be made, but we've got to stop
 worrying about bootlegging and the economies around it. Make music a
 service that's easy to consume, and there'll be plenty of money for
 everyone.

For the full interview, see:
 http://www.theonionavclub.com/features.php?feature_id=30