NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some of rock 'n' roll's biggest names have teamed up to sue the owner of a Web site that specializes in streaming rare concert recordings.


Wolfgang's Vault offers thousands of recordings of rare audio and video music performances collected over 30 years by Bill Graham, a famous concert promoter who died in 1991.

On Monday, major rock names including Grateful Dead Productions, Carlos Santana and members of Led Zeppelin and The Doors, sued the current owner, claiming it was illegally offering recordings to stimulate sales of other products.

Wolfgang's Vault representatives were not immediately available for comment.

The site, (http://www.wolfgangsvault.com), also sells T-shirts, pictures and memorabilia such as vintage concert posters and tickets.

The recordings were made at concert performances by a wide array of artists from Bob Marley to
Bob Dylan. The site's collection has been described by some industry watchers as one of the most important groupings of rock memorabilia and recordings ever assembled in one business.

The suit was filed at the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California against William Sagan, who bought the assets of Graham for $5 million from Clear Channel Entertainment more than three years ago.

"Sagan simply doesn't have the legal rights to exploit and profit from the extraordinary success of these musicians," Jeff Reeves, who represents the artists, said in a statement.

Wolfgang's Vault derives from Graham's given name of Wolfgang Grajonca. Over the course of his career as a promoter he is credited within the music industry for helping create the modern concert promotion business.

Live music performances, both in audio and video formats, are a fast-growing area online for companies including Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit and Microsoft Corp.'s online unit MSN. Such companies say advertisers are keen for original content which works well in the online video format.

For years, my favorite guitarist was Carlos Santana, and "back in the day", I bought every musical collection the Doors offered.

I must shake my head about this.
Carlos, carlos, carlos...John Densmore, Robby Krieger, and Ray Manzarek..are you guys THAT hard up for money?

.. where's my performance videos?!!! I would LOVE to see some archival stuff of mine.. Sad is the day that you think that sharing your music video is a bad thing, while they slather Beyonce all over the place!!

Well, you've gotta know that if someone has "...one of the most important groupings of rock memorabilia and recordings ever assembled in one business," someone is going to want to put a stop to it.

How Sagan came into possession of this material

From 1966 to 1991, Graham's company, Bill Graham Presents, put on more than 20,000 concerts worldwide. Everyone who was anyone played for him — Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Santana, U-2. You name it. The list goes on forever.

And for nearly 30 years Graham saved everything he could get his hands on from every concert he ever put on.

"Bill Graham was a pack rat," said Sagan. "I think Bill Graham just put everything down in that storage area and was going to keep it forever."

For Graham, forever didn't last long. In 1991, on his way back from a concert, he was killed in a helicopter crash. While his memory lived on, memory of his archive began to fade. During the next decade, ownership of Graham's company changed hands several times. But no one took the time to sift through all that "junk" in the basement, until 2003, when the latest owners decided to sell yet again, and Bill Sagan bought it all.

He said: "And one day — I believe it was 25, 40-foot trucks — truckloads took the product from their building over to our building."

Sagan and his staff kept their find a secret while they catalogued every item from what they now called Wolfgang's Vault. Wolfgang Grajonca was Bill Graham's given name. Now they've opened it up to the world and put most of it up for sale on their Web site, wolfgangsvault.com.

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All that "junk" in the basement that no one else even wanted to look at for 12 years. If there's a jury and I'm on it, Sagan wins.

While searching for the above, I found the item below, which was incredibly profound in 1971 and sounds prophetic today.

Bill Graham on the closing of Fillmore East, April 29, 1971

The "Fillmore" will become a thing of the past. I will remember with deep emotion and fondness the great and joyous moments of that past. I sincerely thank the artists and business associates who contributed to our success. But, I warn the public to watch carefully for what the future will bring.

The rock scene in this country was created by a need felt by the people, expressed by the musicians, and, I hope, aided to some degree by the efforts of the Fillmores. But whatever has become of that scene, wherever it turned into the music industry of festivals, 20,000-seat halls, miserable production quality, and second-rate promoters - however it went wrong - please, each of you, stop and think whether or not you allowed it, whether or not you supported it regardless of how little you received in return.

I am not pleased with this "music industry." I am disappointed with many of the musicians working in it, and I am shocked at the nature of the millions of people who support that "industry" without asking why. I am not assured that the situation will improve in the future.

I'm not sure what it is these people want exactly.
The site is paying public performance / broadcast royalties and is not offering the shows for sale or download and has a paragraph in its TOS that expressly states that the shows are steamed for personal use only, not to be distributed, blah blah, woof woof.
You can bet your last dollar that if there was anyone at Clear Channel or Live Nation that thought a buck could've been squeezed out of this, it would've already been done.
I think these guys are just pissed that they didn't think of it first, especially Bob Weir.
This is just another example of the pissing and moaning he's been doing the last couple of years.

It goes to prove,

"You can't fool all the people all of the time."

Jimmy Page sues anything he can based on the premise that he has been sued so many times that what goes around comes around.

Seriously - he doesn't have much to do these days, so he likes a good legal scrap and he wins most of 'em...suing people who sample clips of Led Zep even for non profit recordings is a favourite pastime of his.

ooh goodie, Mr Page! over here! I sampled "Whole Lotta Love" in one of my first electronic ideas in 1992. come get me, you washed up junkie

still, Led Zep of the 70s... awesome. how times change

You would think these people would get a clue and negotiate with these archive people and officially release this material since there is a market for such things.

" You would think these people would get a clue and negotiate with these archive people and officially release this material since there is a market for such things. "

They WANT the old stuff shoved aside
and forgotten. Music needs to be
disposable, easily pushed aside in
favor of the new flavors. That's how their
'machine' works.

So... do you think they would be getting sued if it was purely a not-for-profit historical archive?

Pie is tasty, and everyone wants a taste... even if you've just feasted on the cherry, when the blueberry comes out of the oven, look out!

That's what the industry feels like a glutton. And what about the poor artist who mis-managed their loot and sees an oppertunity like this as a chance to catch up on back taxes...

the tiff is always bigger than the .gif thumb!

Apparently, these particular sound recordings are from live performances and rehearsals and are NOT under RIAA control, so that's not an issue this time at least.

It seems these artists agreed to allow Bill Graham to record their shows. If Wolfgang's Vault is paying the proper broadcast/webcasting royalties, the artists have no right to sue.

"On Monday, major rock names including Grateful Dead Productions, Carlos Santana and members of Led Zeppelin and The Doors, sued the current owner, claiming it was illegally offering recordings to stimulate sales of other products."

Using the music to draw in potential sales? Every commercial radio station in the country does the same damn thing. You don't see these artists suing them do you? (lol, via RIAA proxy and illegal payola practices, these big name artists actually fight to get ON radio playlists.)

From what I have seen so far, the artists don't have a case.

what I can not understand, from an artist's point of veiw, and from a music customer's point of veiw, is why the ENTIRE Sony catolog isnt up for legal download? (or any entertainment giant)
How hard would it be to maintain such a site? Oh yeah, that rare recording wont be out on CD ever again, but server space can't cost THAT much.
From an evil corperate point of veiw, anything rare is worth more money, so we'll be greedy bastards and horde it away til we can get top dollar....

Streaming is like old fashioned radio, it's not selling me a product at all.

I'm thinking the P2P issues combined with the popularity of DRM and other copy protection schemes are, in part, adding to the hordementality. I'd bet that their thought process is along the lines of: "if we put it up, for legal download, we'll probably sell ten thousand downloads, and then find it on 20 million P2P networks..."

it's always all about the bennys.


Boogiewityabadself!