Wolfgang's Vault Opens for Downloading

[Livia]

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/..._id=1003811313

Wolfgang's Vault Opens For Downloading

June 03, 2008, 3:35 PM ET

Ray Waddell, Nashville
Through a new arrangement between Wolfgang's Vault and Universal Music Group, vintage concert recordings from such acts as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix will soon join the nearly 500 recordings already available for download purchase at the popular live music and memorabilia site.

The recordings include live performances by UMG artists culled from thousands of Bill Graham-promoted concerts, along with gems from other catalogs and archives dating back decades.

"This is a far-reaching agreement to make available what I would consider previously unreleased live performance recordings of Universal Music Group artists from the mid-'60s on through today," Wolfgang's Vault founder Bill Sagan tells Billboard.com. "It covers hundreds of UMG performers and thousands of live performance concerts."

Sagan launched the Web site in 2003 after acquiring the late promoter Graham's cache of memorablila and concert recordings for $5 million. The downloadable content deal is for 10 years, with a streaming deal stretching "into perpetuity," Sagan says.

If the concert is longer than 30 minutes, a full download is priced at $9.98, with concerts of less than 30 minutes at $5.98. Some one- or two-song performances cost $3.98. The site will continue to offer free streaming.

"Of the 1,434 concerts that are up on the site, 488 can be downloaded right now," says Sagan. "And some very major artists will be downloading within the next 30 to 60 days."

Eventually the product will be offered as CDs and vinyl under Universal's direction. "There will be physical product," Sagan says.

A quick run through the site shows vintage performances for sale by artists including the Alarm, Fleetwood Mac, the Kinks, Billy Joel, Iggy Pop, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Lou Reed, Mott the Hoople, Poco, Steve Miller, the Tubes, Uriah Heep, Warren Zevon and many others.

[MacMan]

Such a cool thing this Wolfgang's Vault is.... It's actually been open for downloading for a really long time, at least 6 months. And streaming for even longer. I didn't expect the downloading part to last frankly, I figured the labels would jump all over it... But it appears it's going to stick around.

[will26]

I've been a member of the site for a little while now, I believe part of the money you pay to download the concerts goes to the artist or their estate and possibly the labels, not sure though.

Someone correct me if I am wrong.