BlueBeats Hank Risan: Thats Not the Beatles, Its a
Virtual Cover Band

post from Fast Company on 07 November 2009 12:30:34 AM. © Fast Company

BlueBeat

If you thought that was AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles you streamed for free or downloaded this week for $.25 from BlueBeat.com, it?s an understandable error.

The site?s owner Hank Risan tells FastCompany his catalog of music doesn?t include tracks by the original artists, who, of course, own the publishing rights to their music (many have long resisted posting their music for sale online). His tunes aren?t technically Beatles tracks at all but, rather, "psycho-acoustic simulations" of Beatles songs performed and broadcast on BlueBeat and made available for download.

Performances? By, what, some kind of virtual cover band? "Exactly!" Risan says, almost giddily. "Only they don?t eat as much. And you don?t have to pay them union wages!" It was if we?d summed up a concept he?d long been trying to explain to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) general counsel Steven Marks, and lawyers for EMI records, distributor of The Beatles catalog who filed suit against Risan and BlueBeat on Wednesday claiming copyright infringement, and the judge in the case who ordered BlueBeat to shut down until he can hold a hearing on Nov. 20th. Risan has tried to respond to the suit by EMI, which holds exclusive rights to distribute The Beatles catalog, by writing the material on BlueBeat is an "entirely different sound recording." It went over the head of most, but in a phone call late Friday evening, he explained further.

A full disclosure: There?s much more to this story, but it involves a battery of experts and lawyers that just weren?t available at post time, but Risan?s own explanation, even in part, was worth getting to as soon as possible, given the attention we?ve given to EMI?s side of the case.

hank-risan

Here is, in very basic terms, why his site is legal, according to Risan.

First, he obtained necessary licenses to broadcast original works on the web. (Ars Technica has a good summary of the laws involved here). He claims, too, to have paid royalties to all appropriate performing rights organizations since 2003. "That?s going to be very problematic for EMI when the judge hears the case," Risan says. Next, he bought a legitimate copy of each song or album featured on BlueBeat and analyzed it, "We make an analysis of that work that we break down into parametric fields like timbre, pitch, loudness. You create an analytical view of the work."

Sounds an awful lot like ripping a CD. Not so, Risan insists. "It?s done with sophisticated algorithmic, mathematic and artistic ? this is not some kind of mechanical process. This is a trial-and-error artistic endeavor."

The entire analysis, he says, goes into his computers. "Using psycho-acoustic synthetic methods, we synthesize a new sound recording in a new 3-D environment. Like you said, a virtual cover band. Instead of bringing a bunch of guys in that look like The Beatles and sound like The Beatles into a conventional recording studio, we do this all in a virtual 3-D environment."

The disc he bought at the store is then destroyed, lest anyone try to say he?s posting it for download. Rather, his "independent simulated production" (don?t call it a re-recording) is then "broadcast" ? streamed in ?colloquial? terms, as Risan puts it -- on BlueBeat. Those broadcasts, along with new visuals and information are bundled up for what Risan calls "time-shifted audio visual displays" -- they look remarkably like song tracks -- and sold for a quarter apiece. The quarter actually buys you the time-shifted audio-visual display, not, say, The Beatles? "Helter Skelter."

It?s reminiscent of the classic approach whereby a ticket scalper charges $200 for a $25 concert ticket by bundling the face value ticket with a commemorative $175 pencil. Risan insists, though, that he?s doing this to educate people about the coming wave of psycho-acoustic and psycho-visual technology. He points to groundbreaking work being done in this field at Stanford University and says, "The goal was never to make money and that?s why were charging a quarter and not a dollar. To educate and inform and inspire people, that?s what we?re all about."

There are technical and logical problems here. The "if it quacks like a duck" principal surely applies to what sound like other artists tracks, and BlueBeat sure markets them that way. There are some philosophical and structural problems with Risan?s arguments, too. To suspend what logic tells you about BlueBeat, you have to subscribe not only to Risan?s ideas but to his vocabulary. The minute you refer to his "performances? as "tracks" or call them "re-recordings," you run afoul of his theory. And although there might be a value in tools that perfectly, synthetically recreate complex combinations of sounds, why foist upon the public an application of that technology that looks a hell of a lot like piracy? Put another way, if you?re in favor of encouraging creativity, why get behind a tool whose primary purpose is to mimic someone else?s creation so closely it can?t be differentiated from the original?

Risan admits his argument was subject to interpretation, and he?s keeping the money he?s made from BlueBeat aside, he says, in case he loses his legal battle. He won?t say how much that is, but he says it?s less than most might think. "Look what the press was doing. You guys were saying we were all pirates. So people were a little bit nervous going to the site?. When we have our day in court on the 20th, I think that some surprises are going to happen that will open up the public?s eyes to new innovation artistically."

The thing about courts, though, is that they often favor the reasonable perceptions of common people over the challenging mental gymnastics of an academic. Risan has thought this through on a deeply analytical level, applying all sorts of arithmetic to a process others equate with the "import" button on iTunes. And he?s put his money where his math is, gambling BlueBeat?s future on his analytical theories. But even if Risan convincingly lays out his rationale for selling seemingly stolen songs, that doesn?t guarantee a judge on Nov. 20 won?t think it?s a load of bull. Or at least a "psycho-acoustic simulation" thereof.