The Rolling Stones SF Concert - Attack Of The Killer Cell Phone Cameras!

I'm groggy voiced, having danced and sang at last night's awesome Rolling Stones concert at Pac Bell, no SBC, no is it AT&T Park, now? Whaever. The place the San Francisco Giants play (though they'd better solve that weird name change problem).

Anyway, the Stones are a totally great show. And what I most enjoy is the totally interracial flavor of what they do, from the terrific sista who was singing with Mic, to the brotha jammin on the sax, and to the hot Afro-British model strutting her stuff in a video for "Brown Sugar." The Stones really seem to enjoy what they do, and don't get hung up on color. They had a musical tribute to the great Ray Charles. I told my friend that what makes the Stones so lasting is their blend of soulful music and lyrics. Many Rock bands have music that's ok to move to, but the lyrics are terrible. Many rappers have great lyrics, but the music is ok at times. The Stones are a good blend of many musical approaches. An event worth photographing. Too bad I didn't bring my camera. It was the first time I wish I had a digital cell phone camera.

Rats!

The concert tickets requested that the patrons not use or bring cameras, and my friend had to take her camera back to the car because they wouldn't let her in with it. What a joke! There must have been over 1,000 camera-equipped cell phones in the place! At one point, I counted 20 of them in use right in front of me. What was an usher going to do? Run through a crowd of people to take the phones? Right? Oh, then the people can just turn off their phones and hide them, because they're so small.

I think the entertainment and sports industry is totally out to lunch when it comes to the rise of what I call "subversive technology": the Internet, and any extremely small device capable of recording and playing back any sound and image and transfering that data via the Web at low cost-- or no cost. This is impossible to regulate.

What, then, should the Stones do? Easy. Set up deals with the makers of the camera phones, where they brand their cameras in Stones logos and have contests for the best photos taken with a "Stones" camera. They should also have sponsors develop larger logos that can be seen even on a small screen, like those on cell phone cameras. That will enhance the value of the sponsorship.

But there's nothing they can do about the way technology is taking and spreading their content. Nothing. Regulating it is ...well, stupid to try and prohibitatively expensive.

I wonder what Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig thinks of all this. Lessig can be fairly called a champion of the free transfer of information on the Internet (but with systems to protect the developers of original content. I am a member of his Creative Commons Organization, and their logo is on our Sports Business Simulations site)

Oh, on that note, I was talking to a guy while in line for the men's bathroom at the concert about Metallica, the opening band for The Stones. He said he used to like Metallica before the Napster controversy. Now, he downloads their music for free "just to piss them off" he said.

I told him he should check out Lessig's Blog, to which some guy who passed by me at the urinal said "HA HA HA. Lawrence Lessig. HA. HA. HA" and then walked off.

I asked him if he lost a court case to him or something, but I never got an answer back.