Hey--great piece. My husband and I are wondering just HOW Warner and YouTube are so on top of the Led Zeppelin videos when other copyrighted items seem to slide by for a while. Are there teams of interns dedicated to constant searching? Is it a computer search engine? Can you journalize a little bit and let us know? Thanks!! :-)

Farhad, you are really giving the record companies too much credit by insisting that they're missing out on a boatload of income by not allowing the Led Zepellin videos to be posted on YouTube and other online video outifts.

They've been missing the boat for over 10 years. What makes you think that they're suddenly going to get it?

It's like the old professional athlete who just can't bear the thought of having to retire, thinking that they can still perform, that everyone loves them.

While they're busy writing checks to the RIAA to enforce medieval laws against dead people and grandmothers, I keep my wallet locked up. Whatever they keep serving, I ain't eating.

Sing it, bro. I switched from buying new music to used CD's and DVD's out of financial necessity, but all this short-sighted viciousness from both the music and movie industry cemented my determination to buy new only in the very rare cases that something I want will sell out to collectors and not be around used for years. There is no way I'm going to subsidize that kind of abysmal stupidity.

As more and more bands ditch the record labels, their cellphone-captured videos will be on Youtube, and the label-owned bands will not be. Such videos can contribute to a band's popularity, so the bands that allow them will do better. Give it a few years, and every single band will either ditch the record labels altogether or will drive a hard bargain with the record labels to allow such videos to be posted.

I don't know about y'all, but I get all my CD's from CDBaby these days. I can't remember when I bought a record-label-produced CD.

Not very. Surely JPJ can afford a better flute sound for his keyboard. I know that Jimmy Page knows how the solo goes. Robert Plant is...old. I have heard better covers.

Led Zeppelin is probably unique in the industry in that they have total control over their music. Meaning that Jimmy Page has total control, to protect the band, and to protect the music, and he does not go second-class on anything. Plant, Bonham, and Jones have always counted on him for that. And they exercise that control, sometimes just to prove they can.

Back in the day, even top bands like the Stones and the Beatles were basically treated as hired hands, and got a few percent of the proceeds. Acts were handled by managers who had control over basically everything. Page changed all that. He learned the business, always knew what he wanted, and still knows how to say "no". His band is not an employee of the management, and unlike most people in the western world is no minion of some corporation. The company managers are not even his business partners. The band does not get a few percent of the revenues, and the company everything else. The company performs contractually-obligated services, and gets a fee and a percentage. And not a large percentage.

Atlantic told Page he couldn't put out an album with no name. Page sent Richard Cole to show them the fine print. That's why the fourth album has no name, and no text to obscure the cover art. Page thought it gave the album a certain mystical purity. Don't you agree?

Page believes that real fans will appreciate his iron-clad policy of preventing the artistic voice of himself and his friends from being cheapened in any way. They have their pride. That means no bootlegs, and no promotional gimmicks. Don't blame Warner. They're the enforcers, and they're answerable.

Sure, they could loosen up and allow some promotional gimmicks and maybe make more money, like most groups do. But they're not like most groups, and can't really be swayed by a few more millions here and there, because they've been swimming in money since their first album, and they have other things they can do. They did think it would be great to do this reunion, but, as usual, they do things strictly on their own terms.

If you don't like it, and if you don't really believe in the band, that's okay. Others do. It's not about you, or the critics, and it's not about the money.

It was never about anything but the music.

And why isn't it very good?

And why did they release those last couple albums?

And why did they come back?

And why isn't it very good?

Zepp is not alone in their level of control over publishing rights. And they are not so purely 'about the music' either. Or don't you recall the Caddy ad not so long ago with 'Rock and Roll' as the soundtrack?

There are still no commercials with material from Ice Nine, the publishing arm of the Grateful Dead organization. Robert Hunter claims we will never hear a Chevy ad set to the tune of "Truckin'.

The Zappa Family Trust has yet to sell any of Franks tunes either. Though one must wonder just which of FZ's tunes would be suitable for which products. 'Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?' for Suprex or Rocephin? Perhaps 'Keep It Greasy' for KY Jelly?

I just have to say this since Farhad mentioned it twice. I'm a fan of LZ and have been since I was a teenage in the 70s. Stairway to Heaven is the last song I want to hear. It's so overplayed.

Sure, Zeppelin does plan to release a DVD of the concert, but there is no one on the planet who would consider cell-phone captures a substitute for a DVD.

You, I, and every other sane person on the planet knows this is true. However the music and movie industry have clearly shown that they either (1) don't believe this, or (2) are willing to sacrifice good will and customer satisfaction in order to wring out every cent they can. There's no recognition in the industry that some people will simply NEVER buy, no matter what, or that there's almost no equivalence between a crappy sidewalk-purchased bootleg and a real video.

How else do you explain events like the arrest of a woman taking a small clip of the Transformers movie on her digital camera? They make the disingenuous claim that they can't tell she's shooting only a few seconds - which might be protected under fair use - but ignore the fact that anyone who'd be willing to watch a version shot on a hand-held digital camera with poor sound is not someone who'd pay $8 to come into the theater.

If the industry really does believe their only value lies in scarcity rather than quality then that's a sad statement about their opinion of their product.