I was listening to Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 yesterday. He was talking about how much he enjoyed the Reading/Leeds music festival which took place a few days ago. During his show, he played some live recorded tracks from various bands and read out text messages from the listeners.

Quite a few of the listeners texted in asking if he could play some highlights from Rage Against The Machine’s (”RATM”) act.

“No!” replied Zane, going to explain that due to licensing rules, the BBC couldn’t reproduce any RATM footage. He wasn’t explicit on the reason but hinted that RATM didn’t want that to happen.

He then said that, although RATM had banned any professional footage of their act being taken by the likes of the BBC, that you could probably find something on Youtube.

Oh yes.

I went on to Youtube and typed in ‘Rage Against The Machine’ and ordered the results by date added. Woosh. There’s tons.

We’re in the connected mobile media age.

Everyone who can afford to go to the Reading or Leeds festival has a mobile handset. Most of them are video capable. Many of them are near-DVD quality.

Insisting that the BBC can’t broadcast your footage is just silly. It’s right there on Youtube, albeit in rather shitty quality. So now you’re just pissing me off. I’m a potential fan. I’m potentially interested in the band. I was mildly interested to see them all prancing about the stage in Guantanmo Bay style boilersuits and hoods. I got my ‘fix’ — ie. I listened to some of their stuff. But the audio quality wasn’t brilliant. So I don’t know if they’re any good. Or worth my attention.

That, then, was five minutes of my attention — possibly worth, what, a grand? Directly? If I became a fan? Over 10 years? And RATM management just blew it.

If you’d like to see the boilersuits, you can do so here.