Beginners Guide To Vining

Guide to signing up for, participating in, and running music trading vines
Rob Hughes, 2/3/03 Version 1.0

1.   What is a vine?

    A “Vine” is a method by which people share recordings of live music LEGALLY with each other by US Mail. Vines are generally run for live concert recordings      by bands that allow this practice.

    A vine consists of some “seed” CDs provided by the “viner”. The viner will announce the vine in some public forum such as an internet bulletin board, and people     can sign up to participate on the vine (see below). The seed discs then get sent from person to person, in order, and the “vinees” copy the seed discs when they         receive them, and send them on to the next person on the list.

    Legal disclaimer: This document in NO WAY encourages people to use vines for the dissemination of copyrighted material. All further discussions in this                  document relating to music sharing refer exclusively to the sharing of music that is 100% legal.

    It should also be noted that a vine is a FREE method of music sharing. The viner gets no payment for his or her vine (in fact, it costs the viner a small amount of         money for the seed discs and initial postage). The vinee also pays nothing, except for the cost of the disc that he or she will use to copy the seed discs, and                 postage to send the seed discs to the next vine participant.

    This document will further define this process both for the viner and vinee in hopes that this beneficial method of sharing music will be improved and increased.

2.   Why run a vine?

    If you have recorded music that you would like to be able to share with a group of people, and it’s dissemination via broadband networks is not a good option,         then the vine is an effective, if somewhat slow, methodology. Vining is a form of sharing, and is thus also a nice thing to do.

    When you run a vine there are certain methods that make them run more smoothly that will be discussed below. However, when you run a vine, you are the one         doing the good deed, so to a certain extent you can run it however you like, with the exception of asking for any kind of compensation.

3.   Why sign up for a vine?

    This should be obvious – you have an interest in the piece of music being offered up. There are some “rules” to participating in a vine that need to be followed,         which will be discussed below.

4.   Signing up for a vine

    When you see that someone if offering a vine of a piece of music that you like, and you express interest in participating in that vine, you are obligating yourself to do     a few things. First, you are agreeing to follow any reasonable rules that the viner has applied to that specific vine. In addition, you agree to the following basic         things:

You will send an email to the person offering the vine as soon as you have signed up for it. Making the viner chase you down for your info is rude. The email should contain your pertinent information in the following format:

Name
Street Address
City, State, and Zip
Email address (yes, you TYPE your email address in the body of the email)

Then of course, a thank you is always nice – the viner is sharing, remember.

You agree that when the vine reaches you, you will copy the seed discs and send them on to the next stop in as short a period of time as is reasonably possible. This is crucial. If the viner has indicated a REQUIRED turn around time, then only sign up for the vine if you can meet that requirement. If the viner does not specify this (and mostly they do not), then you should make every effort to turn the discs around in a couple of days, depending on the size of the vine. Since most vines are 2-4 CDs, this poses little difficulty. Above all, if you cannot turn the discs quickly for some reason, do one of two things:

1. Email the viner and discuss the delay
2. Simply send the discs on their way without copying them (this would be the thing to do if your CD burner had died, for example).

You are COPYING the seed discs and sending the ORIGINAL seed discs on to their next stop. You are NOT keeping the seed discs and sending along the copies.
With one exception described below (the “burnerless caboose”), if you sign up for a vine of music on CD-R you clearly must be equipped to make copies of those seed discs.
When you have copied the discs, send them on to the next person in a bubble mailer, with all the information that was included with the seed discs, and with the discs in whatever sleeves they were in when you got them. Play nice.
Before sealing the envelope, indicate next to your name on the vine roster the day you received the vine and the day you sent it on. Be honest.
Above all, if you hit any kind of snag, COMMUNICATE. Do not just sit on the vine. Get in touch with the viner.

5. Running a vine

If you have some music you would like to share, consider running a vine. It is not hard. The following are the basic steps:

Make a copy of the CDs you wish to vine. Then you need to make a decision – what do you want to have happen with the CDs when the vine is over? Do you want them back to vine again, or when you run the vine do you want to allow the “caboose” (last person on the vine) to keep them? If so you should set the vine up that way (see below) . It is a VERY BAD idea to vine your only copy of a recording. Mail gets lost, and some vinees go astray. Seed discs should ALWAYS be copies.
Post the vine offer somewhere. When you do, you should include the following information:

o   Info on the recording you are vining: Artist name, venue name, date of performance, and any lineage information about the recording you have. The more info, the better – it helps people decide if they really want to be on the vine without having to ask you a bunch of questions.
o   How many people can sign up? Generally, 5-6 people is about the most that should be on a vine with one set of seed discs, because otherwise the vine takes too long. Some people will run vines with multiple branches and sets of seed discs. If that’s the plan, let people know.
o   Are you taking only burners or are you offering a “burnerless caboose” spot? Essentially, a burnerless caboose is someone who simply gets to keep the seed discs at the end of the vine. This is a nice way to go if you don’t plan to re-vine the seeds – after all, they are copies you made.
o   What email address people should send their info to.
o   Any additional rules that you want for the vine in question beyond standard stuff.

Once all the vinees have sent you their info, open a program like Word or Wordpad.  Cut and paste each person's information from their e-mails onto a Word/Wordpad document - this creates a "Vine Structure", which is the list of people who have signed up It helps to have the vine travel in some geographically sensible order, but some viners prefer to send the vine out in the exact order in which people signed up for it.  That’s the viner’s choice.  Then print a copy of the vine structure to include with the seed discs, and email a copy to the participants.

If you can, it’s nice to also include a printed copy of the CD recording info (set list and lineage) if you have it.
Put the info and the discs into a bubble mailer and send it out to stop number one.

That’s essentially it. Some other key points to remember:

This is FUN! It’s about the music.
Vining is sharing – be nice.
Be respectful of the viner and the other people on the vine. Handle discs with care. Turn them around quickly. Communicate if something is wrong.
Don’t sign up for a vine if you can’t meet the rules.
When you are running a vine, it’s best if you launch it fairly quickly after it’s announced, so people don’t wonder where it is.
If you sign up for a lot of vines, consider running them occasionally – it’s a nice way to give back.

Rock on!