Bootlegs
There’s an advert doing the rounds at the moment, “He’s a knock-off Nigel…” goes the refrain. It’s a rubbish advert and a waste of money, but the sentiment is admirable.
You write a song and record it, you mix it and master it*, you release it. You sell it to people. Yes, you started it because it was your passion, but now it’s also your livelihood.
But, someone copies it onto a CDR and sells it cheap, or puts on their website to download for free. The artist complains and they’re seen as money grabbing bastards, “Where’s the harm, they’re got enough money already…”. Well, it’s exactly the same as breaking into a tradesman’s van and stealing his tools. That’s the harm.
The point here is that someone creative has made something and some talentless arsehole is making money off it. That’s just plain wrong. The ownership of any such item is not compulsory, you don’t have to have that new movie on DVD or play that game without the manual. The police will not come round and drag you away in the night if your media library doesn’t represent the correct quota of recent releases.
Talent should be recognised, appreciated and rewarded. It’s a shame that it’s seen as a commodity with the same value as anything that clunks and clinks in a Spar bag on the way home.
*Substitute, play, film, programme, game, book, invention here. It’s all the same.
There’s the (solid IMHO) argument that you’ve deprived the creator of income but that gets batted off with the counter-argument that you can’t assume they would have bought it in the first place.
A collective licensing model (like the one proposed by the EFF) sounds like the most practical solution to me. It’s happened before with radio.
In regards to music it’s probably not as relevant today as it was ten years ago. These days all the money is made on tour through ticket sales and merchandising (another bootlegers favourite).
In some ways I’m a hypocrite as I’ve got a stack of Sabbath bootlegs from the 70s, but that’s their fault for not releasing a proper live album.
I suppose the most relevant example to both of us is if somebody copied one of our photies and used it without permission or payment.
I would be most perturbed.
If you’re worried about folk pinching photos, you need some watermarks and a unique string in the image name you can search for, too. Thieving wee gits are often too daft to change the file name. :O)
Most of the bands know of the website, some have asked that their stuff is not put up, and the mods remove any as soon as they see it. Dream Theatre asked them not to put up any recordings of a couple of gigs they were going to do on an upcoming tour, as they were for future release as a live album, and this was monitored by the mods.
I think there are a members of a few bands on the forum, I guess everyones a fan of someone!
Nearly all the stuff is really just for die hard fans (or collectors) as there can be a number of nights from the same tour, so the tracklists are the same. It’s nice to hear some of the old gigs you were actually at though, brings back a lot of memories.
I won’t hold my breath, but it would be nice.
Its also true in what you say about bands making more money these days from touring and merchandise.cd sales have fallen over the years(and will probably continue to fall).Maybe thats why concert tickets are so damn expensive…and dont even get me started on t-shirt prices,£20+ for a thin printed fruit of the loom shirt,pah!
Now,those sabbath bootlegs you have…anything interesting in there? I play bass for an ozzy tribute band at the moment,so have spent quite some time listening/ watching live stuff to get those bass lines just right!
And finally,for the tightwads amongst us,TK maxx has some good stuff at the mo at extraordinarily cheapness.Trek mates bass layers,Rossignol boots,the usual Craghoppers stuff.Vaude trousers for a fiver,marvelous.well worth checking out if you have one of these stores in your area,makes christmas shopping a little more interesting.(even spotted a Paramo jacket).
I’ll get around to covering my amusing musical past on here at some point, it’s a tale of Les Pauls, 36″ flares and bizarre moustaches…
It’s a thing I miss, coming home with your new vinyl album in a bag. I kinda taked about here a while back http://www.petesy.co.uk/?p=17
I saw TK Maxx had the Vaude Stretch Alpiniste eVents in, every bloody size but Large though.
Harrumph.
although sabbath doing covers of other peoples songs would be cool.
Flares and ‘tache huh? sounds like you have a doomy past!
Still occasionally buy vinyl.I sold a few hundred of my old collection about 10 years ago and regretted it ever since.
By the way,my musical background is also a sometimes amusing one…though I never owned a moustache…purple hair…yes!
I’ve got all the regular 70s Sabbath live stuff with the extended jams with we bits of unusual songs, and the occasional gem. Then of course them doing Smoke on the Water with Gillan…it is a lot heavier than Purple if nothing else.
I still love Zero the Hero and Disturbing the Priest, classic Sabs moments.