Quote:
Originally Posted by robgomm
In this instance yes pirating made Meat some money, and it's exactly the same more or less what happened to me too!
I had a friend who had 100's of songs on his PC including bootlegs from various shows. He also had a HUGE draw with pretty much every official release at that time on CD and Vinyl. So I got into him by listening to these songs that he had on his PC.
Then years later I bought CHSIB which I absolutely loved, went to a few concerts etc. But I wanted more. I wanted to hear Meats performances from the 70's, 80's, & 90's, at shows that had never been and never would be released for everyone to enjoy. Obviously I had heard some of the stuff from my friends PC but I wanted them for myself. From there it just snowballed, I got the bootlegs of various shows from over the years, then got every single release ever done, plus the DVD's.
So while I would agree that in the vast vast VAST majority of cases people will continue to download things illegally, there are exceptions such as myself and Stretch.
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As Mouse has said, there is an important distinction to be made between
pirated copies of official releases, and audience-made live bootlegs. The latter, in most cases, doesn't compete with material the artist has released officially. Even if bootlegs exist for shows which are later released, I don't know of any fans who wouldn't then buy an official recording because they already own the bootleg (assuming they are big fans of the artist). My own philosophy is that, while I have no problem with downloading bootleg stuff, which shouldn't be profited from (or, technically, even exist) anyway, I'll pay for anything/most everything that is officially released, because as a fan of the artist, I think it's the right thing to do.
I think selling copies of shows is a fantastic idea, and many artists already do this. However, some artists are a bit reluctant to release "raw" recordings that they haven't had a chance to listen to or have any "quality control" over. The answer in that case might be to release only select shows, but even that would require some work on the part of the artist and their team, and I'm not sure the profits would be all that substantial. Sure, there are diehards who would buy all or most shows, but I think most people might buy only the show they saw as a souvenir. It might curb bootlegging a little, but I don't think it will ever go away completely.
I do agree though, that people will continue to download pirated official material. I think that, especially to young people today, it's "the norm"- they don't know any other way. That's not to say I'm defending it. Unfortunately, I think artists do need to adapt to survive- it's just the way it is.