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"Another View of Bootlegging." Commentary by Nik Green
Certain people have talked about "music playing the musician", and "art being a collaboration between God and the artist and the less said by the artist the better" and so forth.....does this imply that there is logically a case for the argument that music cannot be "owned" by anyone and the "composer"/"songwriter" is merely "tuning in" to whatever structural, rhythmic, harmonic and melodic information is available at that time, in that space, and which simultaneously gels best with (the "composer"/"songwriter"'s) mind/body/spirit state at that particular time? Maybe we shouldn't be talking about "creativity" in music compositional context; "receptivity" being a more apt term. Also, when a band ventures into that risky area of collective inprovisation (not to be confused with "jamming"), then "ownership" of the resulting noise becomes an almost meaningless concept, especially if the the improvisation was honest and true to the word, and each member of the ensemble sublimated their individual egos, listened to each other, and surrendered to their individual and collective muses. (Cynically perhaps, as an aside one can point out that because 99% of rock musicians take the easy route and rely primarily on ego-massage and displays of dysfunctional behaviour to "communicate", genuine group improvisation is by default virtually unexplored territory).
Bearing the above in mind, to accuse (amateur) "bootleggers" of "taking an artist's paycheck" doesn't bear out with the facts. The vast majority of "bootlegs" are one-offs by fans who have shelled out their hard-earned cash to attend that (all too rare) concert, and who often buy merchandise too. One has to be very motivated to undergo the inconvenience of carting and concealing a tape-recorder, microphone(s) and cable(s) to a concert, as well as taking the risk of them being discovered, confiscated and/or smashed up by the usual micro-cephalic neanderthals on the door, then being denied access to the concert (and possibly being beaten up as well). Once in the hall, the recording environment for the would-be "bootlegger" is not conducive to capturing a product of good enough sound quality to be able to sell to anyone other than die-hard fans, who are always the first to rush out and buy the legitimate albums anyway; this is all painfully evident in the vast majority of bootleg tapes and cds available: the adjacent audience noise and "commentary" is often as loud as the band itself; the fidelity is usually appalling, exacerbated by the horrendous motor noise inherent in machines which have cheap'n'nasty built-in microphones. (For a bootlegger to record an album of acceptable sonic quality for sale these days entails either (1) positioning a pair of quality (condenser) microphones high enough above the audience in the centre of the hall to get a decent stereo image...(rather blatant perhaps?); or (2) hooking up a stereo feed from the front-of-house mixing board to a DAT recorder...."hey buddy you got a spare set of XLR-to-RCAs??" is really not the best thing to say to the FOH engineer just as the band walks onstage).
I doubt that bands or record companies lose out financially as a result of bootleggers. Bootlegging could be considered free advertising, which increases the circulation and visibilty of a band's music, creating a larger market base rather than taking away from income generated from legitimate sales. It's more likely an issue of control. Poor sound quality reflects badly on the reputations of all parties. And also somewhere amongst all those illegitimate live recordings are some musically very dodgy moments when a band or individual players drop howlers. (Rock) musicians are only human, despite ample evidence to the contrary, and prone to making unintentional errors.
Maybe a solution is to adopt the open and tolerant position endorsed by for example the Grateful Dead, where recordists were actively accommodated and the use of decent equipment was encouraged, rather than employing the traditionally conservative "law-enforcement" approach. The latter didn't work with drink yesterday, it doesn't work with drugs today, or any other current artificially generated sin where arbitrary (usually bloodyminded) rules are created with the aim of either disenfranchising and penalizing "disapproved" sections of society, or for protecting vested interests, or both. No apologies if my rather "liberal" suggestions offend any reader more sympathetic to the heavy manners of authoritarianism and unbending control; the confrontational approach is more at home in an institute of "correction" rather than in a concert hall filled with people wishing to experience moments of art and joy. And I take it that the idea of a rock concert is more aligned to the latter sensibility? (And to add as an aside, in theory only. In the last 25 years the industry has matured and it's arteries have hardened; in these pragmatic lowest-common-denominator, greed-motivated, Reaganomic-inspired, bottom-line addicted, end-time 1990s days of corrupt, establishment-sucking, market-driven lowlife preponderance and infestation, the material outlook for the cutting edge is bleak; the whole industry will suffer as a result of this short term economic folly).
It can be argued that for a third party to record live performances for financial gain is to break copyright laws and is therefore technically a criminal act. It could also be said that it is disrespectful to the "artist" for a fan or audience member to record performances for their own personal recollection and nostalgia of the event without permission. On the same grounds it could also be logically (but absurdly) argued that for a concert-goer to recall the audio-visual memory of the gig in the playback mode of their own cerebral cortex (without permission?) is also direspectful to the artist, and deprives the industry (and the artist if he/she is well represented) of earnings. It can also be argued that it is disrespectful to the concert goers and the record buying public (the ones who eventually furnish those in the industry with a living) for any concert venue to employ and sanction heavy handed bozo tactics when dealing with the occasional cassette recorder (and/or camera). There will always be people taping shows, no matter what; the only way to avoid infringement of intellectual property rights is to remain in the closet and only perform for oneself.
So having performed the foxtrot about Frank Lloyd Wright for seven paragraphs, let's give it up for the middle ground, for once? If any socially responsible business or group of artists which exists within the realms of (the entertainment) industry can be considered a microcosm of society in general, or what we would wish society to be like, then to encompass reasonable tolerance regarding the taping issue would be a logical extension of the philosophy on which these organizations are run. Unfortunately, after much unnecessary (personal) experience of the silly-bugger end of band "life", i.e. how NOT to do things, it must be stated (despite blazingly redundant obviousness) that any socially responsible organizations (in the military-industrial-entertainment-complex fiasco) are the rarest oases of sensibility in these days of dinosaur corporate totalitarianism which characterizes the music industry (big business and the Fortune 666 in general), and which is rapidly taking over the running of the world by stealth.