[The Flying Mouse]

Originally Posted by Julie in the rv mirror

We're talking copyright law here, which is why the murder/mugging example, while I know your intent was to be dramatic, was not a good example. Laws against those types of actions were made for a completely different purpose than copyright law, which was made to protect the rights of the creator of something to profit from it.

Just for the record, I was talking about illegally downloaded albums at the time, not bootlegs (or if you prefare, "fan recordings" lol).
Artists are pretty much at liberty to allow fans to record them at concerts, but an artist can't endorse criminal behaviour like illegal downloading.
That was the point I was making.

It would be nice to think that copyright laws were put in place to protect the creator, but I fear it's the record companies thyat are being protected far more than any artist or song writter.

Originally Posted by Julie in the rv mirror

I'm a huge Bruce Springsteen fan (shocking, I know ), and he is one of the top most bootlegged artists (with the Beatles, Dylan and the Stones being others). While he has never explicitly given permission to tape his shows (as the Grateful Dead did), he's done very little to stop it. There are websites devoted entirely to boots of his shows, which I'm sure he could shut down with just a phone call to his attorney if he wished.( I might note that links to official material are not allowed.)

It's cool he takes that attitude.
Bootlegs are a fact of life, and people who bury their head in the sand about them are ostrich-izing (see what I did there? ) themselves from reality.
It's how you deal with them that counts.
The coolest way i've heard of dealing with illegal bootlegs was by Roy Orbisons estate.
They basically obtained the rights to the four best bootlegs, cleaned them up a little, and sold them as an authorised bootlegs box set.
So all the fans were able to go out and buy these bootlegs and enjoy them with a crystal clear concience.

I'd love to see Meat do something like that

Originally Posted by Julie in the rv mirror

The Grateful Dead did- you mean they had no right to do so? Why not- it's their performance, of their songs.

Again, the comparison I was making at that time was against copying and downloading albums.
Artists are well within their rights to allow fans to record them, they are not able to give permission to download or in any other way copy media that is copyright protected.

Originally Posted by Julie in the rv mirror

They do. And nowhere did I say that just because you can get away with something, that it's OK. I simply stated that people are more likely to do so. It's a matter of degree, IMO.

Exactly