yep thanks to matt and the others who support artist & label rights! but
really....DUH!!
would add is that even though I think it's a tad irresponsible to release
but wait tristan..."irresponsible" !? labels have ZERO responsiblity, much
less any inherent ability ($ wise or business sense) to maximize
supply/demand or follow some maximum-efficiency capitalist model
bullchit...no offense! it is of no concern to the record collector whether
something gets repressed or not, they have no right to expect it, it's all
on the label/artist to do it..if they do it the collector should be
thankful, period...personally, once something sells out, thats good enough
for me, the fact that it might be going for a bit of $ on gemm and there are
more people out there that want it...i really don't care. its nice to make
more money and reach more people but once you've already succeeded in your
original plan there's no strong compulsion to do it all over again just to
see how far you can go...know what i mean?
i give a personal example since it is something i know in my own experience
-- there is one dL record in particular, macho cat garage, which is sold out
and our distributor has been pushing us for almost a year now to repress as
there are lots of re-orders etc etc. well, someday we will (probably) but in
the meantime we are spending our money on new releases and paying our
artists. we do try and make money but there is a time and a place and i
swear if somebody bootlegged our chit before we even got a chance to execute
our own plans (afterall, dammit, we own this music!) then minto and i would
get on our brass knuckles and be after some fools!!...we would be soooooo
mad -- there really isnt any rationalizing around how wrong and just illegal
bootlegging something that is still clearly the property of another label
is...even once a label doesnt own music anymore (usually a 5 year term), at
least contact the artist because then it is owned by them again. it's just
completely PUNK (and i dont mean rocknroll) to not even make contact and try
to do things right, not to mention ILLEGAL (ok some laws are stupid but not
laws that protect artists!). no one asks for bootlegging to happen, thats a
crazy and selfish way to look at it. who cares if suckers and record junkies
are dropping all their $$ on overpriced stuff on gemm that you can still
find in shops, or have some email buddy of yours find in one of their local
shops..that's part of being a record collector!!...there are loads and loads
of records out there in demand but out of print, if it is suddenly excusable
to bootleg them just because the labels/artists choose not to....things are
gonna get really nasty...thats gonna kill the appeal of even running an
underground label and putting out music for a lot of label owners and
artists...
ultimately a moral (or artistic) issue - and if you don't buy that, it
actually, really, it's neither -- when it comes down to it, it's a legal
issue!! looking at it as an artistic issue is just being nice. it's much
more black & white than that. copyrights exist for a reason..
i do think older records/songs, which have no clear legal ownership anymore
(dead label and or unreachable artists -- making licensing
difficult/impossible), well then thats when bootlegging is strictly a
moral/artistic issue. like these automan records -- altho i wonder if
automan even tried to license any of the songs?...usually licensing is not
even very expensive, it's usually very reasonable and flexible. i do
understand how dj's can get pissed when some rare record they play and have
made "their own" suddenly gets bootlegged and everyone has it...but the dj's
would be just as frustrated if the record was officially re-released so
thats not really a complaint that has much merit..
needless to say, i agree with ur and kdj completely...i see no gray area in
this...
jt
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