The only thing to comment on upon that first read, is that you charge B&P to people that provided footage. That is comedy.
You know I thought your Cologne Edit was excellent. Doesn't mean I agree with what you do. Too bad your talent as an editor is diminished in my eyes, since you sell. Whatever, I don't want to harp on that and will try and remain civil.
Lastly I have shared almost every U2 show I've recorded. If I haven't there is probably a reason, outside of "I am a hoarder". However as far as overall recordings go, I share way less of other bands. I don't like seeing my stuff pressed as silvers or sold as CD-R's. I also have an aversion to crappy editors who insist on things being fine when they aren't (Vetri?)
Which is worse, a taper sitting on a recording, or a taper selling his work?
My two cents--selling and such is a bit more grey than I'd like it to be. Everybody has a price. If I had opportunity to pay a chunk of change for something super rare that I wouldn't be able to get other wise (let's say a stash of Lovetown soundboards), would I take it? Yes. But I generally don't approve of selling/buying.
I strongly disapprove of selling a product. This is a hobby, and it's a slippery slope of selling bootlegs as a product. Once you sell a product, it's not about the time or effort that you put into it anymore--you're just salesman.
I do draw the distinction, like Chrisedge, of making an arrangement prior to the show. Then you're basically paying for the service. So if somebody buys my ticket and covers my basic expenses (parking, batteries, etc.) I don't have a problem with it. Let's say that comes out to $200. I would take that offer to tape a show, if I was interested. But if you came to me after the fact and tried to buy the recording from me for $200, I'd easily say no. Again, product vs service. If you're paying for the service, you also share the risk of things failing.
I will never sell the mixes I produce. I do those mixes for my own fun and enjoyment. Some of them I release, some of them I don't. So drawing the distinction between service vs product--if somebody paid me XYZ amount of money to mix a show, I wouldn't necessarily have an ethical issue of that. Again, doing a service. Yet I would not want that show sold as a product. And of course--if you actually paid me hourly for a good U2 mix, it wouldn't be affordable for most folks.
So in many ways, I don't think I'm disagreeing with Olli completely. I'm not fundamentally opposed to some level of compensation for time. I think it sets our hobby on a very dark path if we start flipping products for cash, and I strongly disagree with that.
Again, some may disagree with my distinctions here. I'm not saying it works for everyone. I do know that in the taper community for most folks I know, once you've been identified as somebody that sells recordings, your name is burned. Pretty sure I know at least one of the folks that Olli66 is talking about for Springsteen recordings, and their name got burned because they were identified as selling their recordings to a bootleg company. Karma bit, because the market dried up completely once Springsteen started releasing soundboards. At one point, many moons ago, I was offered $1000 by a bootleg cfor a Rolling Stones 2002 ALD recording from a bootleg company. Tempting for a 16 year old hoserama, but turned it down. Anyways, bit of a tangent there.
Thanks for your heartfelt "stories" about your (in terms of money) miserable life. Olli66 what you are doing is simply called copyright infringement and you constantly trying to incite other people to commit a criminal offence. That's the fact beside any personal ethics.
Bruce Springsteen would not like what you are doing according to the lawsuits he successfully filed against a well-known bootleg company (Ken's TMOQ) in the late 70's, calling the bootlegger whom he met in person a "thief"
But personally I have no problems with your not quite suitable behaviour as long as you keep your mouth shut and stop complaining about tapers who comply with a certain code of conduct and ethics. For us it's a hobby for you simply a business as you are constantly advertising your recordings at some well-known fan-sites.
Particularly funny are your remarks about (missing) people's gratitude -that's life, if you can't live with this matter of fact then stay away from sharing.
Being a hypocrit too by accusing a taper selling his recording to a bootleg company (which is in general fine for you if I read your post correctly) but not selling the other one. Maybe you envy the mobster company for not getting the recording by yourself using it for your DVD's. Spoiler (click to toggle)The worst guy I propably ever came across (not directly! only through another person) is a U2 fan (IEM taper) who also went so some Springsteen shows and recorded them. He sold his Kilkenny recordings to Godfather. One show never saw the light of day and the other one was poorly mastered by Godfather. Two tapes waisted.
Conclusion: selling is not a suitable behaviour - but I also would buy an unreleased soundboard of some bands because it would be tempting...
I think hoserama's post is a very good explanation.
Assuming some tapers accept/want to get paid *in some way* for recording a certain show, for me the BIG difference is getting paid beforehand or afterwards, as well as the payment issuer.
-Getting paid beforehand, in some of the ways described above is fine; you make an arrangement (I'll get you a beer/ten beers/a free ticket/ten free ticktets/whatever, and you get me a recording of the show) so then you're doing a service and getting paid (or "paid") for it. That's fine - I wouldn't do it but it's cool. That can go south as well, as we tapers know that taping is no piece of cake and things can go wrong (empty batteries, full cards, wrong settings, bad sound at the venue and lots of other factors), so whoever is paying knows there are some risks. The "beforehand" payment can actually happen after the show, but as long as the arrangement was made prior to the gig and you knew you were taping for some people, that's fine. And you can't take further responsability for what happens to your recording afterwards; if whoever paid to you for taping wants to press and sell it, the most you can do is pray that they don't use your taper name and you don't get crucified among the taper community, sadly. (*)
-Taping the show (for yourself or for others, doesn't mind here) and then getting paid by the final consumer (watcher of the video, listener of the audio recording, whoever) is not acceptable as you're making money from another's copyrighted work (aka the artist, who might want to make money from that performance at some point in the future). It's even worse if you didn't actually record anything and/or you're actually working ith OTHER'S recordings (for example, doing an audio matrix, or a multicam) - you don't even have the "I did it myself myself" factor. It is, in fact (as karlheinz kindly pointed out) a criminal offence, and should be treated as that. There's a reason why bootleg selling is forbidden in most online & physical retailers and stores. And moreover, jus tto get a tiny bit personal... if you make money out of uninformed/untrained/naive fans, then you're an asshole to my ears.
(*) Personal story: I once was taping a rock show, a guy noticed what I was doing, and offered me 40 bucks if I sent him the master of the recording. I told him to save his money, we had a beer together after the show and I got his email so his was the first one to listen the recording, he was a cool guy. Some time after that, I learnt he was selling a poorly pressed version of my recording on the band's fan forum and on ebay. I was pissed but there was nothing I could do about it - at least I know I did the right thing. And thank God they didn't mention me in any way - my taper ego was pissed but relieved at the same time. I prefered not to get part in that in any way.
Thank you for your empathy karlheinz regarding my miserable financial situation.
But no, I am no hypocrite.
The IEM taper is entitled to do with his recording whatever he wants to do with it. I never blamed him for the sheer act of selling his recordings.
I just think it is a waste of (taping) efforts to sell the recordigns to a bootlegger who is known for messing up the sound fidelity of all the recordings they put out. Godfather is even worse than Crystal Cat when it comes to sound mastering. Besides that one show was only good for some bonus tracks. If the taper would have used other ways of distribution we would most propably have both shows in its entirely and with better sound.
Regarding Bruce's issues with bootlegs from his live gigs: "Bootleggers roll your tapes" (that's a quote from Bruce himself). Bruce and the management don't like studio material to be stolen and published. That is the only case to my knowledge were action was taken. An artist like Bruce with a fanbase like he has and the legendary live status he has: Bootlegs do hold up that legacy, carry it, expand it. Many big rock stars don't get recorded by fans or bootlegged because there is simply not the audience for it. Bruce and U2 have the audience and I am pretty sure they don't care about live recordings of their gigs. Maybe it is even the opposite and they like the fact that they are so important to a few people.
Your are welcome Olli66.
It was the Winterland 78 FM broadcast and Ken & Vicky Vinyl's (Stones Fan) puppet got blamed (sued) for the release. Bruce changed his mind about bootlegs when he achieved some kind of "superstar" status:
“Dave Dimartino: Why did you change your opinion about bootlegs?
Bruce Springsteen: I felt that there was a point there where, when it first started, a lot of bootlegs were made by fans, there was more of a connection. But it became, there was a point where there were just so many. Just so many that it was big business. It was made by people who, you know, they didn’t care what the quality was. It just got to the point where I’d walk in and see a price tag of $30 on a record of mine that, to me, really sounded bad, and I just thought it was a rip. I thought I was getting ripped, I wrote the music, the songs – it all came out of me! And I felt it was a rip, and the people who were doing it had warehouses full of records and were just sitting back, getting fat, rushing and putting out anything and getting 30 fucking dollars for it. And I just got really mad about it at one point. “
Bootlegging companies are often run by mobsters -like "Teddy Bear" records (Italian label now deceased) as a well known example and with selling your recordings to such enterprises you may support organized crime too.
They often don't care about quality (did they ever?- maybe a few did like TSP from Luxemburg) but just about the money they gain from the sales.
The Godfather label was know for his overcompression and applying shrillness to the recordings they got, especially their infamoius Pink Floyd releases were terrible. Though they didn't record anything by theirself but just releasing some stuff they downloaded from well-known torrent sites.
As conclusion I think everybody should know for themselves what is acceptable ethic behaviour but you should avoid crossing the line or you may end of the dark side being a bootlegger.
Which superstars don't get recorded? Maybe the dancing acts like Madonna, Shakira, Beyonce, Justin Biber, etc. -wouldn't make any sense to record them because almost everything they perform "Live" is pre-recorded at least their voices apart from announcements.
karlheinzU2, I get your point and even Bruce's point back then. Still, I think most artists today know that they have no loss because of live bootlegs of their shows. Instead they should take a high demand as a hint to release live recordings of their shows themselves.
I know small bootleg companies like Anubis with an edition of 100 copies per release. And those are small fish and I never sold a video that often. So you now know in which waters I swim.
I know that some folks sold back in the day (before youtube) single cam shoots or 2 cam mixes done in a rush within a week of the show's end in the range of 200-400 copies (if I can believe their sayings).
Today you can do the math from the download figures. How many people download I+E recordings these days? The first one got the most downloads. Now there is hardly 300 people downloading them. That is nothing and for sure no number that U2 or Bruce would ever care for. A lot of Superstars get recorded but hardly any get recorded as much like Bruce and U2. There is a strong fan community here which differs not only in numbers to most other artist's fan bases.
The times of bootleg sales are over, video at least, that's for sure. It will take some time and mabye major bands to comment on the crappy youtube generation.
One band already does. I don't remember their name but if you pull out your cellphone you get shot.
Everybody takes shitty videos and photos these days, even turns his back to the artist when he comes close to take a selfie. People have no manners and hardly no sense for quality. If I was a musician I would be offended by the many cell phones. I would have a video on the videoscreen before the show that runs in a loop and does advice people to keep their mobile phones in their pockets, enjoy the show, pay respect and only video record if they are certain that they will end up with quality footage. Ha ha ;-)
Have a good day. I meet friends now and later today I am going to see an awesome new artist: Jesper Munk.
Haha so you're implying you are making money out of bootlegs in order to the artists to realize they could make money themselves and start releasing official recordings? hahahaha
when an artist's management checks the forums and dime they see demand.
guess what I did prior to this tour? I sent a letter to U2's managenent suggesting they would do live releases like Pearl Jam, Metallica, Springsteen etc. with the sales benefits going to the One organisation. the costs involved for a "on the fly mix" of a show and digital distribution are nothing for bands like U2. they could easily do it.
If we were to ask the following question to most artists: "Do you approve of individual's selling recordings of your concerts?", I think a very common response would be "No", regardless of the quality.
Of course, it would likely be the same of the question "Do you approve of individual's recording concerts from your ear monitors?", but that's another thread for ethics of concert recording.
So I go back and forth about really factoring in the artists wishes on the hobby. Members of U2, generally speaking, has verbally endorsed the recording & trading of their live concerts. Of course, their actual policy at shows does not reflect that, but let's forget about that right now. However, they have spoken out (somebody dig up the actual quotes) against people selling these live recordings. My interpretation of these statements is the personal approval of recording & free trading/distribution of the concerts. Sort of a "by the fans for the fans" type distribution, but clearly not selling.
Olli66--you should listen to my mix of Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders I posted on DIME. She hates cell phones out, and chewed out a guy in the audience with her self phone before even a minute into the first song.
I really think the 'altuistic' argument of "sell the recordings to demonstrate the demand, therefore the band will start selling themselves!" is disingenuous. If that was the main motivation, surely you'd feel comfortable donating all the money to charity of the band's choice. But of course, there's the desire to be financially compensated (meaning profit) for the product.
Plus the band knows the demand is there, it just depends if they decide to tap into it. It was Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20, of all people, that finally talked Bruce Springsteen into releasing soundboards. Just one of those stars aligning in the sky at the right moment deals. Who knows if that'll happen for the U2 crew. If I was ever in an elevator with a U2 band member for 30 seconds, my elevator speech would be directly about releasing soundboard recordings. But until that day, I'll leave the selling to the copyright holders.
"We invite people to bootleg our shows. We invite people to make copies, we've no problems with that, but if some guy is gonna make money off the back of this, we're gonna find out where he parks his car."