another interminable thread on selling bootlegs

[markfiend]

@ Wayne. Good points all round. I'll admit to being a "lazy collector" and it's easy to forget that all these weeds and trades come from someone smuggling recording equipment into the concert, which can be a risky business.

However:

Ebay - rather than getting self righteous about people selling stuff

A digression on ebay bootlegs:

I, and I imagine most of us, have no objection at all to people selling recordings that they have made; for example, no-one complained when the guy who had video-recorded the "Wake" gig from the audience put his own video up on ebay, and why would they?

What is out of order is people selling stuff they've obtained through weeding, trading, downloads, whatever, and so making money off the back of something they didn't put much of an investment (not necessarily financial) into obtaining.

[itnAklipse]

On the other hand, people are buying also that kind of stuff from Ebay, which means that obviously they don't know (or care) how to obtain such things through weeding/trading...so whilst it's admittedly dubious to sell stuff obtained freely and without investment, it does serve some people (just for clarification: i've never sold such stuff myself...i've only sold some pressed bootleg-cds which i've naturally have had to buy in the first place). i doubt anyone gets immorally rich by such practises but if someone is really that short of pocket money, there's at least some moral ambiguity to argue for and from the practical point of view, i doubt anyone is losing anything coming to them because of them.
Money is always morally a very difficult subject and usually i simply content myself saying that people do whatever they have to do to obtain it, and for most cases that's quite sufficient.

[mugabe]

I, and I imagine most of us, have no objection at all to people selling recordings that they have made; for example, no-one complained when the guy who had video-recorded the "Wake" gig from the audience put his own video up on ebay, and why would they?

I do, unless it's a nominal charge to cover expenses. I do recognise, though, that the general consensus these days is no longer "don't make money off other people's labour" but rather "if you can get money for something, go get it".

[itnAklipse]

mugabe: To be able to agree with the first retort would necessarily require believing in the usefulness and correctness of our wonderful western society itself and values it claims to assert...and since i don't, i find it utterly impossible to take such retorts seriously.
But i do find it difficult to escape the conclusion that you are somehow suggesting i would be morally bankrupt or lazy or in the very least cynical and self-centered, and can only say that if you think such a thing, you couldn't be more wrong. The problem is...my code of ethics is my own and hard to understand for those who simply accept the so-called code of ethics fed to them by the system and its propaganda agents.

[markfiend]

I, and I imagine most of us, have no objection at all to people selling recordings that they have made; for example, no-one complained when the guy who had video-recorded the "Wake" gig from the audience put his own video up on ebay, and why would they?

I do, unless it's a nominal charge to cover expenses. I do recognise, though, that the general consensus these days is no longer "don't make money off other people's labour" but rather "if you can get money for something, go get it".

I'm not sure, but I think you misunderstand me. I'm not advocating the type of bootlegging where someone records a concert, then takes that recording down to a shonky CD pressing plant and makes big bucks off the back of someone else's music. All I mean is that, say, the audience-filmed original VHS camcorder tapes might be sold as a memento of that particular concert.

Anyway, I think the ebay stuff should probably be split off into a separate topic...

[czuczu]

I used to be a fan of ebay but I've grown to hate it - the occasional bargain doesn't really compensate for all the money grabbing wankers selling things to idiots with little understanding of value for money....
£15 for a cdr? More than that for a DVDr.
And bootlegs are the tip of the iceberg - people touting tickets at 5x face value on ebay should have their fingers removed.
I used to like picking up the occasional nice piece of vinyl or a decent silver disc at a record fair but I'm much happier sticking to the occasional trade (or weed) to get my fix

[itnAklipse]

Basically i again agree, but i bought this most dedicatedly made cd-r once that was a fair thing in all aspects indeed, and didn't feel ripped off at all. In that case, trouble had been gone through in all aspects to make it as good a thing as possible, and i don't hold professionally pressed cds in higher value for the sake of them being professionally pressed. Cd-rs can be wonderful things too.
And thus i had no qualms with paying the typical cd price for it.

[mugabe]

I'm not sure, but I think you misunderstand me. I'm not advocating the type of bootlegging where someone records a concert, then takes that recording down to a shonky CD pressing plant and makes big bucks off the back of someone else's music. All I mean is that, say, the audience-filmed original VHS camcorder tapes might be sold as a memento of that particular concert.

Oh, sorry, I definitely misunderstood this. I thought we were talking about selling copies. My apologies to those affected.

[markfiend]

No harm done, I'm sure