A small point of clarification:
"Trading" traditionally refers to people *trading* (i.e. not selling)
bootlegs of unreleased recordings, usually concerts but often demos, etc.
This is a lot different than "pirating", which is someone duping one (or
more) copies of a commercially available recording and
giving/trading/selling it. This ranges from making a (tape/CD/MD) copy for
a friend (so they don't buy it) thru ripping MP3s and putting em on an FTP
site thru "apartment pirates" that crank out copies with CD duping machines
and sell them on the street. Pirating is what keeps the record companies up
at night.
This is a small but crucial distinction. Traditional tape/MD/CD traders are
usually diehard fans that have every bit of commercially available recorded
output from an artist and are first in line at the store anytime something
new is released, but who collect rarities and bootlegs that aren't available
through traditional channels.
There's a direct correlation between the pirating of commercially available
recordings and lost revenues for record companies. It's a tougher time
proving a loss of revenue for record companies due to "honest" bootleg
trading by fans who will scoop up *any* commercial release by a particular
artist - even lame ripoff tactics like greatest hits packages with a handful
of "new" tracks to guarantee sales to the fanatics (remember Pink Floyd's
"Shine On" box set?). Some labels recognize that there's a market to
exploit and make the boot stuff available for a fee thru fan clubs, etc.
(Frank Zappa, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix's family, etc).
Scott
BTW, as a side point, there's a surprising number of artists that make a
lot more money off of live shows than record deals....they are ripped off
far more by their record companies than by the pirating of commercial
recordings. But that's another thread.
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