It’s a new year and Lyndahere (@lyndahere) is off
stalking and bootlegging Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea on some of his
solo gigs in America and Canada in New Hampshire, LA, New York and
Vancouver and British Columbia Canada. She did quite well in
bootlegging the Russell Crowe New York Indoor Garden Party concerts
at Joe’s Pub on 8 December 2012 on all accounts after receiving
approximately 200000 hits for all the live recorded videos put up
YouTube. Approximately $1000 tax free if she is collecting revenue
from YouTube. Not bad for four hours work when the average American
wage per hour is low.
On her Twitter page Lyndahere wrote
these tweets along with all the rest
@lyndahere @alanthomasdoyle Yes,
you were awesome, that is. As always. Tonight White River Jct. will
be Awesome Trifecta 12 January 2013
@lyndahere I love it when people
get excited about your solo music. That’s almost as sweet as is
gets. NYC show will be awesome, Alan @alanthomasdoyle 11 January 2013
@lyndahere 5.30 am airport
shuttle = time to get a bit of sleep tonight. Great night tonight
with the Alan Doyle Band. More shows alandoyle.ca/tour 11 January
2013
@lyndahere A gorgeous Dream of
Home Alan Doyle Tupelo Music Hall, Londonderry NH on Youtube
@alanthomasdoyle 11 January 2013
@lyndahere Gotta love a man who
knows right where he belongs: Alan Doyle, Tupelo Music Hall,
Londonderry on Youtube @alanthomasdoyle 11 January 2013
@lyndahere I love St. John’s
but from what I am hearing and reading about current weather
conditions, I don’t think I mind not loving her until Tuesday 11
January 2013
So what do some musicians and artists
think about the bootlegging of their live shows? After a brief search of
the Internet the opinions of musicians and artists recording their
concerts are pretty diverse. Some don’t like it and make their
opinions very clear. Others issue statements and develop policies.
Others approve for a variety of reasons with some conditions on
recording like for personal use only and no trading. Some bootleg
their own concerts and release them to fans. But regardless of what
the musicians or artists want most people like Lyndahere who buy
tickets to concerts will always do exactly what they want with little
respect for what the musicians and groups want and still call themselves
fans.
In 2000, over 70 musicians and artists
formed a coalition in the fight against all kinds of piracy. They
included Canadians Bryan Adams, Barenaked Ladies and Alanis
Morissette and Bon Jovi, Christina Aguilera, Faith Hill, Garth Brooks
and Metallica. “AAP’s goal is to create public awareness,
appreciation and understanding of the value of music and to advocate
artists’ choice in determining how their music is presented,
distributed and marketed online”. The initiative was also
supported by various companies. The fight continues in 2012 as
British musicians and artists lead by Sir Elton John, Pete Townshend
and Robert Plant wrote a letter to the British Prime Minister David
Cameron to influence the government to implement the antipiracy
focused Digital Economy Act 2010 that will assist in the fight
against music piracy.
Action seems to be taken at venues as
well as by artists and musicians at various concerts. They are
described in a bootlegger’s blog called “Starknakedtruth:
Confessions of a Rock Concert Bootlegger”. Most alleged
self-confessed bootleggers start out with good intentions and to
trade only but then get into selling attracted to the huge amounts of
money involved. This bootlegger writes about the conflicts between
his real job and his bootlegging business, developing tricks of the
trade, running a website and dealing with customers, numerous
conflicts with security and police, fights with other fans who
reported him to the RIAA and band’s management, and problems of
distribution through sites like EBay blocking the sale of some
bootlegs. He talks about fans willing to take action or
perhaps other bootleggers ratting out the opposition. “Janis’s
lawyers sent me a letter to ‘cease and desist’ in any
distributions of copies of this show, after a fan on her message
board rats me out to her lawyers. I would receive about half dozen of
such legal letters to comply to from various bands like Cheap Trick,
Journey ect in their future”. Despite all the objections from
the musicians and artists themselves, their security, fans and
actions by EBay this person continued to bootleg and sell them.
In 2004 a Finnish man was prosecuted
for spreading unauthorised recordings of Alanis Morissette concerts
on the Internet. The man was found to have swapped over 1900 copies
of auauthorised concerts recordings between 1999 and 2003 with other
bootleggers through his website. He had not made illegal recordings
himself. He was ordered to pay $21 756 in compensation to Morissette
and others for copyright infringement. Alanis Morissette was of
course at the for front of the Artists Against Piracy campaign
established in 2000 as were many of the musicians and artists
bootlegged by the author of Starknaked Truth blog.
The Dave Matthews Band is one band
whose views on tapping live shows is well documented and is on their
official site as they allow it at almost all of their performances.
Their taping policy on their official webpage states “ We feel
that each show is unique and want to offer our fans the opportunity
to recreate the live experienced through the audio reproduction of
our shows. At all taping authorised performances tapers can tape form
any ticketed seating located in the venue. Also for many of these
performances tapers are able are to purchase specially designated
taper section, normally located immediately behind the
soundboard…Taping is limited to audio-only, using microphones…We
sincerely appreciate all of our fans so we ask you that you please be
considerate of those around you by not obstructing anyone else’s of
the performances…All recordings must be used for personal used or
trading only…”.
The Dave Matthews Band unlike others
recognises bootlegging is a major problem in the music industry. They
recognised the contribution fans can make in the fight against
bootlegged material “Those of you who have passed along
information about commercialised recordings have been very
instrumental in our fight against bootleggers. An equality important
violation of the integrity of the music is the unauthorised
commercial exploitation of the band now occurring on television and
radio…And don’t forget the battle of the bootleggers is an
ongoing one”. But despite their best intention, generosity and
attempts to cooperate with their fans by allowing taping and trading
there will always be those out to exploit. A search of the Dave
Matthews Band on Youtube shows this in the number of hits of
illegally copied pirated videos and bootlegged material. Despite the
policy being displayed on their home webpage some fans remain
ignorant and choose to ignore it. In one illegal video I watched the
sound recording and the visual were from two different concerts.
To me the taping policy of Great Big
Sea has been made perfectly clear via Twitter. That is they don’t
mind people taping their shows for personal use but they don’t like
their entire concerts being taped and posted on YouTube. This is
evident in the fact the three primary members of Great Big Sea (Alan
Doyle, Bob Hallett and Sean McCann) have never officially
acknowledged or retweeted any of Lyndahere’s hundreds of videos
she has sent them via Twitter in the last year or so. Alan Doyle has
on occasions tweeted Lyndahere welcoming her presence at concerts
but never acknowledged any of her videos. Links and retweets of her
videos have on a very few rare occasions been provided by Russell
Crowe, Scott Grimes and other friends of Alan Doyle such as Great Big
Sea member Murray Foster and Alan Doyle Band member Kendel Carson.
Nearly all Great Big Sea fans respect their unspoken taping policy
and are more interested in creating memories for the moment listening
and enjoying the music than creating memories for someone else to
visit sometime in the future. But I could be wrong.
Bootleggers and those that view and
make live recordings at concerts continually justify their activities
with a range of arguments. Bootlegging is a hobby of music
enthusiasts and they should be allowed to do free from legal threat.
There is a thought that a fan base will increase if they are allowed
to video and trade in bootlegged material following certain
guidelines or rules and create a community of fans. However, it is
clear in the case of Great Big Sea and Alan Doyle that the primary bootlegger Lyndahere is not interested in following other guidelines laid down
for taping by the venues or ticket holders or those of the musicians.
Bootleggers seemed more concerned about
the fans their bootlegged videos on YouTube may attract than the
people who have already purchased tickets and are there at the
concert. In one of the official and bootlegged videos of Russell
Crowe’s Indoor Garden Party in New York bootleggers have their
cameras on in the front row and in others by the audience they are
raising their cameras above the crowd obstructing someone’s views
and shining a light in their face. There is clear evidence they piss
off some performers such as Neil Young. “With the Internet there
is no more privacy and not even the chance to express yourself in
front of your audience in the intimacy of a concert that lets songs
evolve. You can’t do this because they immediately get it
circulated”.
Bootlegged recordings made by
relatively unknown bands can be used as a cheap form of publicity
without paying for the large overheads like labour to produce it, the
license to record or the distribution. Bootleggers like Lyndahere
believe live recordings help bring in new fans who will in turn go to
concerts and buy CDs. Illegal live recordings are used as modes of
word-of-mouth advertising to increase enthusiasm amongst fans and
create a community. Bootlegged recordings are often the first
material many fans see and as a consequence may be turned off because
of the poor quality and discourage fans from attending concerts.
Bootlegging can also work in reverse and piss people off who don’t
agree with piracy, and who support the coalition of musicians and
artists who don’t support piracy. In a country like America on the
brink of an economic crisis, money for entertainment of any kind is
limited. If a concert is bootlegged in the way Lyndahere bootlegs
more and more people are going to watch it on YouTube. Rather than
spend $30 on a ticket to a show they can pay for Internet usage for a
whole month. They are very unlikely to buy a CD if they can access it
for free.
Canadian Neil Young writes in his
biography Waging Heavy Peace about being on the road, performing to
today’s audience and the presence of technology at concerts “If
you forget what you’re doing, it shows up on YouTube. If you do
something new that isn’t ready, or something old that you screw up,
it is on YouTube. If snot comes off your nose while you are playing
the harmonica and slithers down the harmonica rack onto your T-shirt,
it is on YouTube. If you say something stupid…”
References
“Artists speak out against piracy”
at www.musicunited.org
viewed 10 January 2013.
“Artists Against Piracy Launches
Nation Media Campaign” at www.interentnews.com/ec-news/articles
viewed on 10 January 2013.
“Finn ordered to pay Alanis
Morissette for Internet bootleg spreading” www.murmurs.com
viewed 10 January 2013.
Rolling Stone, “Elton John, Pete
Townshend and Robert Plant Sign Anti-Piracy Letter to British Prime
Minister”, 25 July 2012. www.rollingstone.com/music/news
viewed 10 January 2013.
“Starknakedtruth; Confessions of A
Rock Concert Bootlegger 9 October 2012”
www.startnakedtruth.blogspot.com
viewed 10 January 2013
Young, N. 2012. Waging Heavy Peace.
Penguin Group: London.
