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Re: If it costs money to distribute your music, why would you?
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Quote Frisonic:
Which I suppose is why, given that everyone else at the time was obsessed with preventing bootleggers from recording their live gigs, the Grateful Dead set up bootlegger recording enclosures.
It's difficult to draw parallels. For starters, The Grateful Dead used taper tickets to enforce the principle that taping was not done for profit. They performed an ever-changing and partly improvised show, giving fans a real reason to follow them around the country. The bootlegs were a key part in creating and reinforcing the culture that developed around the band. It was part of a carefully cultivated synergistic relationship between the Dead and the deadheads. Every bootleg tape that got shared connected two likeminded souls, with the Dead in the middle. The product they were selling wasn't the music of The Greatful Dead, it was community. The deadheads were a tribe, the music was just their soundtrack. As Bill Graham said, "They're not the best at what they do, they're the only ones that do what they do.".
Ultimately, I think the problem at the moment isn't about getting people to pay, it's about getting them to care. There's a glut of music, endless amounts of stuff to listen to at negligible cost. In contrast to that, the music festival business is booming and what used to be a weird hippy pursuit is now utterly mainstream. People who hardly listen to music and certainly won't pay for it will happily shell out £200 and trudge through mud to be a part of something. Noise is meaningless, noise on a disc is worthless, it's what that noise stands for and what it connects people to that is valuable. Our job as musicians is no longer to make pleasing noises, but to facilitate and enrich connections and communal experiences.
The market for something to believe in is infinite.
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