Hey y'all....
 Ok, I received an email RE: the warning I forwarded about the cracking down
of bootleg trading, esp. on the internet. Posting this is not to slam the
person who sent the mail or to start up that old tired thread "Bootleg: for or
against?" I wanted to make sure what I said before was clear, b/c to quote my
3rd grade teacher "if one person has a question, it's a good bet others have
the same one." And we do have a fair quantity of tapers on this list, as well
as many people who trade with others they've never personally met.

What I posted (from someone in the music business):
<< The article quoted the head of the anti-piracy efforts (a guy I know)
saying they are specifically targeting people trading/selling with web pages.
While they have
to know those are mostly fans, I think they want to set an example, and scare
people off, and it makes for good press releases.  They are far from done in
their efforts in this area.>>

What was written to me:
<<      That message about people being busted on the web for tape
 trading/selling is the biggest bunch of crap that I have ever seen !!!
 They would have to come and find you, get a search warrant, come into your
 house, search the place, take your tapes and then SOMEHOW determine that you
 PAID for them !!
        Don't worry, this has been going on for years !! >>

Folks, do worry. I'm not trying to be queer or over dramatic here, but this
RIAA group isn't messing around. From my corner of the world, I myself know of
at least two major internet vendors, big providers for the Springsteen
community, were just nailed and shut down....four other individuals who only
traded tapes were personally contacted by RIAA to take their listings off
their sites or else (one of them who teaches at a university got his school
internet privileges suspended b/c of it all)....

and why all this fuss now? Because cd-pirating has become a big business
mainly b/c of  the internet. In a nutshell, anyone with a DAT and disc-burner
can tape a show/ get a show from a trade, convert it, make 1,000 of them, make
a web site advertising that he has these discs for sale for $20 a pop and if
all are sold, this person has made $20,000 and the artist whose concert was
recorded sees none of it. Sure many people don't do this, but many others are
making a small fortune off it. It's called benefitting from the fruits of
someone else's labor, and artists and the people they employ like to get paid.
And RIAA is looking to make a point.

again, this isn't meant to start up whether having/trading bootleg tapes is
right or wrong....just to say be cautious.  RIAA's web site (www.riaa.com)
under press releases-->anti-piracy update lists their whole schpiel including
some of the  different groups they've busted already.

Hope this clears any questions...
Erica (blue [log in to unmask])