IS BOOTLEGGING OF MUSIC A CRIME OR NOT?

[greenman]

I think the bottom line is this: It's up to the artist. Jimmy said during the bottleg trial in Scotland last year that he has no problem with free trading of Zeppelin shows among friends. It's just when people package it for sale that he is vehemently against. When a show is packaged as product, people can be fooled into thinking it's official, and who knows what they're getting (eg: the Earl's Court dvd that came out last year). In Page's opinion, trading of boots among friends is fine, just don't sell them for profit or package them as if they're the real thing. Other artists may feel differently, but that's Jimmy's stand.

I wouldn't buy an unofficial copy of the O2 on dvd. I'll just wait for my copy to arrive free from a friend.

I would never take money out of an artist's pocket, regardless of how wealthy that artist may be. Property is property. Plain and simple.

Oh, and Kissy, legal or not, if Jimmy says it's cool with him to trade freely Zep shows, I'm grabbing all I can get!

Personally I think that just the reverse is true, bootlegging its a more obvious crime but almost everyone who buys them these days are likey to be a megafans who pick up everything the band puts out in an instant. You obvious have alot of megafans DLing/trading for free aswell but there are also a great deal of freeloaders who either illegally DL the bands offical work aswell as boots or wouldnt bother to buy say a potential offical 02 release because they have the boot.

[StringBender]

A bootleg is not a copyrighted material. It has not been registered with the library of congress, nor does it fall under basic copyright law. Besides, Jimmy says free trading's cool with him. Nice job of ignoring my post, though.

However what is on the boot is copyrighted therein lies the problem.

Meaning obviously we're not going to see any lawsuits from Tarantura anytime soon because what they are doing is illegal. No way around it. Even if Jimmy doesn't have a problem with it, record companies and copyright laws will disagree with him.

If you really wanted to get picky, even the public airing of a song without permission is illegal, i.e. your favorite cover band at the local pub decides to do "Hot For Teacher" they are technically by letter of the law breaking the copyright.

For instance, remember Jimmy and Robert putting the stops on people using Stairway in a film a couple years ago? You're doing the same thing by playing it live - using their song for your purposes, doesn't matter if you are recording it or not.

It's rarely enforced that way though....good thing, I LOVE "Hot For Teacher".

[Rock Action]

One thing is for sure here. If Jimmy releases it I will buy it. Whether I have a bootleg of it or not. Of course due to Jimmy's editing, I will have to watch/listen carefully before getting rid of the boot. But I'll still buy the official releases regardless.

[Del Zeppnile]

A bootleg is not a copyrighted material. It has not been registered with the library of congress, nor does it fall under basic copyright law. Besides, Jimmy says free trading's cool with him. Nice job of ignoring my post, though.

However each concert ticket clearly states on the back what that ticket/license allows. Not to mention that some local jurisdicitons my also have statutes on the books to deal with the unauthorized recording of live performances.

However what is on the boot is copyrighted therein lies the problem.

Meaning obviously we're not going to see any lawsuits from Tarantura anytime soon because what they are doing is illegal. No way around it. Even if Jimmy doesn't have a problem with it, record companies and copyright laws will disagree with him.

Exactly.

[MarkoRadulovic]

Hard to find a definitive answer, it seems.

From what I understand, an artist in the US owns a copyright of a work whether he goes to get it officially copywritten or not. Its up to the copyright owner to authorize the distribution of copywritten materials.

One of the questions I'm interested for my own purposes is the legality of the plethora of outtakes and demos that are now available online in all sorts of places (ex. Swan Song, etc).

Is the free distribution of these legal? From what I've seen, these were never actually officially released. When I say free distribution, I am not in any way referring to the sale of these files. Am I committing a crime in the United States by downloading these files for personal (non-commercial) use?