Who knew, Gaveston! Would I have heard any of your lyrics? I've always been a fan of yours on this board. If there's a song of yours on youtube please link us!
There's no way in hell I'm subjecting my creative work to the scrutiny of THIS crowd! LOL.
But I'll PM you my name and you can google my publishers. Most of my work was done for choruses, so unless you're a fan of that form you won't know my stuff...
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My point about groups not paying full royalties for my material wasn't to whine about it--as I said, I could take action if I chose to do so.
My point was that the laws are as they should be, but also that there are lots of instances where common sense should prevail. A bootleg of a 1950 production isn't taking income away from anyone (unless the same video is available for sale).
I don't like watching or listening to bootlegs simply because I find the frequently poor quality detrimental to any sort of enjoyment or analysis I might have.
And even when I didn't live in NYC, but rather in the cultural wasteland of Florida, I didn't watch them. I settled for B-roll clips and reviews and publicity photos.
But then, I'm a total square.
I see nothing wrong with people watching bootlegs of a performance long closed or a performer who has moved on to other things. The product one may want to spend money on is all-to-frequently gone by the time they can. Do they enable intellectual theft? Sure. But so does having a good memory and some extra money, or having to foresight to thoroughly annotate a script of a production they're in.
If you're doing it to steal or make a buck, you're a lazy shyster ****.
But I see this no different than the people who so carefully keep passing the tapes of TV series and specials or movies that have never seen proper mass release.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
"bye bye, thread I'm going to finish enjoying my birthday"
Yet you come back 10 minutes later? Ha. You said nothing constructive on this thread so...bye bye Jane. In the future, if you have no interest in a thread and think it's dumb...don't respond. Simple! We will continue to enjoy all the lovely bootlegs out there and not be complete squares about the whole thing.
Bootlegs are the Grindr of the theatrical community.* Some are here to hookup. Some are only here for networking. But at the end of the day, who doesn't have the app?
*I lied. Grindr is the Grindr of the theatrical community.
"When you start looking at your watch--as I do at other people's shows--you know you're in trouble."
-Hal Prince
Hi All. I was going to avoid this thread because I really didnt have anything to add until today. This morning I went to the Toronto Les Miserables Press preview and did an interview with Ramin Karimloo, which will be on BWW Toronto tomorrow. The topic of bootlegs came up (you may have seen him tweet about them recently) and I thought I'd share what was said, since that portion of the interview won't be in the article just because it's not relevant to the main topic.
Ramin is opposed to bootlegs, not because he cares about the lost cents because you didn't see his show. He described it as such: There are some things in this world that aren't meant to be seen twice, and that's why theater is special. Les Mis on Tuesday is a performance only for the people who were there - and it lives on when they talk about it. If you start recording shows then the fact that your theatrical event was special because you only shared it with those people who were there is no longer true. Some of the magic is gone.
Anyways, I just thought I'd add some perspective while it's fresh in my mind (and my taperecorder).