Re: coupla quickies

[nrc@cbema.att.com (Neal R Caldwell, Ii)]

>From article <9107301713.AA07401@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL>, by fingerle@NADC.NADC.NAVY.MIL (J. Fingerle):
> 
> 3. I don't know if this might get me flamed, but *I* wouldn't mind
> if the two extra cds were bootlegged verbatium and made available in 
> the US.  While I'm certainly aware that KaTe would be the victem of
> lost profits, *I'm* the victem not having this music just because
> of Capital's corporate crap when they refused to carry _Sensual World_.

I think you mean _This Woman's Work_.  

Strangely enough, many fans claim that they were victimized by EMI 
when they were forced to buy the boxed set.  I don't believe for an 
instant that they were forced to, but that seems to be their attitude.  
Now you're complaining that Columbia has victimized you by failing to 
participate in what others have called a rip-off by EMI?  This is a 
pretty specious justification for such a cavalier attitude toward 
Kate's legal and ethical right to her control her material.

Columbia seems to be pretty aware of the nature of Kate's following.
They would have to be complete fools not to realize that most of the 
market for this set was eaten up by the import boxed sets and bootlegs 
of the B-sides.  Additionally they did not have the ready stocks of the 
original recordings that made the set such a lucrative offering for EMI.  
Columbia doesn't even own the rights to most of the material in the US.
Those old CDs are now a slow but steady source of income for EMI and 
it would be foolish for them to allow Columbia to eat into that market
without charging a premium.

Columbia's decision sounds like good business sense to me.  

> And after all, if someone would tape these for me, wouldn't KaTe
> *still* not be getting profits?  Really, the only difference is that
> the squid record moguls would lose out.

No.  You would not be paying Kate for the right to have a copy of
these songs.  Someone else may have payed her for the original but
that person doesn't have any right to copy it except for their own
use.  If you want to own a copy you should pay Kate -- and yes, the
squid moguls that made the music available to you to begin with --
yourself.  Doesn't it really amount to, "I want this material but 
I'm not willing to pay what they're asking for it?"  

Don't worry you're not the first Kate fan to dream up convoluted 
justifications for violating Kate's rights in order to obtain the 
material the want.  The Bush family explicitly requested that the 
Cathy demos not be distributed in any way.  In spite of that some 
folks justified the heavy copying of the Cathy demos by saying that 
it was an effort to prevent profiteering by bootleggers.

It's difficult to imagine that such intelligent people could think
that their meager efforts could make any sort of dent in the
established bootlegging channels.  The whole thing looks even more
foolish considering the tacit support that these bootlegs received 
in this forum soon after.

No, I don't claim to be morally or ethically perfect, by any means.
I do, however, think that the casual atitude to toward violating 
Kate's rights that is sometimes displayed among her fans is an 
interesting counter-point to the reverence that is so often 
expressed by them.


"Don't drive too slowly."                 Richard Caldwell
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