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This is still a draft of an advocacy page telling bands about the benefits of becoming TradeFriendly, if they aren't already. Feel free to add some cheerleading sentences, as well as corrections and clarifications. :) BENEFITS TO BANDS AND FANS There are a number of positive benefits to becoming taper-friendly, for bands and their fans: - The communities (like those at etree.org and LiveMusicArchive) that are organized around taper-friendly bands reach an audience of people for which music is a big part of their lives. A lot of people can hear your material and find out about the band. - New recordings going into circulation give fans something new to talk about regarding your band, and allow them to re-connect with the band. With so much media bombarding everyone today, it's easy for the link with your band to fade a few weeks after a live show or a record release. A new tape of a show, recommended by another fan, can do a lot to bring back that raise-the-hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck, these-guys-rock feeling and keep fans interested in the band. - If your band doesn't have a recording contract, or isn't getting much promotion, it can be a great way to help spread the word at essentially no cost to you. Some of these examples may be over-used, but being taper friendly has helped Dave Matthews, Phish, [... more] build active fan communities. CONCERNS BANDS MAY HAVE WITH BECOMING TAPER-FRIENDLY Some of the concerns that bands might have are discussed in this section: - The communities (like etree.org and archive.org) that are organized around taper-friendly bands are pretty good at respecting the requests of the bands. So if (for example) you're OK with audience tapes being circulated, but don't want soundboards, IEMs, ALDs, etc in circulation, those wishes are respected. If the band decides to modify its policies from time to time, those wishes are communicated and respected as well. - Often there's a concern that sub-par material will be circulated. On the technical side, the etree community is very quality-oriented and careful about how capture and transfer is done. In terms of the performance, in practice there's something of a natural process that gives the better material the widest circulation. The shows where the band comes across well are the ones that get recommended and given to friends and other members of the communities. In addition, the taper-friendly communities appreciate live performance, and understand that the magic of live performance is that the band and the audience get one shot at each show, and there's no telling what may happen. - If you're concerned about "bootleg" recordings (unauthorized releases issued by for-profit sellers), the reality seems somewhat perverse - discouraging bootlegging ends up creating it. Those bands that discourage sharing of live recordings end up supporting the most active commerical bootlegging activity. Those bands that are taper-friendly find that no one is selling the shows, because fans are sharing them freely and in high quality among themselves, with no money changing hands. HOW TO DECIDE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU [Discuss - typical cases or options re: AUD, SBD, video, etc.? - bands for which this may work especially well? For example, those with strong live shows, and especially those without other commercial promotion?]
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