DaVille: "Clamp Down On The Bootlegging"

"I don't think enough is being done to clamp down on the bootlegging people. It's so out of hand and impossible to curtail now that music has gone into a different league and people can even go online and download music for free from places like limewire, and there is no ending to that"

So says Daville. In an excellent article by The Gleaner regarding online piracy and street-level bootlegging, they highlight the difficulty Jamaican artists are having making a decent living. Daville continues:

"Well, right now, my album sales are going pretty well, (but) not as well as I think it should be doing. This is because of the whole bootlegging thing. The people here mostly buy burnt CDs and that doesn't count. The artiste doesn't get any income from that on the monitor of sales. What I notice is that they will more buy an overseas artiste's CD in the original, but buy the bootleg for the local artiste."

But what do the bootleggers themselves think? Do they feel amy remorse or guilty about selling CDs? Apparently not. The Gleaner quotes a bootlegger called "Andre" who suggests that his bootlegging doesn't actually affect the artists at all since revenue from stageshows are what an artist such as Daville really makes $$ on.

"Well, the artiste dem really don't have no problem enuh, cause the record shop dem still buy dem album and dem mek money offa dem show dem, so dem still a rinse inna money."

But what about the background people who helped create that CD in the first place? The producer, the engineer, ... the cleaner? Cleveland Brown, Chairman of the Recording Industry of Jamaica as well as being half of legendary production duo Steeley & Cleevie, says:

"Apart from the artistes, you have different persons associated with the music... The executive producer is the person that spends a lot of money into the product, and when you produce but you cannot see the profits, it becomes a problem. Then the musicians don't make any money, everyone employed there, from the technician to the cleaning lady, is affected"

Cleevie also points out that supply must equal demand. How many times have you heard a big tune on the radio/online but haven't been able to find a retail version? Or if you do find an official copy its only available on a badly-pressed, imported vinyl 45!

In a digital era, the reggae industry must provide digital-quality media if it ever wants to beat the bootleggers.

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