The Effects of Piracy upon the Music Industry: a Case Study of Bootlegging

The central argument of this article is that it is impossible to interpret how the consumption of pirated music affects the music industry without an understanding of the meanings people give to their uses of such recordings. Recording industry statistics on this topic employ an erratic and simplistic methodology which is more concerned with rhetorical impact than with accuracy. There are different types of musical piracy and each has idiosyncratic effects upon the industry, which must be researched in order to gain a more complete understanding of piracy. This article offers an analysis of one area of illegal musical production and consumption - that of bootleg records - as a case study, and argues that, while industry representatives complain of the economic and social harm caused by bootlegging, its effects are more difficult to ascertain and may even have a positive impact upon legitimate sales.