It’s been announced that a company called Liberty Media will be providing up to $530,000,000 in loans to Sirius XM Satellite Radio, in return for a 40% stake in Sirius. There are perhaps caveats and loopholes; if you can decipher this article in the New York Times you might get a better understanding of it than I possess.

Whatever: It appears more and more likely that there won’t be a cataclysmic disruption in programming from Sirius XM.

Related to this, an estimable reader named Russ wrote to take issue with my assertion in a previous post to the effect that Bob Dylan seemed to approve of the widespread illegal copying and downloading of his “Theme Time Radio Hour” show. His arguments are quite valid and I thought I’d reproduce the relevant portions of our exchange here for any one interested enough to read it — and you can make up your own mind.

Russ says:

I wanted to respond to your Feb. 12 posting, specifically to this portion:

“Clearly, in Bob Dylan’s case, he seems pretty glad that people are sharing and listening to the show in all kinds of ways. On a recent episode, he mentioned an earlier show, and as I recall he said something like, “If you missed it, why don’t you just go illegally download it.” That’s funny and endearing, but also effective: Imagine a court case where someone is being sued for doing just that, and then produces a recording of Bob the DJ exhorting his listeners to illegally download the show. It would create a real legal difficulty for the plaintiffs.”

I’m not convinced you’re reading this one correctly. I think you could take his suggestion in two ways…and in my case I’m guessing he’s being sarcastic (bitterly so) and is probably not terribly pleased with how easy it is for folks to avoid paying for the show. Consider this:

1. Bob has always been very protective of his material. He has specifically stated that he does not like to debut new songs in concert because he knows they will be bootlegged. That doesn’t sound like someone who is “pretty glad that people are sharing and listening” to his stuff for free.

“Some of these bootleggers, they make pretty good stuff
Plenty of places to hide things here if you wanna hide ‘em bad enough”

2. Anyone who has attended his concerts knows he is also very protective of his image. The “no photographs” rule has long been in place. Again, I think this speaks to a philosophy that he is in control of Bob Dylan the industry and he’ll decide who gets what for how much…and when.

3. Much to the chagrin of the anti-business/corporate bunch, we’ve seen Bob do many commercials over the years. He understands what it means to run a business and clearly appreciates a mutually beneficial financial agreement. Why then, would he suddenly appreciate the fact that thousands (if not more) of people are illegally downloading a show that he has created for a company that depends on profits in order to function/exist? Especially relevant now, given the financial situation in which said company finds itself.

4. If Bob was truly supportive of such bootlegging, I believe he would have said, “…go ahead and download it” as opposed to “…go ahead and illegally download it.” You of all people have pointed out that Bob usually chooses his words carefully, and for a reason. I think the word illegally was meant to point out how, especially in this case, the idea of basic commerce is completely bastardized thanks to the internet.

I’ll finish by saying that I am not trying to make some grand, moral statement here. I’m merely offering a critique of the conclusion articulated in your post. I’m also not suggesting that bootleggers are causing satellite radio to fail. In that regard, I agree with the third paragraph of that Feb. 12 post.

My own attitude toward bootlegging is that I’ll listen to almost anything once. However, if I decide I like it and want to listen again, I purchase the CD. In the case of concert bootlegs, it’s obviously not an option. I plan on buying the Theme Time episodes that have been made commercially available.

And the relevant part of my reply to him:

You make some excellent points and you could be right — I might well be misjudging the tone of Bob’s comment. I certainly wouldn’t say that Bob isn’t a capitalist and doesn’t value his own artistic worth, and is happy to profit by it. I guess the context in my mind includes his comments a couple years back (I’ll have to look for where it was)(Addendum: It is here.) to the effect that people downloading mp3s for free online didn’t bother him because “it ain’t worth nothing anyway.” What you say about him being protective of his new songs, and his attitude to photographs at concerts, is very true of-course. But on the other hand, he really hasn’t taken any action against the enormous level of open sharing of bootleg material that takes place on the internet. I mean, when it comes to Dylan, it’s just gargantuan. You can get almost anything, anywhere, anytime. Expecting Rain, a quasi-endorsed site, openly links to bootlegs (including of Theme Time). YouTube has an unbelievable amount of bootleg Dylan content, and they are very quick to delete things if any copyright-holder specifically complains. Even RightWingBob.com posts mp3s sometimes and nobody has ever told that crazy loser to stop doing it.

By contrast, there are artists who really fight this stuff. Van Morrison is the primo example, and a contemporary of Bob’s obviously. He employs someone who just scours the net and clamps down on any and all offenders, no matter how small or how large. You can’t stop 100% of it, but you can really limit how many people have access to it.

I just have come to the conclusion that Bob — perhaps changing his mind from how he was in his younger days — just doesn’t get very upset anymore about the subject of bootlegs. Maybe he feels like it’s trying to hold back a waterfall, and creates bad-blood, and it’s easier just to go with it. “Theme Time” is different, but in that case I’ve assumed that the lack of any effort to stop the bootlegging is because Bob likes his show to be heard. After all, he seems to have a sense of mission about it, introducing people to nearly-forgotten music. So maybe he likes the idea of some kid in the Czech Republic or Argentina or Zambia being able to download it and listen to it. I just think if it were otherwise that, at the very least, someone would ask Expecting Rain to stop regularly linking to bootlegs of the show, and that the owner of that site would do so. Expecting Rain is linked from BobDylan.com, after all.

On the other hand, as you allude to, Bob isn’t the only one who is potentially losing out because of downloaders — it is all of XM/Sirius, their employees and shareholders too. When the show started, and immediately the bootlegging began, I expected to see something happen in the way of enforcement of XM’s copyright. I was even a little nervous doing transcriptions of some of Dylan’s remarks on my website. After all, everything Bob says there is copyrighted content (of-course I cite “fair use”!). But as far as I can tell, no one involved has ever so much as received a letter or an e-mail from a lawyer. Even a site like Hunger City, which has a policy of taking down anything if requested to by an artist or their management, hosts links to torrents of “Theme Time.”

So, boil it down, I don’t know. Things could change and enforcement could start tomorrow. But as it stands the inaction of all concerned is sending the message that they don’t care. If you run a fruit and vegetable stand, and kids keep passing by and stealing bananas, and you never say anything, then they’re going to make a habit of it, and more kids are going to join in. Satellite radio sure is an interesting business model!

So … perhaps Bob will drop us an e-mail and sort this out. Meanwhile, it seems, the show will go on.

…

UPDATE 3/20/2009: “Stop giving my shows away” says Bob Dylan

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