Here we go again.

I remember the 70's, when home taping completely killed off the music industry. Record companies and artists have not made a single penny since then, and now the movie industry is going to suffer the same fate.

Oh, wait...

I for one side with The Grateful Dead. Not only do they encourage bootlegging, as it used to be called, they actually provided stereo feeds direct from the mixing desk at their gigs so that fans could produce tapes & vinyl. Their POV was that their music should be heard as widely as possible. Almost 2,200 shows were taped, and most of these are available online (wikipedia). In their book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn From the Most Iconic Band in History, David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan identify the taper section as a crucial idea in increasing the Grateful Dead's fan base.

The Dead have often been the world's top-grossing band. I particularly "like" the fact that when Uncle Jerry died, it crashed the Wall St. email system.