Clarifying my stand on B&P deals

[Grant Burgess <grantburgess2001@xxxxxxxx>]

Well I was looking over some of the responses to B&P
issue I brought up and I should clarify a couple of
things and they make an interesting point or two for
discussion:

1. First of all I am not against sharing the music. My
past history of sharing tapes for trees would confirm
this.

2. The arguements of hoarding,selling tapes to
bootleggers are irrelevant to my views. If you have a
show you do not wish to trade out, the best thing to
do is keep your mouth shut about it.

3. The practise that I dislike is the idea of someone
sending out emails and posting on boards where they
are requesting a show and only offerring to do a B&P
deal. To me the spirit of tape trading is if I give
you something you want, you should come up with
something I want in return.

To me this type of behaviour is like begging. You are
asking someone to provide a service (dubbing a show)
for "free" or with no benefit. It's like saying to
someone, if I let you use my lawnmower, will you cut
my grass for me.

4.I think all people who take part in trading
communities should be doing something to contribute to
the community.In addition to sharing recordings in
their collection, these activities include things like
finding shows, upgrades and even going out to the
shows and taping them. If the people are not willing
to pitch in in these activities, I wonder if they
belong in that community.

If people  don't have a lot of live recordings to
share, there's always other ways they can help out.
Many people I've dealt with over the years could offer
to share photos they have take at shows to trade for
the recordings, other people can help out by doing
things like designing artwork for CD covers etc.There
is no rule in trading that on must trade a CD for a
CD.

5. My own take on the B/P deals is I think it's OK for
someone to offer a show out and ask for blanks and
postage in return if the "newbie" has nothing of
interest to offer in return. The practise I disagree
with is someone looking for a show and their best
offer for a trade is a B\P deal.

6. If someone is good enough to share the music, you
should at least make the effort to thank the person
who is sharing it.
I look back at the tape trees I've seeded over the
years on this list. Based on my experience, about 98%
of the people who benefit by participating in the tree
do not make an effort to thank me for seeding the
show.

Anyways, well there were several takes on this
subject, I thoughtr I would try to shed a little light
on my take on the subject.

Take Care
Grant