Bob Dylan still popular 45 years later through fan sharing

No one calls downloading stealing any more, except the RIAA and they have no friends.

Downloading is the way music is marketed. The actual music is a commodity. The money is in the packaging, the extras, the experience of a concert.

Starting musicians give their music away to build fan base.

Bob Dylan makes more money from copyrights on songs than his records – about $10 million + annually according to estimates I saw three years ago. Dylan’s big income is from touring and all the swag he sells from the trucks.

If Dylan sold his concerts as downloads like Phish he would make even more. You can buy last nights concert online from Phish as a download.

It is people swapping Dylan concerts that keeps him alive in the concert business. Dylan is an event. You try to get to as many concerts as you can and then swap the audio. The new thing is fan videos – totally illegal but essential for his continued success.

A singer-songwriter I cover had his manager complain about my fan-video. I told them he was lucky someone wanted his fan video. I put one of his up and never got to 1000 views. Paul McCartney’s concert vids got over 10,000. What does McCartney care -he sold 50,000 tickets.

Daniel Lanois’s stage tech took my video camera and shot two songs behind the riser and right beside Lanois before he gave the the camera back.

YouTube is a community of sharers and Sony admits that by letting all the Dylan material stay online. They could insist it get taken down but then who would care about Dylan?

It is a different ere. The people are getting control, the artist is only part of the picture. It is about community and sharing. An artist who uses the word “steal” doesn’t get it.

What about Eyolf Østrem who toiled for decades to tab all those Dylan songs on My Back Pages. His stuff is better than anything Dylan had published in the official songbooks.

They tried to shut My Back Pages down but that was hopeless ten years ago. The official site is not exactly what it was but everyone has the database.

You think Dylan would be famous without all those songs we learned from the Internet.

I have almost every music book that Dylan authorized. Most of them are pathetic transcriptions. I keep them in case My Back Pages doesn’t make sense.

All those free pieces build the culture, the community. Dylan should be thanking the community because when he is gone, we will be keeping the flame alive. We keep it alive. He tours and we collect his stuff between visits. That’s why his fan base has stayed loyal for 45 years.