Source: WikipediaBootlegging in the 21st century doesn’t quite look the same as it once did, say, even in the 90’s. Back then, you could maybe pick up a cassette tape or vhs that somebody smuggled from a concert; but you would have to be in the right place at the right time, or belong to an internet mailing list, far before most people knew what that was… and they almost always set you back several dollars. It was kind of a seedy practice that only die-hard fans and street-entrepreneurs would engage in –for the most part.

All our media these days if made for quick, easy, and cheap (or free) reproduction. One could argue that it killed bootlegging because people get most of their music, video, and other content for free or near free. What Actually happened is that bootlegging became so commonplace that the supply drastically outweighs the demand, and therefore the price got to be unprofitable for most people to go to the trouble of bootlegging. In fact, it has also become unprofitable for the artist and their label too.

Though it seems that this can of worms may be more far-reaching than anticipated, causing an overall decline in the music industry and arguably putting a downward pressure on businesses that service the music industry (recording, merch, supplies, repairs, etc.), I argue that there’s a way to use bootlegging as an effective means of advertising… that’s damn near free.

Bootlegging offers one thing that you can’t get via traditional marketing methods… It spreads like melted butter (in that it gets everywhere and it’s almost impossible to clean it all up, and my pants are still stained after washing them 5 times)… but I digress. Traditional means of recording audio and video, though essential, do present a real cost and often does require some saving up. Again, this is a basic cost of doing business for bands and no band or music group should ever EVER EVER EVER sacrifice quality in recording, printing, production, etc… fans will not buy garbage, so saving a couple bucks on the important stuff might actually cause you to sacrifice long-run sales and tarnish your band’s credibility.That said, those things cost money, and so does advertising.

If bootlegging, file sharing, CD/DVD burning, YouTube, et al. are causing you to lose money, while advertising, audio recording, photography, and videography are costing you more money, HOW CAN WE REVERSE THIS GAP?!?

The key, my friend, is realizing that bootlegging plays a vital role in your guerrilla marketing / viral marketing campaigns… if you can control it. Big companies often pay a hefty fortune to small marketing firms to come up with, produce, and secretly leak viral marketing. It’s easy.

Here’s how to use bootlegging to start a viral marketing campaign for your music group:

1. Find any and all friends willing to help you (over the course of several shows –hopefully at multiple venues)
2. Get a big indoor/outdoor vinyl banner with your band name, logo and website. Also consider some bumper stickers or vehicle signage.
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3. Hang it at every show/ public appearance you make (in case you get shot via camera phone or otherwise by your loyal fans)
4. Get your friends to record blips of you on their camera phones, have amaturish photos taken, and even lo-fi audio recording of you at shows.
5. Then post all of this onto YouTube, photobucket/flickr, myspace, and the whole slew of social networking/content sites

Since it’s all done by your friends with lo-fi, non-professional equipment… it looks amaturish (exactly like a bootleg); because of this, there’s no quality expectation from your fans (or potential fans), so you can get away with it. It doesn’t look like advertising, and it raises awareness of you and what you do.

I will caution you, however, that you should NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER EVER EVER pass this kind of stuff off as your own. If you release this quality of stuff under you own name, it will kill your credibility.