HW: Full Hawkestra set available for trade

[Paul Mather]

On Sun, 17 Feb 2002, Mark Edmonds wrote:

=> Now I'm getting confused. Surely the purpose of a trade is a two way
=> exchange? If the person being traded with hasn't got any music for exchange
=> (and I'd much rather trade for new shows) then they provide blanks instead?

Yes, they provide the blanks and return postage, and you provide the
music.  What you "get out of it" is to spread some good music to someone
who doesn't have it.  If this isn't sufficient "payment" for you, you
can always not do B&Ps.  Nobody is twisting your arm.  (Likewise, nobody
is twisting anyone's arm who wants to do a 2:1 trade.)

=> Otherwise, you end up burning all the discs, packaging them up and taking
=> them down the post office for nothing in return. That isn't trading, that's
=> a free CD duplication service. Also, for a couple of trades I have offered
=> recently on this list (not Hawkestra incidentally), I have spent weeks of my
=> time tidying and improving the sound quality of the original sources (and
=> this has included buying expensive software). Surely it isn't reasonable to
=> expect something simple like a blank disc in return for that?

It was not (and still isn't) my point to debate trading ethics here when
I made my original reply.  All I was doing was stating the fact that
there are plenty of people and places who will do 1:1 trades (and that
official band trading policies of those that allow trading forbid
non-1:1 trades), and so 2+:1 trades are unnecessary in this day and age.
Lots of people put in time and effort in cleaning up shows, and don't
require some kind of compensation for their time.  They do it because
they want to (for themselves), and share the fruits of those labours
freely with others.  (Don't bogart that show, my friend...:)

(I don't want to scare you, but it's not unknown for people to offer 0:1
trades [yes---completely free Hawkwind shows] on neo-quark from time to
time.)

I don't expect people to compensate me for the cost of my CD burner
(which died last week---RIP!), or otherwise finance my trading (be it
time or equipment) in any way.  If I did, I'd probably go into the
bootlegging business, and put things on an honest footing. :-)

If B&Ps are too much bother, just don't do them.  It's that easy.

Cheers,

Paul.

e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa