Pearl Jam have done it, Dave Matthews has done it, "The Dead" and "The Hip" have done it. They've all let their fans tape/bootleg their shows, hoping to create a show swapping industry.
However, most of those fans can and have then gone on to sell these shows for incredibly inflated sums of money.
Now, in an interesting initiative, Queen are making loads of bootlegs available to fans as downloads for a fiver a time. According to the Guardian, the initiative, spearheaded by mop-haired guitarist Brian May, will eventually see over 100 live shows available to fans.
No word on how much EMI will skim off the top, but it can't be much as they only own the sound recordings of the albums and singles. They've given Queen their blessing regardless, not that they could have stopped it, even if they'd wanted.
Here's hoping other bands get into the act, and fans can stop paying upwards of £20 for hard to find live tracks.
-- Link: Buy a bootleg
