Probably all three, according to Timothy Simpson, an assistant professor of interpersonal communication at Ohio University, who recently co-authored a study on bootleggers, people who smuggle recording equipment into concert halls and make unauthorized recordings or videotapes. It's appealing to people because we live in a time where we are consumers cut off from the ability to produce. Bootlegging turns it around.
People can go out and produce something of their own.
It gives them a quest for adventure and they actively involve themselves in a search for history. And Simpson speaks from experience. He, too, has been a bootlegger, and often worked with friends. With the recorder slung over the shoulder and the microphone wires running inside the sleeves of an oversized jacket or sweatshirt, a small stereo microphone remains barely visible under the dim lights of a nightclub or concert setting. For the study, Simpson placed advertisements in newspapers and on the World Wide Web, and received about 20 responses from boot leggers or collectors of bootlegged tapes who wanted to tell their story.