Greg Lake’s rant against bootlegs and piracy.

Here it is in full for those who aren’t members:

‘’Anyone taping shows and then distributing them to the general public is stealing. The fact that they are apparently giving these things away or "sharing them" as they sometimes like to put it is absolutely no excuse.

They are simply depriving the rightful owner of his or her rights. In the case of songs and books etc these are called "copyrights".

I suppose when this does happen it is done in a sort of Robin Hood spirit of "steal from the rich and give to the poor".

Well there are two things I would say about this.

Firstly, any performance created by an artist belongs to that artist, it is simply a property that belongs to the person who created it.

The second is, and I know this may be hard for some of the more intellectually challenged to grasp, but artists can only live and continue to create if they are paid for the work they do.

If this work is stolen and then distributed for free then artists will eventually have to stop producing.

Now it may be true that some artists are very successful and therefore make a great deal of money, but that is simply what happens in a democracy and surely that is still part of the good old American dream.

You couldn't justify stealing a computer from a store just because Gill Gates happened to be rich and the same should apply to songs and music in the same way.

The idea that everything belongs to everybody is basically communism which quite frankly has been proven not to work.

Ownership of intellectual rights, (that is songs or literature or paintings etc) is no different to anything else created by someone's hard work and endeavour.

The recording from a performance is a product pure and simple and make no mistake when you steal that product you are committing a crime. Even if you later decide to throw it, or give it away.

So all I would say to anyone who intends to tape my songs or ELP live etc and then sell them or give them away on You Tube etc, do be careful to keep your name and address a closely guarded secret because I or ELP will have no hesitation whatsoever in commencing legal proceedings against you for the recovery of our property or compensation for the loss plus any damages.

And again, to anyone so inclined, please do bear in mind that it is easy these days for anyone to track and identify an individual computer by its unique ID number.

Greg Lake.’’

Oh and ''Gill Gates'' is Greg's mistake not mine. Someone posted on his forum that it's ''Bill's similarly well-off evil twin.''