This is for Brenna-Hamiltrash , who recently (about two hours ago) posted a chapter in her "Hamilton Crap" book titled "Problem". The chapter was a brief paragraph, summarizing her dilemma, and I suggest you go to her account to read it before you read this, because this will make a lot more sense if you do. So without further ado, I present to you a possible solution to your problem.

I know how you feel. My mom found a bootleg on YouTube a couple weeks ago. I was overjoyed. I have an app on my kindle that lets me download videos from YouTube and vine and all that. I immediately downloaded the whole musical -original cast, mind you- onto my kindle. I texted my friend, telling her about it. I started watching (my tv gets YouTube so you know I damn well was gonna watch it on my nice, big, high-res tv), and was entranced. I had heard so much about it, read countless Tumblr posts about what to look for and blocking and lighting and basically everything that can't be conveyed through a cast recording. I was so excited. I couldn't believe this was happening. Around Schuyler Sisters,  my friend texted me back, saying "oh, cool." I asked her if she wanted the link, wondering why she didn't ask for it in the first place, and she said no. I was surprised at first, but then went on to read what she was telling me about Lin and bootlegs, and how he will literally call people out in the middle of a show if he sees someone filming. She told me how against it he is and how much he hates it. I had no idea. I asked if she knew why and she didn't know. I figured it was that he didn't want people seeing the show online and then not coming to see it in the theatre. That he didn't want people putting it onto a disk and selling it. And that people would loose interest once they saw it. I knew none of that was gonna happen to me. I love the show so much, I'd never sell it off just to make money. And to not got see it if I ever had the chance? Never! And that's another thing, isn't it? I might never get the chance to watch the show. And with the massive copyright infringement on this, the show could be taken down any minute. And I only told two people about it, two people who I KNOW wouldn't ever do anything that I just mentioned. (At some point during this, I had paused the video.) I now sat on my couch with two choices. Two people on my shoulder, an angel and a devil, and I couldn't tell which was which, if either at all. I fought with myself for a good five minutes. The fact alone that Lin didn't like it should have immediately made me turn it off. But it didn't. My desire for the show beat out my love of Lin and as soon as I hit play again, the battle was lost. Oh, it was so good! More everything than I ever could have fathomed. Everything was flawless, from the facial expressions to the choreography to the lighting. And the turntables! Oh my god, turntables! I was crying most of the time, just from being able to witness such a masterpiece. It was late. Emotions were running high. The next morning I felt guilty as hell. Two days later, it was taken down from YouTube and the account was terminated obviously due to the blatant copyright infringement.

Oh but wait.

I still have the whole thing on my kindle.

Two days later I'm about to go off to camp for a week. My dad asks if my kindle is unlocked. I say no and ask why. He says "Well between you and your brother [who apparently had the first twelve songs downloaded onto his phone for some reason; he isn't even a fan] we have the whole musical, right?" ***** "Yeah, I guess," I reply. I hadn't yet deleted the musical off my kindle; every time I thought about it, the other person in my mind won over. "Why?" I ask again. "Well," he replied, "I was gonna download them onto the computer and rip it to a disk." Woah. Red flag. Alarms went off in my head, saying "No! No! No!" but my dad was standing there expectantly, and my mom was behind me saying "Come on, Julia, we gotta go." We were already running late to get to the camp, which was two hours away. "Just give him your passcode, come on!" My red flashing lights were still going off. "But-," I said. "But isn't it...wrong? I mean, Lin isn't okay with this kind of stuff. He hates it." I repeat to them what my friend had said to me, about how he calls people out and all that. My mom looks at me. "Well that didn't stop you from watching it before," she counters. "No," I reply, "but-" She cuts me off. "So what's to stop you now, come on! It's not like we're gonna sell it. We gotta go! Gotta get the job done, gotta start a new nation, gotta meet my son!" For the sake of sanity and not making a fuss, and also in anticipation of the two hour car ride I had to take alone with my mum, I concede. Do you know what it's like to be peer pressured by your family? Your parents? It's one thing to have it be peers, who are on the same ground as you but to have it be your parents? Who hold authority over you? It's not pleasant. It's intimidating. You feel like you legitimately have no choice. I didn't want to make my mom mad. I didn't want to make a fuss. I felt like my feelings were stupid and immature, and that I shouldn't deprive others of this beautiful thing just because I was trying to be *noble*. In other words, I gave him my passcode. I got in the car. I went to camp.

I got home from camp two days ago. I go back and take a break from my summer work and decide to watch some of Hamilton. Forgetting enough about Lin's opinion and feelings to brush it aside. Convincing myself "it's fine" and "there's no harm". I watch some of my favourites. Some aren't working, which is normal for the app. I wondered vaguely if my dad had managed to get the show ripped onto a disk. I go back to my work and forget about it.

When you posted the chapter about your mom buying the bootleg, I immediately went into guilty mode. Here was someone, clearly just as much in love with the show as I am, and there they are feeling horrible about their parent buying them a bootleg. I didn't even know they sold bootlegs.

The five asterisks (*****) in my backstory above are there for a reason. It was at exactly that point in writing this that I went to my kindle, and in three swift taps, deleted the folder holding the compilation of all the videos in the musical. I deleted what was, hopefully, the last traces of the musical from existence. I still don't know, even as I type this, if my dad ever got around to putting the full musical together. And I'm extremely glad to find myself hoping he didn't. I don't care, now, if I'm "ruining everyone else's experience" like I told myself I would be doing when I gave my dad my kindle's passcode. I'm not making excuses for myself, but I *am* showing how my thought process changed. For the better.

here's my advice to you: Thank your mom; she had good intentions. Thank her, but also explain to her why this is wrong. Tell her about Lin, how much he hates it and how much his opinion means to you. He created Hamilton. He gets final say on what happens to it. And his hatred of Hamilton bootlegs are far from unjustified. He doesn't care much about the money, but think: he has to live off the revenue from this musical until he writes another one. Tell her the money she may have saved by buying a bootleg is wasted. By buying a ticket, it would have gone to all of the amazing people who make Hamilton possible. Not just the actors, but the choreographers, the lighting guys, the people who work that goddamn brilliant turntable flawlessly. By buying a ticket, you would have not only gotten to see that magnificence live and in person, you would be supporting everyone who makes it possible with every cent of that ticket. But now, by buying the bootleg, you not only deprive those amazing people of the support they need to get their salaries, you fund a company that is based of bad morals and illegality. The company who made that disk broke the law by selling that disk, and so did she by buying it.

I would also report the company that she got the dvd from. They shouldn't be doing that, as it's illegal, as I said above, and it's just a horrible thing to be doing.

So if you want my advice, do what I didn't have the guts to do and tell you mom thanks but no thanks, and to next time get you a ticket, or nothing at all. Because it's not worth going against the law, and it's not worth going against the utter perfection that is Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton.