The owner of "de Arabier" ("The Arab"), as far as I know, does not
want new (CD) recordings to be made, due to the fact that this is
rather expensive, and the sales would be low thanks to the expected
number of illegal copies of such CDs.

I doubt it: of course copies will be made, but this was done also
from LP- and cassette-based recordings.  And I, far from being naive,
do believe that most people, if loving this kind of music, would prefer
to be honest and pay for a copy, regardless the fact that making
a copy of CD recordings is by far much easier than from LP or cassette.
The Internet is not always a blessing for anybody, indeed.

Now this honest part of the friends of mechanical music in general,
and of this beautiful organ in special,  (including myself) has to
suffer from supposed but unproven loss of profit.

Above that, I do not believe it is a good policy.  The costs of CD
production nowadays are not so very high, which means you do not have
to sell too many copies in order to recover your investment, and making
a profit is even quite possible.

Apart from that, the promotion effect that can be achieved by CD
recordings is high, and this aspect is very important since even the
music of the Dutch street organ is slowly fading away from most people.

In this way it would be wiser if the owner would regard CD recordings
primarily not as a way for better profit, but as a marketing opportunity
for his organ and its type of music (and for his company as well).
Eventually he could announce a new recording, sell it in advance
(subscription), and start production after a certain (profitable)
number of sold copies, which could be shipped directly to the
customers. Payment in advance, no risk at all.

Jan Kijlstra