Official-Looking Unofficial Bootlegs

[ggking7]

What's the deal with unofficial bootlegs releases that look like real releases with real album art, etc.? Are there fly-by-night companies releasing these or something?

[Homebrew101]

Yes

[ggking7]

Are there a few companies doing this over and over, or are they generally one-offs? Could I buy one of these unofficial bootlegs from one of these companies?

[tgunn2760]

Originally Posted by ggking7

Are there a few companies doing this over and over, or are they generally one-offs? Could I buy one of these unofficial bootlegs from one of these companies?

You should never pay for bootlegs.

People rip them with EAC and seed them here all the time

[ggking7]

Where do they come from though? I'm interested in the lineage. Are they bought and sold on the street in big cities? Are they available on the internet? Are they real pressed discs or always burned?

I may start adding some of these to Musicbrainz and I'd like to get my mind around it a little bit.

[scratchie]

Originally Posted by roomful

People rip them with EAC and seed them here all the time

Which requires that someone pay for them.

[scratchie]

Originally Posted by ggking7

Where do they come from though? I'm interested in the lineage. Are they bought and sold on the street in big cities? Are they available on the internet? Are they real pressed discs or always burned?

They're typically sold in used record stores (the few of them that are left) and on the internet, especially Ebay. They used to be real pressed discs, but I think CD-Rs are getting more common these days.

Clifton Heylin's book "Bootleg" is a fascinating history of this industry, although it's 10-15 years old by now so it's a little out of date.

[U2Lynne]

Some (many?) of these 'official-looking unofficial' bootlegs are simply downloaded from sites like here and Dime and then pressed. So, the best source is already out there for free.

[Karst]

Second that about the Clifton Heylin book. That's a must-read. Some countries here in Europe have rather shady copyright laws. Its no uncommon to find a range of bootleg releases in the shops in Luxembourg for instance. Although they might have tidied that up now. The Republic of Ireland was pretty rife with it as well (particularly in Dublin) but there has been a clamp-down on that over the recent years. And many shops have closed anyway.

Actual manufacturing is on the way out IMHO. This place and others have done much to put the boot into production, so to speak. You still get the odd one at a carboot sale or some dimwit who decides to set up a little factory. Here in Northern Ireland some paramilitary organisations had a hand in that but the PSNI is pretty quick to roll them up. And rightly so.