This is something I've wrote for a few other boards I frequent. I just wanted to put it here to to spread the knowlege a little...
It seems that everyone I "speak" to seems to have no idea about the reality of music bootlegs. So lets define it here and explain what happened to the authentic bootlegs that became unbelievably popular in the 90's and lets do it without shame.
A bootleg is a release of ANY kind isn't officially approved by a copyright holder, note I say officially. There are occassions where product owners actually condone bootleg relesaes, but don't do it in writing (ie I heard an interview with Eric Kretz once where he noted the quality of some of the boot cd's out there). For our purposes, it's music, but this concept can appply to anything.
In 90s there was a large surge of bootleg music. This surge was propegated by overseas and legitimate record labels releasing high quality, mass produced (albeit in low numbers) cd's of live concerts and sometimes demo materials of various bands on silver cds. Nowadays these discs are highly sought after by fans of bands because they are as legitamate as you can get and the quality is TYPICALLY better than audience recordings because they were usually made from soundboards at the shows they were burned from. Needless to say, most of the MP3 and Torrents "bootlegs" out in the internet now were actually ripped from one of these original silver discs.
Due to the fact that the Chicagoland area is a hinterland for the rest of the nation, it has seen it's share of bootleg discs come through. And in the 90s they were easily accessible...if you knew where to look. But toward the end of the decade, there was a large "sting" on people selling these authentic silver discs and they became nearly extinct. This drained the remainder of the country of there supply route, and it trickled through the rest of the nation.
The internet however, changed things again and file sharing or Peer to Peer networking (commonly known as P2P) revitalized bootleg trading. Live songs and sometimes quality demos would "make there way" onto the internet for millions of people to download and listen to. With home computers getting better and better, people can now make quality cd-s of there own. Unfortunatley though, a mark of home made cds is that home computers do not burn silver faced compact discs. As a matter of fact they aren't even released to the mass public as an option, hence whenever you see a Silver backed disc, you know it's an authentic release which typically guarantees you better sound quality and a bona fide collectible. This concept is the same for Sony's intiial workings to make the backs of there games powder coated black.
P2P has it's upsides however, as nowhere near EVERY concert of a band has been produced as an authentic silver bootleg, so the internet makes many pieces of pop culture available publicly that never would have been otherwise. Modern home printers also make it possible to make high quality inserts for your discs, but again the actual silver disc bootlegs are typically made with silk screened artwork or inserts that surpass the quality of home printers. & typically even if you can make a high res photo, you'll have to make sure that BOTH sides and inserts all line up properly in the jewel case!!
The concepts above more or less show that if we had to place CD releases on a scale we would say something to the effect that regular releases are bronze, Bootlegged CDRs are silver, but Bootlegged Authentic silver discs are gold. The creme da la creme of these releases would be unreleased material from a band because it's all new and "exclusive". Most but not all boots are live concerts, which ultimately is just a variation of something we've all arlready heard.
Hopefully this sheds some light on the reality of modern bootlegging and where it comes from for all of you people that believe it all started online. Also remember that any honorable fan will BUY the material that is publicly made available rather than ripping it off. A real live bootleg, or unreleased material is a bonus for us all, and should compliment NOT substitute our collections.
Ironman John
It seems that everyone I "speak" to seems to have no idea about the reality of music bootlegs. So lets define it here and explain what happened to the authentic bootlegs that became unbelievably popular in the 90's and lets do it without shame.
A bootleg is a release of ANY kind isn't officially approved by a copyright holder, note I say officially. There are occassions where product owners actually condone bootleg relesaes, but don't do it in writing (ie I heard an interview with Eric Kretz once where he noted the quality of some of the boot cd's out there). For our purposes, it's music, but this concept can appply to anything.
In 90s there was a large surge of bootleg music. This surge was propegated by overseas and legitimate record labels releasing high quality, mass produced (albeit in low numbers) cd's of live concerts and sometimes demo materials of various bands on silver cds. Nowadays these discs are highly sought after by fans of bands because they are as legitamate as you can get and the quality is TYPICALLY better than audience recordings because they were usually made from soundboards at the shows they were burned from. Needless to say, most of the MP3 and Torrents "bootlegs" out in the internet now were actually ripped from one of these original silver discs.
Due to the fact that the Chicagoland area is a hinterland for the rest of the nation, it has seen it's share of bootleg discs come through. And in the 90s they were easily accessible...if you knew where to look. But toward the end of the decade, there was a large "sting" on people selling these authentic silver discs and they became nearly extinct. This drained the remainder of the country of there supply route, and it trickled through the rest of the nation.
The internet however, changed things again and file sharing or Peer to Peer networking (commonly known as P2P) revitalized bootleg trading. Live songs and sometimes quality demos would "make there way" onto the internet for millions of people to download and listen to. With home computers getting better and better, people can now make quality cd-s of there own. Unfortunatley though, a mark of home made cds is that home computers do not burn silver faced compact discs. As a matter of fact they aren't even released to the mass public as an option, hence whenever you see a Silver backed disc, you know it's an authentic release which typically guarantees you better sound quality and a bona fide collectible. This concept is the same for Sony's intiial workings to make the backs of there games powder coated black.
P2P has it's upsides however, as nowhere near EVERY concert of a band has been produced as an authentic silver bootleg, so the internet makes many pieces of pop culture available publicly that never would have been otherwise. Modern home printers also make it possible to make high quality inserts for your discs, but again the actual silver disc bootlegs are typically made with silk screened artwork or inserts that surpass the quality of home printers. & typically even if you can make a high res photo, you'll have to make sure that BOTH sides and inserts all line up properly in the jewel case!!
The concepts above more or less show that if we had to place CD releases on a scale we would say something to the effect that regular releases are bronze, Bootlegged CDRs are silver, but Bootlegged Authentic silver discs are gold. The creme da la creme of these releases would be unreleased material from a band because it's all new and "exclusive". Most but not all boots are live concerts, which ultimately is just a variation of something we've all arlready heard.
Hopefully this sheds some light on the reality of modern bootlegging and where it comes from for all of you people that believe it all started online. Also remember that any honorable fan will BUY the material that is publicly made available rather than ripping it off. A real live bootleg, or unreleased material is a bonus for us all, and should compliment NOT substitute our collections.
Ironman John
