[Five]

Originally Posted by TFEC

Maybe it's some sort of variant on the Stockholm Syndrome, but after reading Freezer's comments on various message boards over the years, he's starting to make sense!

Yes I agree there's gold in these posts. Here Freezer is giving his take on keeping the trading pool clean & makes sense:

Originally Posted by freezer

The recording that Tooleman put the watermark on is in circulation already anyway. Has been for years.

The easiest thing to do was just ignore this "Tooleman" version altogether and just take a deep breath and and wait five minutes until you can get an unblemished version without the marking.

It was just that easy....... this is all "much ado about nothing" -- right?

Step back and think about this.......... Within 5 years there'll be 52 competing versions available anyway.

Hardcore traders want the best available source... the unaltered original source.

Originally Posted by kingjman

So then we all agree on lowest gen with correct linage listed?

Sometimes the master is not stored well and a 1st gen backup will sound better. But most of the time, absolutely.

Originally Posted by kingjman

IMO it was just a waste of time for him to remaster.
He was not successful at what he was trying to accomplish.
He wanted credit for cleaning up a recording...
Not much credit 'cause he didn't really clean it up by adding impurities.
...and it's not gonna prevent sales of his mixes by so-called progressive rock
restoration groups in such far-flung and exotic locations as Atlanta.

Exactly

Originally Posted by AAR.oner

back on topic, i'm fairly sure staff is in agreement that although this instance of "watermarking" [and all watermarking in general] is completely ridiculous and unnecessary, trying to police every recording for "marks" is impossible...and banning them would only encourage folks who employ this tactic to come up with more creative ways to do so, further muddying up the pool

hopefully in the future, when a recording is stated to have, or found to have, a "mark" by a d/l'er, they will make it public knowledge in the thread and others will be able to choose whether or not they want to d/l it...much like how "re-masters" are handled

Yes, this is exactly how I feel.