[weedwacker]

I don't know the details to why your recording was pulled but with dat tapes even though they may be a digital, you most certainly can transfer them from dat tape to another dat tape, wav file or cdr lossy depending on the cabling used. Technically using the s/pdif or optical outs will produce a bit perfect clone to another dat tape or 100% digital dowsampled copy to cdr, using the rca outs which are analog will induce loss to the audio. It is debatable how much and if it is even noticable but it is loss. It may be from one digital medium to another but analog was bridge. Obviously there is no way to police this in most cases. For example if you have something that is a dat(0)>cdr or dat(4)>cdr(7) there is no realistic way to require a seeder to know how every copy was done or even to detect it(though the spectral police will try).

Edit:
Actually there is one way to tell if an analog cable was used, if you have a dat or cdr that is supposed to be higher gen clone from another tape; if you have the lower gen tape play them both side by side if the volume levels are not the same then you know analog cabling was used. When going digital to digital volume level is automatically fixed to the source digital medium.