you're keen... of course I believe every word of the LA times
but anyways Robert Godwin was beginning to write at length about the end of an era when cdr copying became possible in the 90's. bootleggers are pressing in smaller quantities. Rock Show by Antrabata (l-z) was only 100 and I used to be able to find stuff like that in Toronto. Now I know of one guy who's selling cdr & dvdr stuff and that's it in the city. He's selling mp3-sourced stuff, too. I used to buy bootlegs at
many stores before I finally got into trading. Things are not what they used to be.
The reason why I find the numbers believeable is because of (a) the price they get (b) most ppl won't listen to "rare unreleased recordings" they just don't give a fuck... especially if its aud (c) anybody with half a brain realizes that you can copy cds in this day and age and can get more shows than anyone ever thought you could in the old days. Remember, I'm speaking from the perspective of somebody who didn't discover trading for a long time, I just collected bootlegs. I did tape a couple shows, tho.
The record companies are putting out tons of outtakes these days because they saw a market in it... DVD movie releases are full of outtakes now. And a lot of that is because the bootleggers exposed an ignored market. But when it comes to aud tapes or even live stuff in general it will never see mass distribution, the officially-released live stuff is a drop in the bucket to what gets taped and the reason it isn't released is because there is no market in it.
...and just to play devil's advocate with myself one thing I will give those bootleggers credit for is the fact that those silver cds will last something like 100 years, much longer than copies circulating online. Vinyl lasts even longer. So everything that has never been bootlegged will have a difficult time surviving many years into the future fwiw. Digital has to keep moving or it sort of fades away.
No members have liked this post.