NEW SITE NEWS
If you're looking for news about the new BitTorrent and trading site I'm working on, the following link will be the permanent home (even after site launch) of news, updates, and status of the site:
[archive]
Introduction
“Some of these bootleggers, they make pretty good stuff” –Bob Dylan
Welcome to my live music trading website. Traditionally, "bootlegging" refers to the rather seamy business surrounding unauthorized recordings. It generally meant that someone was illegally obtaining material with the intent to make a profit from an artist's work. Unreleased studio tapes were often stolen or bribed from money-grubbing studio-hands. All manner of methods were employed to obtain caches of live concert recordings that could be used to make bootleg records or tapes, and eventually CDs. Before the communications explosion of the mid 1990s, most fans had to shell out obscene amounts of money to acquire recordings that were oftentimes sonically inferior to "official" releases. It was rarely a rewarding purchase, but the hardcore fans of certain artists would do anything to obtain clips of music they would be able to purchase in a record store.
As with much of popular society, bootlegging took on a new face at the advent of the internet. Fans of music who simply wanted to hear recordings they otherwise wouldn't be able to developed distribution channels through which unofficial music could be traded. This practice has grown to such proportions that many people who are serious about music have begun collection and trading bootleg recordings.
The goal of the owner of this site is simply to collect and help others in the hobby of collection bootleg music. On this site, you will find no officially released material. Most modern bootleggers (myself included) believe that nothing should be traded that can be officially purchased through normal commercial avenues. We take a strict stance against music piracy, and believe in the virtue of financially supporting the performers or organizations which bring us the music we love. We also believe that unofficial recordings should be given or traded free of charge. This website and many others like it have taken a commitment to tape, trade, and archive music solely for the love the art. There should be no profit made and our archives should, as much as possible, contain material that cannot be purchased in a record store.
Since bootleg music is spread through thousands of hands, it is important to keep the music lossless CD quality. Despite what some supposed music fans will tell you, mp3, ogg, aac, wma, and other lossy music files are NOT CD quality. They employ compression which discards certain parts of the music in favor of smaller file size. While it is true that these formats, if a high enough bitrate is used, are perceptually similar to the original CD quality file, it is considered bad practice to use these formats. Many, many people will obtain recordings that you trade, and for the good of the bootleg trading pool, lossy compression schemes should NEVER be used.
NO LOSSY FILE FORMATS (MP3, OGG, AAC, WMA) ARE ALLOWED ON THIS SITE!
So, if you'd like to browse through my tradelist, look over at the left-hand side of the site and you'll see links to my audio and video lists. Feel free to contact me with any questions or to setup a trade. I am always willing to help in any way I can and, time permitting, am always up for trading for new music. Keep it free and keep the music pure.