[guygee]

Originally Posted by freezer

You might still even correspond with the taper and still not get a positive answer as to generation.

Mike Millard absolutely detested non-taping traders. What makes anyone think that any of his master tapes were digitally cloned and are circulating in a definite and verifiable generation? I'd venture to guess that the best chance you have of tracking down something he taped in a verifiable generation is to locate someone who was a taper and who actually traded with him.

But there are lots of Led Zepplin collectors who are convinced that they have clones of verifiable generation copies of his recordings. It doesn't take much presence of mind to find such collectors.

I knew Mike and traded with him and I still don't believe that I can prove I have first gen copies of his tapes even with his handwriting on the cassette j-card.

Is this an "I only believe in lineage for shows I personally taped" philosophy, or was taper Mike known to be a prankster or something? If the former, then 1st gens might as well not exist; we know that they DO exist, but we can never be sure if a particular recording is 1st gen.

Originally Posted by freezer

Now consider this:

Here's an announcement that I received in today's mail from Mr Fish-head E.S.: The Battle of Baton Rouge (2/28/75) 3 CD Empress Valley Label $97

If anyone thinks that this bootlegger is doing anything but selling a copy of a torrent picked up off dime or R-O then I really have some swampland to sell 'em also.

(Thanks Bram.......)

Well, hundreds of collectors must have also grabbed it. At least a few of them will be serious collectors who will properly document where they got it, etc. If it a worthwhile show, it will get reseeded. Plus, if I really want the show, I can track down collectors on google, inquire about their archiving practices, find the serious collectors, and trade for it.

When you pointed out that many Dylan collectors have a fetish for boots, I never thought about it before, but I have to admit you are right. But at least they have carefully documented the quality of the boots. Personally, I have far more Dylan on cassette than on actual boots, and the boots are only of his very earliest work (which is probably best preserved on certain bootlegs).

As for Bram and booters, I think torrenting will eventually put the booters out of business (maybe I'm just an optimist). As for people too lazy to keep good archives and trade, or too impatient to wait for the reseed, maybe they deserve to pay the price. Booters, you gotta hate 'em, but perhaps their only redemption is, at least in some cases, they helped preserve music that might be otherwise be lost or never circulated. A few (very few in my limited experience) even care about quality.

Originally Posted by freezer

Have you said you considered something humorous, Guy?

I hadn't noticed....

Must be a lack of sense of humor on my part. Some of your posts have lots of those little laughing faces, rolls-eyes and such, maybe those are just aids to help you get your point across. For example:

Originally Posted by freezer

Take notes, there'll be a test later.

I think it is funny that when I concede your logical point(s), you still throw in these types of comments with the appropriate funny-face selection. Humour, at the expense of others (me in this case). When you are in "serious mode", I would much rather hear what else you have to say then respond in like manner to these little asides, plus I guess maybe you are trying to tell me something like, "when are you gonna get it?" In this case, first you tell me I should respect your 35 years experience as a taper, then you poke a little fun at me when I go into "student-mode".

And to anyone else who might have bothered to read this far, I think freezer has made his case to any rational person that we should be skeptical about any "full" lineage that traces music back to the Master recording.

All this just reinforces the argument that we should have "versioned" torrents and a DB with complete documentation, because if we must be skeptical about the full lineage, at least we can be certain about the partial lineage. The "partial lineage" is the lineage that starts from a known "reference point".
The reference point could be a bootleg, it could be one of freezer's actual master tapes that he kindly donated, but (and freezer's arguments only reinforce this point) the only "reference point" we can be absolutely sure of is the torrent itself. If the torrent is not versioned and documented, we can be sure of nothing. I can only hope TTD decides to take on this project.

And one last point on documentation: "Silver CD > EAC> wav>flac" or "CDr(x)> EAC>wav>flac" are not examples of partial lineage unless the EAC logs are included. So add that to the documentation list.