US Bootleg ruling

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Happy the Man
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainmen ... 689580.stm

Anyone know what the law is here in the UK?
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smiscandlon
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"...copies of unauthorised performances of live music..."
Shouldn't that be "unauthorised copies of performances of live music"?

Or do we need to worry about Interpol tracking down and arresting our favourite rock gods for "unauthorised performances"?

:eek:
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Rivers
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Surely the band would be taking its name too seriously if they did that? :P
One way to get good sales I suppose.
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James Blast
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I've done the Interpol joke Rivers :oops:
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Dan
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Happy the Man wrote:Anyone know what the law is here in the UK?
The law to do with selling bootlegs was changed in the UK somewhere around 1988/89. Up to then there were always huge stalls at record fairs selling bootleg cassettes, and they were able to get away with it due to some loophole in the law. Then in 1988/89 the law was amended and some record fairs in London were raided and the cassettes confiscated and the stallholders fined something like £2000. Then gradually tapes began to appear at record fairs again. Stallholders told me it was worth taking the risk as only a few stalls got raided and they made so much profit they could afford to pay the fine. One stall just had a list and when you'd chosen what you wanted you went out into the car park and he got you the tapes out of the back of his car!

By then bootleg cd's were getting more popular and the law doesn't seem interested any more.

In the last few years all the people who used to sell "proper" bootleg cd's at record fairs have started to sell home-made ones and for me record fairs aren't worth going to any more. The last 2 times I've been I saw loads of things that I might have been interested, if it wasn't for the fact that I downloaded them all off the net in the previous few months. They must visit the same sites as me. All those sellers do is download stuff or copy stuff onto cd-r's and have the damn cheek to charge the same price as a "proper" bootleg cd's. Their cd-r's have gaps, clicks and pops, poorly printed out, poorly cut out covers. £3 to £4 a cd would be a more reasonable price for what they sell, not £10 - £12. In one record fair I went to a couple of years ago there was some c#n+ seling Sisters gigs on cd, and as they were on cd (and we all know that cd#2 usually has about 3 songs on it) he was charging £18 a gig.

As far as the law goes, it was discussed in one of the music papers around the time the law changed. As far as I can remember it's legal to record a live concert as long as it's for your own use and it's legal to give a copy to someone, maybe even legal just to charge money for the materials. It's when you sell them that you cross the line.

The law only applies to music, not interviews, which is how that company called "baktabak" was able to get away with their interview discs. It's just a shame the interviewers never had English as a first language and had the tape recorder up their backsides.

In the big-name record shops I still see bootleg cd's. Last time I looked there were loads of bootleg Jefferson Airplane and Hendrix cd's.
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smiscandlon
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I've been to 3 of the Glasgow record fairs over the last few months. The first, and last time I went I got some pretty good bargains (including 'proper' Sisters boots for £6-£10, a Cure 3-disc set for £8, even a Mish boot for £3!).

However, the second time I went I was absolutely disgusted at some of the traders I saw there. One particular stall had what were clearly bootleg CD's labelled as 'Rare Japanese Imports' and were priced from £20 for a single disc, up to £50 for a 3-disc set! Now they were very nicely produced, professionally printed glossy inlays etc, but I found that absolutely sickening. :evil:
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markfiend
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Dan wrote:In the big-name record shops I still see bootleg cd's.
Now that pisses me off. Someone I know bought a Marilyn Manson (:lol:) boot DVD from HMV; he described it thusly:
Really low-quality live performances that were about a quarter of the screen size, and some of the 'videos' turned out to be a still image with a song playing in the background.
At least when he took it back, HMV refunded him. You buy something like that from a record fair, you're pretty much fucked.
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Karst
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This article refers to a recent case in the UK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3878289.stm

In the end the law is complicated and the record companies will rather go after pirated copies anyway. They often hold no rights over the recordings of the live gigs anyway. Those people selling cheaply produced discs will be moved out of the market anyway. Only when they produce these things in large numbers will the authorities go after them. We did a tribute disc for the Mish and Wayne indicted that if the number of discs did not exceed 250 the rights issues did not apply.
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JansenClone
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Dan wrote:In the last few years all the people who used to sell "proper" bootleg cd's at record fairs have started to sell home-made ones and for me record fairs aren't worth going to any more.
I think this a case of heads you win, tails you lose. The fact that CDRs / DVD-Rs are easy to make means that we've all (should we want to) got the chance to own far more bootleg recordings in great* (*relatively speaking) quality stored on a loss-less medium.

This does mean that as a consequence that there's far less point in manufacturing 'official' bootlegs (I know, don't read that back too many times!) as folks will:

a - already have ot in higher quality, or

b- just copy it on for free.

So there's fewer of those 'exotic' rare items to own, but a greater quantity of recordings of dubious quality to watch / listen to... I've confused myself over which is better now...

Michael
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hallucienate
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I dunno, all i know is I ordered a dual-layer DVD Writer this afternoon :)
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Karst
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Say,
JansenClone wrote:The fact that CDRs / DVD-Rs are easy to make means that we've all (should we want to) got the chance to own far more bootleg recordings in great* (*relatively speaking) quality stored on a loss-less medium.
It certainly is and the popularity of Sharing the Groove is only testement to that. Still there will be people who feel that the technical aspect is too much of an issue for them and prefer to get these recordings through different means.
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Dan
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JansenClone wrote:I think this a case of heads you win, tails you lose. The fact that CDRs / DVD-Rs are easy to make means that we've all (should we want to) got the chance to own far more bootleg recordings in great* (*relatively speaking) quality stored on a loss-less medium.
I haven't got anything against people selling cd-r's at record fairs. It's the fact that they charge the same price for their shoddily made discs as they do for the factory made bootlegs that pisses me off.
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