A COMMENTARY: The Revival of the Counterfeit and Bootleg

 Many people will tell you today that the best way to support your favorite artists is one of two

ways. You buy tickets to see them tour, or you buy their merchandise. With streaming paying

artists so little, especially to smaller artists, they need us to give them real support. With heart in

the right place, you make an order online for a record from a seller that you think is pretty

legitimate. The product you received looks a little grainy, may have something misspelled, and

seems to sound worse than your digital stream. What happened?

Well, you probably, as some may do without realizing it, ordered a bootleg. Some bootlegs will

be better than others, but many of them are much inferior quality to the actual pressings. They

are more likely to have defects or be off-center. But most of all – the artist does not see a cent of

that money.

The history of the bootleg actually starts in the 1930s. Copyright laws were not as strict as they

are now and it was very common to find bootlegs. Bootleg as a term came from the 1960s when

people began trying to push for change in the copyright to protect the artists from this issue.

Many of these bootlegs were not official releases, but live material or scrapped material from the

artists. Grateful Dead has actually been well known for allowing fans onto their boards to record

live material. Access to these recordings were much easier to get and less likely to be

discovered. In rare occasions, there would be a compilation of actually released material, but

usually this material for some reason was scarce.

All of these are commonly called bootlegs, but a distinction must be understood. A true bootleg

only applies to unauthorized releases of previously unreleased material such as live recordings

or scrapped recordings. That record you got in the mail is not really a bootleg in the truest sense

of the word. It is a counterfeit pressing. They are copies of legitimate releases created to fool

the buyer into thinking they are buying an authorized release. There are also pirated records,

which are more like mentioned above, an unauthorized pressing that contains previously

legitimately released songs.

Regardless of which type of record you ended up with of the three, it is important to understand

what all of these records have in common. The distributor intentionally evades working with the

artists and gaining proper licensing. They are discreet and hide their source, or where the

bootlegs are being made. They are completely unlicensed. The artists receive no money when

you buy a bootleg, a counterfeit, or a pirated record. Most counterfeit records also do not hold

their value very well.

The reason of interest for writing this now is because there seems to be a large resurgence of

counterfeit recordings entering the market with the new vinyl boom. The original peak for

counterfeit records was the 1970s. If something is rare and in demand, a person sees a market.

Many counterfeit records are associated with the black market, so you are supporting a rather

underground illegal market of people rather than anyone in the music industry itself. Make no

mistake, people making bootlegs and/or counterfeit records of any kind and selling them are

actually criminals. Back in the day, many of the good bootleg releasers like Trademark of Quality

eventually were found and were shut down.

Now one might ask, what is the benefit of buying an authentic pressing versus a

bootleg/counterfeit of lesser price? The first reason is you may want to actually support the band

you are buying from. Sure, maybe it seems like a nice avoidance of support to buy your R. Kelly

record as a counterfeit since he will not see a cent of it, but keep in mind you probably just gave

money to someone who supports something just as bad as what he did. Musicians get paid

through royalties. Not just the main artist, but the songwriters, the band behind them, the label

executives… This is how everyone gets paid. Sales numbers also help show labels your favorite

artist is actually a worthwhile investment. Bootlegs do not get reported as a sale to labels, so

they may not realize there are people wanting to support this artist on physical releases more

heavily.

Quality is another benefit. Bootlegs are very iffy quality at best. Many utilize CD or MP3

recordings to create the counterfeit, making the vinyl recordings sound more compressed than

an authentic release. They are often off-center which affects the pitch of play. They also often

have issues with no-fill and skipping. Counterfeits are often on strange colored vinyl, possibly

recycled pieces from other releases. The cover art is flimsier and often grainy. For true bootlegs,

you often find the cover is a white sleeve with text on it. Sometimes they will misspell names

and song titles. Some do not have deadwax matrixes, making it even harder to find and catalog

them.

Now you may have a few other arguments for supporting a counterfeit record market, so let us

review those.

The first is the price. You likely are considering this because the price is right. Getting an

authentic record costs too much. A label may not realize the level of demand and if they did –

they would likely see a worthwhile investment. Save your money and find out what record label

this artist is a part of. Write the record label and tell them that you want to support the artist

themselves, not a reseller on a secondhand website flipping the record. Many labels are

hesitant with smaller artists to invest in too many physicals as they would take a loss. If enough

people write in, it shows a demand and efforts can be made. This industry is currently built on a

concept of artificial scarcity to try and get you to spend more on the records. There will very

likely be a repress. In example, there was a short run of The Fray’s debut album through their

webstore. This original pressing was going for upwards of $350. Recently, this album was

repressed. You can now get it for $25-$30. It sounds better than a bootleg. Worth the wait, and

your favorite band gets to see the royalties. I think it is also important to know many artists on a

record label receive an advance for their recording and contract. Before they see a penny of

earnings, this must be paid back. If their work does not break even, they actually will be forced

to pay this back regardless of income.

The second you might say is, why does it matter if I am buying from a record store? They do not

see the royalties for used records! Well, the thing is, these resold releases are licensed. The

label knew they were created, and when the original owner bought the record, it did give them

support. Your local record store also buys new records from suppliers where the artists see

royalties from the sales. If something is frequently bought used, we will easily see a market for

new releases from that artist as well. There are also stores that will be honest with you about

release authenticity. If something seems a little different, do not be afraid to ask if it is a bootleg.

Some stores do carry them. Many usually are carrying secondhand bootlegs that have already

been circulating. Some stores may have counterfeit records and have a system of labelling

them, so check with the store.

The third, and I would say the greyest area, is the album was never released on vinyl to begin

with. I understand not wanting 3 different types of media collections. You may solely like vinyl,

and that bootleg of a band that was small and never issued on vinyl is very appealing. If you do

get this, I would still make sure you find time to support the artist in other ways. Maybe even

write to them and say you would love to have an official release of this on a vinyl. It is often the

fans who help push decisions for media types!