Discogs - Bootleg clampdown

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CollectorsFrenzy

 

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I just discovered this when looking for the 3rd (2001-2008) PJ harvey B sides vinyl. Seller failed to deliver on a copy ordered a few years ago. I don't get this as I believe trading in bootlegs is perfectly legal especially if they are many years old. Physical and online stores are/were full of them. Many now replaced by 'official' versions.

 

Why would you think it perfectly legal? The whole idea around bootlegs is that the tracks haven't been officially released. As for stores trading them: discogs puts them all in one place and so it is easier to take them down. Kev probably thinks it isn't worth the hassle especially since many are 'unofficial' releases from Russia.

 

Just go to eBay. There are loads of bootlegs, vinyl and cd, listed there. eBay used to take listings down but they don't appear to be doing anything about it these days.

Discogs has also been caving in to spurious claims by copyright/publishing owners to halt any sales of used products that contain material they say they never authorised in the first place. This is on major labels and not boots. Who ever owns Al Reeds publishing is doing that, as did Michelle Shocked for sometime.

Discogs just bans them whereas eBay doesn't much care and rightly so. Every time I find a legitimately released lp from 30 years ago banned from sale on Discogs, I check eBay and Amazon, and generally find them for sale, sometimes even new pressings.

 

Discogs seems to be run by the seat of its pants as a very small shop and likely doesn't have a huge legal staff to fight off the music labels' stacked legal departments. Amazon and eBay could both probably buy the entire music industry with their capital and have massive legal departments of their own, which is why those companies don't fear the music labels' threats.

Like you, I go to eBay when I need a live bootleg.

 

Compared with Amazon and Ebay the entire music industry is tiny. They can't touch them. Nothing legal to stop private traders selling and buying bootlegs.

 

Other regions of the world they are quite normal with inexpensive new releases,limited reissue runs.Not saying it`s a good or bad thing just it can be difficult to miss even if you try.The counterfeit guy at record conventions trying to pass off expensive fakes as legit bothers me more than say the next table over where a guy might have the Van Halen boot of Witchita `78 Pogo`s Night Club soundboard on perfectly pressed vinyl for half price if you do want a physical product instead of downloading on your phone or computer..

 

Facebook has groups specifically dedicated to buying and selling bootleg CDs and Vinyl [TAKRL, Kornyfone, TMOQ, Tarantura, etc.]. No need to look further.

 

It's not the labels asking for these to be taken down it's people who own the publishing e.g. the Al Reed situation, or musicians, well one in particular, Michelle Shocked, but she gave that up. It's not even someone huge like WarnerChappel. It's a few small fry people who are being spiteful.

If the labels had an issue that had any legal standing and they wanted to pursue it, Amazon or eBay would likely play ball or it would be pursued and you'd have trade article all over the place about it. I remember eBay taking down all sorts of stuff in the past. I just don't think the labels care that someone is selling a TMOQ label. They certainly don't care that someone is selling a used Johnny Winter lp with an Al Reed track on it, that apparently, is unauthorised (which probably just means we don't get any royalties from it).

But I don't think eBay ever got any letter and if they did, their lawyer wrote something during a toilet break that basically said "Go f yourself because you have no case here" but in a nicer legal way and that was the end of it.

It would not cost much for Discogs to do the same thing. But Discogs m.o. is to basically be as cheap as possible. Hence almost zero changes to the database or marketplace features despite everyone asking for so many basic things for years. The only thing they did so far was to make it easier for sellers to charge sales tax for Australian sales and now US states the passed that marketplace facilitator law and even then they did it in such a way that sellers lose a % of the tax collected to paypal/discogs payment system.

No one is going to court over this. IMO they just can't be arsed.