What is it with Russian Federation listings on Discogs?

I understand (and support) discogs decision of banning the selling of unoficial russian cds, but there's an externality into it: they may sell the pirated copies under the "official" release page.

I also frankly quite hate their public domain laws, 50 years is too little. I do think they done this out of purpose by the way, but I'm not gonna reach into politics.

 

I can't really figure out what is going on in the Russian Federation on Discogs or Ebay. Some stuff I am suspicious is fake CDs, but then there are also a lot of listings for pretty obscure or rare LPs, sometimes at some of the highest price points; it seems pretty unlikely anyone would go to the trouble of faking some of these rare LPs, and probably buyers would complain if they got a fake. On the other hand, when on occasion over the years I have bought a few of the rarish CDs from Russia, they have always been the real thing. So not sure how to even interpret the likelihoods. Even though it's probably not fair, I basically avoid buying from the Russian Federation, partly because I worry that things will be ruined in the extensive shipping distance.

 

the thing with russian cds is that they are quite similar to the original albums, specially when sealed. this was not the case in the 90's, but right now they're.
and they do pirate ANYTHING right now: editions that pretend to be made in japan, to older rare metal pressings, to mainstream "made in EU" cds).

I dont think they press lp's in russia though. those public domain lps supossedly for the russian market (but de facto going to all over europe) are pressed in czech republic, I've think.

 

I can assure you that this still happens. Yes, anyone caring for original pressings and not wanting to receive a fake CD should proceed with caution when it comes to ordering from Russia, the Baltic states and some of the surrounding countries that formerly were part of the USSR. In the past I have decidedly ordered fakes of albums of which the price of original CDs were way too rich for my blood. This only happened a few times, but it's still possible to find 'hard-to-find' albums on Discogs for ridiculous prices, which are a dead giveaway by themselves.

However, on several occasions I have also acquired original CDs from Russian sellers for prices that were not too low, but quite reasonable when compared to other sellers. You have to inquire first and state upfront that you'll try to get a refund through PayPal if it turns out to be not the real thing. Still no gurantee that you'll get an honest answer, but so far my experiences were OK.

Another nice thing is that they sometimes fake stuff that had no official CD release at all. Those bootleggers especially seem to have a knack for pirating obscure eurodisco and hard rock albums from the 70s and 80 that were never officially released on CD. I even have bought some obscure recordings from Dutch and Belgian origin this way.
Of course most, if not all, of these are vinyl rips, but sometimes it's the only way to get these on CD at all. I have a few of these. They certainly aren't master quality, but given their price and obscurity they could have done a lot worse. I have heard official releases sounding worse. At least many of these haven't fallen victim to the loudness wars.

Never ordered an LP from Russia and surrounding states, so I can't say anything about that. It seems to me that the counterfeit market in these countries still aims at CDs.

 

I'm not buying anything imported directly myself (due to absurd taxes, fees and, right now, devalued currency) but I've noticed a bunch of stores selling imported cds that are too cheap to be the real thing, so, yes, those russian cds are everywhere. Some of them are too obviously fake, like "made in japan" cds cheaper than in japan. Others more subtly, if someone is not aware of how pricey it's to buy such records from europe and pay tax and shipping (and tax over shipping)

Here, the typical piracy was cheap, obviously fake cds from mainstream music sold by street sellers, but those russian cds are something else.

Although from time to time there are still "well-made" pirated cds of more unexpected music in the local equivalent to ebay (mercadolivre). Those are brazilian music cds never released into cd, or only in such small pressing that they're even rarer than the lps.
I've denounced a couple of times, but mercadolivre didnt care