Intro to ethical “Bootleg” choice of the week series
In an attempt to revive my activity on this blog, I’m beginning a weekly post that will point you to a downloadable live recording that I find particularly cool or interesting. Alongside my obsession with used LPs, I’ve been getting more and more interested in “bootleg” recordings of live shows of late. The word “Bootleg” has some negative and positive connotations, as you may imagine (in light of its being a borrowed word from the prohibition of alcohol back in the early- to mid-twentieth century in some countries — put your “illegal” alcohol in your boot to avoid detection!).
When I advocate a concert or music “bootleg” in this upcoming series, I am referring to a recording of a live concert that is not commercially released by the artist or which has been given sanction for fan-trading by the artist. These “bootlegs,” or live recordings, should be exchanged among fans without any financial gain to the fans (i.e. for free) and with promotion of the artist (and therefore appropriate future financial benefit to the artist) in mind. In other words, I will follow what I consider a strict ethic here. We’re not talking about “pirating” but rather fans trading and promoting the unreleased (live or other) music of the artists they like most. Unreleased is the key term here, because I believe it is absolutely essential to support the artists who create the music by buying what they release in LP, CD, or whatever form. Another main issue is the quality of the sound on the bootleg, such that it does not misrepresent the quality of the artists’ performances (but these can be either “audience” recordings or “soundboard” recordings, usually the latter). Here I will only link to very high quality bootlegs in uncompressed formats (e.g. “shorten” and “flac” formats, and never MP3s).
There are two main sites which I consider ethical (in my terms) and high quality when it comes to live recordings (there may be more, of which I am now unaware–let me know in the comments section and I’ll investigate):
- Dave’s Qualitybootz;
- The Internet Archive’s “Live Music Archive” (closely associated with etree.org), which seeks permission from the artists (or their representatives) themselves.
So most of my choices will come from these two sources at this point. I’ll soon post my choice of this week.
