How is it that an unreleased song or album can circulate amongst a fan community? How do they get it? By that I mean how did it get..."released"?

Bootleg = The actual CD release.

Unreleased songs start circulating because fans get them from a variety of sources - Record Co. workers, PP staff, girlfriends and fucks, band members etc, etc.

NouveauDance said:

So, bandmates would sneak into the studio and tape what was going on, and when they get angry at him and leave, they start copying them? That's pretty illegal. Is it illegal to possess bootlegs?
[Edited 8/3/05 11:03am]

Everyone I noted would have a legitimate reason for possessing copies of material - Record company workers, an artist submits their work to the record co, and staff have to deal with it, if one is a fan, they might copy it.

Band members have it because they're involved with it, girlfriends and such, Prince might hand them a tape.

OK, so there are fans that know these people/run into them/hunt them down, get copies from them.

They trade copies with other fans who have unreleased stuff.

Somewhere down the line, they end up in the hands of people who are behind pressing and distributing bootlegs, and that's how they end up on CD.

See it's a bit different today, with the internet and file sharing. I imagine there are many fans who have unreleased music that have never bought, or seen, a bootleg CD, in a store, at a record fair or something. There are nowhere near as many being made these days as say 10 years ago, and that's directly attributable to the internet and filesharing.

Bootlegs are illegal because they are unathorised material, the music is not released by the artist, or their record company, and neither party receives any financial gain from them - which is why they are illegal, they're unlicensed.

Thanks, NouveauDance(are u MetroArea, btw?). I can see why Prince is so paranoid.

doctamario said:

No probs, and

One also needs to remember that there are different eras of Boots and different types of boots.

Unreleased Songs

These come in varied flavors...you have the demo versions and outtakes. You also have songs that for the most part were not on any album. I would imagine many of these came about from people working on them or maybe he would give it to someone and ask them to listen to it for whatever reason. You have to remember this stuff was pretty amazing. I am sure it got copied as "you gotta hear this". Many musicians and singers and dancers that were around him got a lot of it. It's not like he kept those people around for a long time either. ANd for whatever reason these songs just got out.

Live recordings

Audience members mostly...but there are a lot of sound board stuff out there. I'd say these are either stolen or I once read that a famous soundboard engineer would hear a performance so good that he needed to give it to the world so to speak. There are recordings pretty much throuout his career.

The eras of unreleased recordings

I'd say there are a few eras in which stuff was coming out..much of the early stuff was coming out starting in the mid 80's. Since he was working on ALOT of material then it's hard to say how they got out. There is even Vinyl pressings of this stuff. I'd say sheer volume and constant flow of people in his entourage caused much of this to get out. There were a couple of Fan releases I think (I know about charade...which apparently was for the fan club or something).

In the mid 90's things took a different turn. Boots were flying out of the Purple camp at an alarming rate. My guess is that he was doing some of these himself and working the boot market. I think he wanted to get his music out there so badly yet he didn't wat WB to get any of the pie. I don't think it was for the money...but more for just the sheer getting it out there factor. Also prorbably to keep his fan base listening and interested. I know many P converts at this time who were amazed by the music they never heard (myself included) I do think that towards the end of this era he allowed a few friends into his camp that turned out not to be his friends and stole music from him.

Now...or I should say since really when he became Prince again the flow of boots has stopped. This could be for a few reasons. That most of it is out...that he isn't interested in pushing some of it out or that he stopped the leaks or that his output has waned a bit. This theory seems plausable as A)the previous boots had a lot of older material. We weren't really getting the "newer stuff" a little, but not a lot. and B)there have been a few "B-sides" and some stuff we have gotten since Musicology...and I think asode what he's working on for the new album...that that is what his output is like now.

superspaceboy said:

alright cool. REally good info.

doctamario said:

please prince be paranoid cuz of boots? nahh its just like spaceboy said. prince had something to do wit it too. except i believe he was lettin the shit out in the 80s aswell

I have a Crystal Ball question. Most of those songs came from the Warners era, so Warners would own those masters. How was he able to release that independently?

doctamario said:

no warners wouldn't own the masters because they weren't released thru warners. warner only owns the masters to things that were released thru them. if that was the case then they would own the masters, rights, etc... to ALL of princes boots. and if they did they'd be milking it for ALL it was worth, and we fans wouldn't be bitching so much

Another interesting element to this is that Prince (in his day) could be incredibly difficult to work with.
His hiring and firing of sound engineers, band members and staff certainly gave many of those people an incentive to leak music that he didn't want circulated.

Although I think many artists don't mind outtakes or live recordings being circulated amongst fans (as it builds a fanbase), Prince is too much of a perfectionist to be comfortable with all the poor-quality stuff floating around.
If he wasn't worried about it, the NPGMC would have a lot more stuff offered up in the downloads section.

T said:

Spot on.

Also... Prince asks bandmember to add horns/guitar/whatever to track.
Bandmember goes in and lays down track. Gets engineer to run off a rough mix
on cassette so they can listen back and see if they think it was good enough
or fitted the vibe of the song. Tape gets taken home and played a few times
then forgotten about. Tape gets lent to a friend, friend copies tape, friends
of friend copy friends tape, outtake gets into the hands of a bootlegger...
or more likely these days... gets posted on the web.

Also... Prince is putting together new album. Tries various sequences of the
tracks to see how the album flows as a whole. Runs off a few copies of the
best sequences to play in the car/at home. Prince/Engineer/Bandmember/Girlfriend
copies tape... see above for the rest.

But on the whole since about 1996 Prince has been a lot tighter on outtakes
getting out (and info in general).

That's really interesting. So a lot of the boots circulating are probably unfinished songs.

doctamario said:

YES!

Which is why Prince kinda gets pissed off with fans saying "oh, I prefer the
original version of 'x' song, the released one isn't as good!"
A lot of the time he's thinking "huh? the released version IS the original"
or "but that was just a rough mix done on the day I added the guitar part!"
(It's no wonder he ain't gonna do a Crystal Ball 2)

BorisFishpaw said:

Great point.

I think it's funny that people think prince was responsible for some bootlegs being out there...! I don't think this is true, just ask his own personal lawyers. People, he is not lettng his recordings out on purpose, and the reason there aren't many coming out now, is that he finally got a clamp down on it.
[Edited 8/4/05 23:15pm]

Real interesting topic. Lot of interesting stuff there.

Another question. If Prince could release his unreleased stuff at any time, was he able to do that before 96?
[Edited 8/4/05 23:13pm]

People, he is not letting his recordings out on purpose, and never has in the past. It's always been wthout his consent, just like all the other artists with respect to their bootlegs.

doctamario said:

Yes, Prince could (and can) release any vault item himself anytime he chooses.
Obviously before he parted ways with WB he would have had to release any such
songs either through WB records or with their permission.

BorisFishpaw said:

The only reason I ask is because I don't really know much about the contracts in the music business(was he supposed to produce only a certain number of albums for them? Was he exclusively theirs or could he simultaneously release stuff in other ways? stuff like that.)