viewaskew said:

That's you making stuff up again.

viewaskew said:

Yes, I do. I was active on amp when several in the know people dished the dirt. (Don't bother looking for those posts, they're long gone.) There are people who KNOW the sources of leaked tracks.

He used to leak stuff when he was with WB, as a way of releasing the music they didn't want to, but studio outtakes pretty much dried up after he broke with WB. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's very little unofficial stuff after 1996.

I can't see Prince deliberately leaking tracks to bootleggers, but then the only person who would know for sure is of course... Prince.

BartVanHemelen said:

BartVanHemelen said:

OK! I started this thread with a very feasible opinion about his Bootlegs.

An opinion NOT AN EDUCATED FACT an opinion, very important to pick up on that!

I then asked for others to discuss their opinions to see how it faired, with the possibility of finding out what is closer to actual FACT!!!

It would have been really good of you, maybe I'll even go as far as saying really NICE of you (although I don't think you're capable of that!), to share what you know, backed up preferably with 'how' or 'why' you know it?

Instead, your first contribution was - "sigh...Sheesh...Just THINK!!! Sources are well known.....blah...blah!!!!!"

Obviously NOT as well known to us as to you - bearing in mind that the majority of other responses tend to side with opinion and not fact!


SO, do you blind us or educate us all with your Oracle like, all seeing, all hearing, all knowing wisdom that we all desperately seek but to no avail?

NO - you just get even more agressive, more insulting, even less helpful and still don't manage to put forward a constructive answer that would convince us of any different from what we are speculating!!!

You state that we should

"LISTEN and PAY ATTENTION to what is said by people who KNOW what they're talking about. Read BorisFishpaw's post, read my post: no "I think that" or "my guess is" BS, but plain facts: Prince has got NOTHING to do with the boots."

but Boris, like you backed up his statement with "The sources of bootlegs are well known....etc", but like I said before, if it was so well known then the majority of others on this thread wouldn't be discussing other options.


We obviously DON'T know, not factually enough like you do, or the few others!!!....but even with your devine knowledge.... your actual inabilility or concious decision to compose a response that is friendly, helpful, informative, interesting to read, and makes you fell the need to pause for a moment, and say to yourself "Wow! I actually learnt something there.....something really important!" makes everyone not interest in anything you have to say, regardless of how knowledgable you are!!!

mentalist said:

Well said

TheSkinMechanic said:

Thank you Hun. Greatly appreciated!

I would say engineers are quite a likely source especially if the only credit some of them were getting was under "Paisley Park" and not their name,then more power to them I say.

BartVanHemelen said:

dude, are you the iraqi information minister?

how many fingers am i holding up?

do you own a pair of glasses?

southmpls said:[quote]Wow. such passion.
I remember someone telling me about a 12inch Gett Off single with diff mixes he released behind WB back for his bday. There is no doubt he has bootlegged himself(black album. c'mon, i've never seen such guerilla marketing.) There is no doubt he is a master of marketing(hes doing it now).

Check these projects

- maytes album
- mc flash
- 1-800-new-funk
- tamar
- the one time royalty pay box set
- tamar?

The man never looks back. Ever. that brains always moving forward.
I think when the enthusiasm starts waning, so does his desire to protect it.

The other

In the height of his bootlegs he was surrounded by friends, management, wardrobe, agents, WB reps, yes men, musicians, other projects, engineers, producers and free WB money.

heres my original post read it again

i could translate to german if you like.

i would say making copies of gett off behind wb's back is bootlegging and i've always found the black album story odd.....

but thats my opinion, and i'm allowed to have them.

did prince leave a bad taste in yo mouth? or maybe daddy never hugged you?

I know, lay off the chili sauce when posting.

mentalist said:

Nice one

southmpls said:

Well there are an awful lot of The Works albums out there. Volume 9 now is it? Someone must be getting the material out of Paisley Park. A mole or a skinny mother fucker with a high voice? Hmm...

Personally I think he lets the stuff appear. Bit like those copies of the aftershows from last year and all that.

iloveannie said:

I've met some of the people that record the concerts, and they are sometimes caught and harrassed by Prince's security. They are not on Prince's good side.

Also the guy that puts together the Work series... is NOT connected to Prince at all!

i was looking through google and theres people selling dvd's full of all of his O2 shows in london for a fortune... makes me sick seeing people pay 150 bux for a few dvd-r discs

NightwalkerDNB said:

Prince isn't getting a cent from it, and most all of them have been uplooaded for free on the internet some time ago.

The internet is killing the bootleg industry too!

mentalist said:

That was excellent. Bart acts like an asshole constantly whenever he decides to poke his head out from that hole in the dirt from which he came from.
[Edited 1/31/08 10:07am]

Not like it matters but I wonder what the motivation is for the bootlegers to do all of this. Aside from money, is it to get after Prince for anything he's done to them? Are they even fans at all? Maybe I'm going to deep with the whole thing. One thing is sure, Prince I don't think, is behind all of the bootlegging. Prince would act the way he does if he did. I heard of a few stories of Prince going into record shops in the Village here in Mahattan and just taking away all the bootlegged stuff. It's a topic that will go on for years to come, until Prince decides he wants to release any of this stuff. It would be great but I can't see it happening. This thread is really cool. Good job mentalist

mentalist said:

Of course he is, remember him on Larry King how he claimed to be the most bootlegged artist in the world ???

krayzie said:

Well now that's very interesting indeed.

Unfortunately here in the U.K. we didn't have the priviledge of Larry King.

How did Prince come across as he said it?

Was he all angry and mad because he hates bootlegs so much, so to be most bootlegged artist of all time is nothing less than soul destroying???

OR
Was it a bold and confident statement that could be possibly be perceived as nothing but blatant bragging????

which Larry King one was that, if it is the one with Larry graham, it is still on youtube I think

People, are some of you still thinking Prince allowed bootlegs of his studio demos and works in progress and live concerts to get out there? The answer is a resounding NO. He is not in control of the bootlegs. He persecutes the bootlegers. He found out how to stop it, and he stopped it.

ufoclub said:

Hello. When I started the thread, it was based on blind curiosty with absolutely no solid evidence to back up my opinion - of which was actually just one of many that I had thought of - it's just this one I felt was definitely the most interesting and would generate the most opinions!!! Well to me, at least!!!

I didn't think that people would respond so agressively, and react in a way that seemed they were taking it personal.

I didn't think that this subject actually had a definite answer proved as fact!

And even if we do know the facts and it's been proved he isn't involved, it still dosn't elliminate the possibility that he could've, or maybe just kickstarted it?

Just joking yeah? No involvement at all! Understood!!!

It was just a bit of a shame that the most knowledgable on this subject had to be so matter of fact about and ultimately destructive, when it seemed that the majority seemed to enjoy speculating about this subject!

purplecam said:

Thanks Purplecam. I really wish that the general response here was structered like yours. Especially where that even though you don't feel that Princes is involved, and opposite to what I incited, you offer a very valid alternative and add even more to the initial subject matter by redirecting the responsibility from Prince and to the bootleggers opening up whole new debate just as interesting to speculate with!

To be honest, i dont know for sure, but once he was off WB the Bootlegs dried up for the most part, meaning studio tracks etc...sure the concerts would turn up on dvd or cd, but that happens with everyone. I can honestly say i use to gett stuff with this guy in Chicago, and i asked him one time about where he got it and he said that Prince &co lets it out there, this was especially the case in the 94-96 era, where stuff was everywhere, and im talking cds, and videos never released and concerts, studio footage, this was all being let out there. One time he did tell me that Prince's dj, brother Jules said that Prince would let things go when he felt something needed to be out there, and he was infamous for it. Now i dont know if its fact, but i have heard things like this from certain other artists, so its always in question

As for the Record store incident i do know the store and that was one of the main stores here in NYC, though the store mentioned (generation records) denied it to me.

lastdecember said:

In my opinion: If you/they are talking about The Undertaker album (stopped by Warners AFTER Prince had cd's manufactured) and then the few The Gold Experience/Come/Glam Slam Ulysses tracks (leaked on european radio) then yeah, Prince had a hand indirectly, but not in the buckets of bootleg stuff that many people think he must be behind.

mentalist said:

It sounds (above) like you are taking it personally, not me!

Illustrator said:

southmpls said:

..and security i imagine..
Unless they fall under 'yes men'

ufoclub said:

I posted my last, well early in the morning, and so tired. I assure you that I've not taken anything personal regarding any of the responses, no matter how different they may be to mine, or even the ones that are telling me I'm totally 100% wrong!!!

What I did take personally was the way that some opinions were dictated and the blatant rudeness towards other orgers that still choose to continue disscussing the subject.


Re-reading the entire thread, noting down all the objective points as well justified opinions, and seeing how, if at all, my original opinion may have changed, I can honestly say that;

'No matter how strong an individuls opinion or view is, even when stated it's based purely on facts, someone else manages to raise an alternative opinion backed up with enough information to cause enough reasonable doubt against it'

Even after all what was had been said here, lastdecember joins the 'discussion' and puts another interesting spin on things, which regardless of what anyone believes, still manages to keep alive what will always be an interesting topic to discuss!

All I know is that if it wasn't for the unreleased stuff I would've completely lost interest in the guys music a long time ago. Early to mid 90s were a bad period for me when it came to his stuff...and it was right around that time when I first heard the long version of Computer Blue...next thing you know I am right back in form.