I bought bootleg Prince from the manager of a Tower Records store in Nashville but that was 25 years ago.

TwiliteKid said:

You spoke to the police? Did they tell you to get a fucking life?

jtfolden said:

TwiliteKid said:

You spoke to the police? Did they tell you to get a fucking life?

Where were you before Prince died, when you saw a bootleg somewhere? Were you in touch with Tyka then? Or calling the cops on something so useless and mundance? Those are previously aired/released videos that someone has taken the video from obviously. Not a new concept.

Might need a sticky warning users of bootlegs as it seems this question is posted daily now. Usually it's Amazon or ebay.

jtfolden said:

TwiliteKid said:

You spoke to the police? Did they tell you to get a fucking life?

You need a hobby.

I don't think police have cared about bootlegging since the 20s.

mk456 said:

There are 4 Prince Cds that appear to me to be bootlegs on Tower Records website.. They are also in the Tower Records store Prince cd shelf. Also on amazon . Can Prince.org community please help and confirm if the Cds below are definitely bootlegs? If they are bootlegs I will be reporting the store to the Police. . Has Tyka or whoever is in charge released these Cds recently without me realising? . Rock in Rio live recording Purple rain live in Syracuse Naked in the summertime Live recording of Prince concert in Tokyo Legendary fm broadcast prince duets with Patti labelle, stevie wonder etc . Apologies for the disjointed typing I'm typing this on my phone as I don't have my laptop with me.. . I have a long story about all this as I have spoke to the stores staff and also with the Police about my concerns. . Thank you for any feedback on this.

Snitch.

mk456 said:

There are 4 Prince Cds that appear to me to be bootlegs on Tower Records website.. They are also in the Tower Records store Prince cd shelf. Also on amazon . This is significantly different from a few guys selling bootlegs in a small underground fashion.. Tower records is a global retail chain. Potentially very substantial sums of money could be made. My concern is that none of that money would go to Prince's estate, for example for the maintenance of Paisley Park but would only go to the bootleg companies who don't own the copyright. . Can Prince.org community please help and confirm if the Cds below have definitely not been officially released ? If they are illegal I will be reporting the store to the Police. . Has Tyka or whoever is in charge officially released these Cds recently ? . Rock in Rio live recording Purple rain live in Syracuse Naked in the summertime Live recording of Prince concert in Tokyo Legendary fm broadcast prince duets with Patti labelle, stevie wonder etc . I have most of these recordings from years ago but from nonprofit making sharing and trading with other fams. . I have spoke to the stores staff and also with the Police about my concerns. . Thank you for any feedback on this. [Edited 6/15/16 1:57am]

You can contact the Bremer Trust thru their website and they can go to the Federal Trade Commission. Bootlegging is a crime and I am not sure why so many fans would even want poor quality CD out on the market. You realize that his estate really needs money to take care of taxes and bills. We may not have a Paisley Park to visit or box sets to listen to if everything gets sold off to the highest bidder.

laurarichardson said:

mk456 said:

There are 4 Prince Cds that appear to me to be bootlegs on Tower Records website.. They are also in the Tower Records store Prince cd shelf. Also on amazon . This is significantly different from a few guys selling bootlegs in a small underground fashion.. Tower records is a global retail chain. Potentially very substantial sums of money could be made. My concern is that none of that money would go to Prince's estate, for example for the maintenance of Paisley Park but would only go to the bootleg companies who don't own the copyright. . Can Prince.org community please help and confirm if the Cds below have definitely not been officially released ? If they are illegal I will be reporting the store to the Police. . Has Tyka or whoever is in charge officially released these Cds recently ? . Rock in Rio live recording Purple rain live in Syracuse Naked in the summertime Live recording of Prince concert in Tokyo Legendary fm broadcast prince duets with Patti labelle, stevie wonder etc . I have most of these recordings from years ago but from nonprofit making sharing and trading with other fams. . I have spoke to the stores staff and also with the Police about my concerns. . Thank you for any feedback on this. [Edited 6/15/16 1:57am]

You can contact the Bremer Trust thru their website and they can go to the Federal Trade Commission. Bootlegging is a crime and I am not sure why so many fans would even want poor quality CD out on the market. You realize that his estate really needs money to take care of taxes and bills. We may not have a Paisley Park to visit or box sets to listen to if everything gets sold off to the highest bidder.

Alright Cleanshirt

mk456 said:

TwiliteKid said:

You spoke to the police? Did they tell you to get a fucking life?

TwiliteKid said:

You spoke to the police? Did they tell you to get a fucking life?

...That's kind of mean.

TwiliteKid said:

You spoke to the police? Did they tell you to get a fucking life?

Hahaha

While not authorized, they are not quite illegal. There is a loophole in European copyright law that allows for recorded public broadcasts to be legally released. There's been a flood of these kinds of releases for all sorts of artists lately. While these unauthorized titles may be of dubious origin and quality, they can be legally issued and sold.

scratchtasia said:

KingSausage said:

bluegangsta said:

I don't think police have cared about bootlegging since the 20s.

LOL, not true!

There was a wrecka stow in Houston called Soundwaves, and they had boots. They kept them behind the authorized releases. I got "Charade" and the Wembley "Parade" tour albums there.

One day in the early 90's I walked in and couldn't find any....uhhhh, "imports". I asked the guy behind the counter where they were and he said, "The FBI came in last week, took all our bootlegs, and said that if they ever came back and found any more, we were all going to jail".

True story!

RodeoSchro said:

....wait, there is still a TOWER RECORDS????

A lot of criminals on this thread (For dumb people this is a joke)

[Edited 6/15/16 13:15pm]

Junglehop said:

Instead of speaking to the police, I would have bought all four of those CDs!

I mean ...

scratchtasia said:

While not authorized, they are not quite illegal. There is a loophole in European copyright law that allows for recorded public broadcasts to be legally released. There's been a flood of these kinds of releases for all sorts of artists lately. While these unauthorized titles may be of dubious origin and quality, they can be legally issued and sold.

Not in France they can't. IDK about the rest of Europe but AFAIK since the GATT accord of 1994 countries such as Italy that got away with bootlegging had to shut down bootleg labels, and it's been nearly impossible to find a bootleg in a French record store since about 1996 when police raided virtually every record store in the country.

I do not question the honesty of your contribution but I would like to know what your source is for that legal loophole. I quickly researched it but found nothing but other people saying the same thing on various forums, which means no source.

Theorically a broadcast should be the result of either the TV or radio channel buying the rights to air the show a certain number of times, or an unlimited right to air the recording over and over as they see fit. In any case this doesn't usually mean they can licence those rights to a third party for release. If there was truly a loophole in the law allowing anyone to release a show on the ground that it was once aired or broadcast it would mean that neither the artist not the TV/radio channel would be able to defend their copyright, which is totally unrealistic in modern Europe. The mere fact that those shows are always released by obscure, in fact non-existing labels is enough to show they are bootlegs: if anyone could release Rock In Rio or Tokyo or Syracuse then how come it's never Sony, WB or Universal? Similarly how come those shows appear the minute Prince has died? Because the bootleggers know there's a loophole... in time, between the moment P was able to defend his copyright and the time his estate is settled and his inherotors can ban those records from Amazon or Tower.

A more fascinating, and real loophole is the one used by the Music Vault (formerly Wolfgangsvault), a company that is perfectly legit and had managed to shut up the entire music industry in American courts and is now able to stream thousands of show without the artists' authorization, as long as they pay them some money (it seems, however, that they need the artist or label's consent to be able to sell those recordings for download).

slvrhrt7 said:

....wait, there is still a TOWER RECORDS????