Did Prince personally profit from any of the bootleg CDs or concert material? If not, Why didn't Prince do a better job of keeping unreleased material from being leaked?

Prince did not have anything to do with bootlegs. If you use the Google Custom Search at the top right hand of your screen you'll find many discussions on the topic.

djThunderfunk said:

Prince did not have anything to do with bootlegs. If you use the Google Custom Search at the top right hand of your screen you'll find many discussions on the topic.

And this too..........

NO TROLL THREADS! NO SOLICITING FOR BOOTLEGS! Discussion is fine, so long as the bootleg is not being promoted e.g. pre-release; requests/offers to share or copy, and links to download or bootleg sites are not. Posting Prince and associated artist videos from sites such as YouTube is also not allowed. Posts of this nature will be deleted and repeat offenders will be first warned, and then banned. Troll threads, fake tracklists, and attention seeking rumor threads will be also be swiftly dealt with. These rules are strictly enforced!

djThunderfunk said:

Prince did not have anything to do with bootlegs. If you use the Google Custom Search at the top right hand of your screen you'll find many discussions on the topic.

Well.... not totally true. Prince handed out cassettes a lot in the 90s to friends, employees, and there were also tapes used to play in the NPG stores. Those were kept, copied, and traded. He knew that. He didn't document who had what so they came from many people over time. I believe sometimes he wanted his music to get out and people to hear it, especially when Warner was still limiting him to one album a year. The rub is that instead of fans just trading the music, his leaking opened up a huge black market of bootleggers trying to profit from it.

If he was smart, he would have released at least two more Crystal Ball sets of outtakes etc., filling up each disk, to clean up the market and made money off clean studio quality copies instead of the ruddy copies we have of things with people like Liberation and T tagging stuff, forever fucking it up.

Nothing would have been 100% but it would have saved him worrying about it as much.

djThunderfunk said:

Prince did not have anything to do with bootlegs. If you use the Google Custom Search at the top right hand of your screen you'll find many discussions on the topic.

You are assuming I didn't use google search prior? Shame on you!

Prince could have made a mint off his own boots. Just saying people took major advantage of the guy

TrivialPursuit said:

djThunderfunk said:

Prince did not have anything to do with bootlegs. If you use the Google Custom Search at the top right hand of your screen you'll find many discussions on the topic.

Well.... not totally true. Prince handed out cassettes a lot in the 90s to friends, employees, and there were also tapes used to play in the NPG stores. Those were kept, copied, and traded. He knew that. He didn't document who had what so they came from many people over time. I believe sometimes he wanted his music to get out and people to hear it, especially when Warner was still limiting him to one album a year. There is no documented evidence of this. At some point he clearly knew of boots and, yet, it took him a few years to put an end to the leaks. But let us not forget that it must have been much more difficult when Prince was at WB and had to give WB execs various tapes, was running a whole multimedia business (label, studio, stores, clubs, magazines...) that involved a lot of staff and associates running around, and giving many songs away to other artists. His lifestyle and business operations became much more confidential and private after 1996, allowing him to stop the leaks more easily. The rub is that instead of fans just trading the music, his leaking opened up a huge black market of bootleggers trying to profit from it.

If he was smart, he would have released at least two more Crystal Ball sets of outtakes etc., filling up each disk, to clean up the market and made money off clean studio quality copies I hope one day we'll get to the bottom of it but it seems that Prince wasn't allowed to release any WB-era material, and that after getting away with it a couple of times, he got notice from the label's lawyers that it had to stop. This isn't confirmed, though, but it was more or less stated by Alan Leeds once, and it would explain the sudden halt of vault releases, while between 98-01 Prince seemed eager to release more. instead of the ruddy copies we have of things with people like Liberation and T tagging stuff, forever fucking it up.

Nothing would have been 100% but it would have saved him worrying about it as much.

000000 said:

djThunderfunk said:

Prince did not have anything to do with bootlegs. If you use the Google Custom Search at the top right hand of your screen you'll find many discussions on the topic.

You are assuming I didn't use google search prior? Shame on you!

You wouldn't have been the first

000000 said:

Prince could have made a mint off his own boots. Just saying people took major advantage of the guy

I'd be of the opinion that he was less all about the money than his own self-created public image of world's greatest businessman would have you think. He wanted to make as much money as possible from what he released sure but he pretty much only released stuff he really believed in, for better and for worse.

Before internet (1987), record collectors were selling vinyl copies of his concerts for like 100 bucks a pop. That's the reason I posed the question. Prince was a complicated person. He would say one thing and do another. I'm just looking for the truth. If Prince were signed to contract he would obviouly say he was against boots. But it's hard for me imagine all the money being made without his consent. The Black Album is a perfect example. Someone made on ton of money before it was officially released.

000000 said:

djThunderfunk said:

Prince did not have anything to do with bootlegs. If you use the Google Custom Search at the top right hand of your screen you'll find many discussions on the topic.

You are assuming I didn't use google search prior? Shame on you!

If you did use the search, you wouldn't need to ask a question that's been discussed many times. Stuff your shame.

000000 said:

Before internet (1987), record collectors were selling vinyl copies of his concerts for like 100 bucks a pop. That's the reason I posed the question. Prince was a complicated person. He would say one thing and do another. I'm just looking for the truth. If Prince were signed to contract he would obviouly say he was against boots. But it's hard for me imagine all the money being made without his consent. The Black Album is a perfect example. Someone made on ton of money before it was officially released.

No they weren't, they were more like $30 bucks a pop. I bought dozens and still have them. You're not looking for the "truth", you're regurgitating a decades long debate. Have fun with that.

TrivialPursuit said:

Well.... not totally true. Prince handed out cassettes a lot in the 90s to friends, employees, and there were also tapes used to play in the NPG stores. Those were kept, copied, and traded. He knew that. He didn't document who had what so they came from many people over time. I believe sometimes he wanted his music to get out and people to hear it, especially when Warner was still limiting him to one album a year.

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Dude, please. Prince sent DAT tapes to Edel in 1995 and artwork and then was surprised when they actually pressed CDs and sold them. That's the reason we got the Jacob Armen record and a couple others.

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Prince hated bootlegs, not in the least because he wasn't getting paid. He was simply unable to change his ways until the late 1990s when the flow of unreleased music dropped immensely. And yet still stuff got out.

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Hell, there are entire DVDs that got leaked after the 1990s, e.g. several Montreux gigs.

000000 said:

Before internet (1987), record collectors were selling vinyl copies of his concerts for like 100 bucks a pop. That's the reason I posed the question. Prince was a complicated person. He would say one thing and do another. I'm just looking for the truth. If Prince were signed to contract he would obviouly say he was against boots. But it's hard for me imagine all the money being made without his consent. The Black Album is a perfect example. Someone made on ton of money before it was officially released.

.

Take of your blinders and notice that tons or artists get bootlegged. This had been happening for ages before Prince even became popular.

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There is always a market for such things, because if an artist is popular, there is always a hardcore groups that already has everything -- and now the bootlegger can offer them exclusive stuff.

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Prince was a bootlegger's dream: a prolific artist whose entourage was leaky as hell (sometimes by accident), and he was also an artist who couldn't be arsed to properly maintain his back catalogue even when he had control. Hell, even his official releases were often hard to come by, hence the numerous bootlegs presenting officially released material that was and is hard to obtain.

BartVanHemelen said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Well.... not totally true. Prince handed out cassettes a lot in the 90s to friends, employees, and there were also tapes used to play in the NPG stores. Those were kept, copied, and traded. He knew that. He didn't document who had what so they came from many people over time. I believe sometimes he wanted his music to get out and people to hear it, especially when Warner was still limiting him to one album a year.

.

Dude, please. Prince sent DAT tapes to Edel in 1995 and artwork and then was surprised when they actually pressed CDs and sold them. That's the reason we got the Jacob Armen record and a couple others.

.

Prince hated bootlegs, not in the least because he wasn't getting paid. He was simply unable to change his ways until the late 1990s when the flow of unreleased music dropped immensely. And yet still stuff got out.

.

Hell, there are entire DVDs that got leaked after the 1990s, e.g. several Montreux gigs.

So you basically agreed with me. Kudos.

djThunderfunk said:

Prince did not have anything to do with bootlegs. If you use the Google Custom Search at the top right hand of your screen you'll find many discussions on the topic.

And this too.....

NO TROLL THREADS! NO SOLICITING FOR BOOTLEGS! Discussion is fine, so long as the bootleg is not being promoted e.g. pre-release; requests/offers to share or copy, and links to download or bootleg sites are not. Posting Prince and associated artist videos from sites such as YouTube is also not allowed. Posts of this nature will be deleted and repeat offenders will be first warned, and then banned. Troll threads, fake tracklists, and attention seeking rumor threads will be also be swiftly dealt with. These rules are strictly enforced!

BartVanHemelen said:

Prince was a bootlegger's dream: a prolific artist whose entourage was leaky as hell (sometimes by accident), and he was also an artist who couldn't be arsed to properly maintain his back catalogue even when he had control. Hell, even his official releases were often hard to come by, hence the numerous bootlegs presenting officially released material that was and is hard to obtain.

That kind of thing is still happening today on eBay and probably other online sites. There are hundreds of copies of long-deleted albums for sale there, and they sell. There are also for sale numerous bootleg albums that the casual fan wouldn't know aren't legit. Supply and demand of course, but many (new) fans wouldn't know that, say, The Slaughterhouse has never been released officially on CD and that the number of official live Prince albums can be counted on one hand.

JudasSmile said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Prince was a bootlegger's dream: a prolific artist whose entourage was leaky as hell (sometimes by accident), and he was also an artist who couldn't be arsed to properly maintain his back catalogue even when he had control. Hell, even his official releases were often hard to come by, hence the numerous bootlegs presenting officially released material that was and is hard to obtain.

That kind of thing is still happening today on eBay and probably other online sites. There are hundreds of copies of long-deleted albums for sale there, and they sell. There are also for sale numerous bootleg albums that the casual fan wouldn't know aren't legit. Supply and demand of course, but many (new) fans wouldn't know that, say, The Slaughterhouse has never been released officially on CD and that the number of official live Prince albums can be counted on one hand.

These bootleggers on eBAY make so much money for selling boots like The Slaughterhouse & The Chocolate Invasion. Since 2016 there is this eBAY user named COLE and they have been selling those boots since his death selling thousands of dollars worth every year if not more... I wish those people would get reported.

feeluupp said:

JudasSmile said:

That kind of thing is still happening today on eBay and probably other online sites. There are hundreds of copies of long-deleted albums for sale there, and they sell. There are also for sale numerous bootleg albums that the casual fan wouldn't know aren't legit. Supply and demand of course, but many (new) fans wouldn't know that, say, The Slaughterhouse has never been released officially on CD and that the number of official live Prince albums can be counted on one hand.

These bootleggers on eBAY make so much money for selling boots like The Slaughterhouse & The Chocolate Invasion. Since 2016 there is this eBAY user named COLE and they have been selling those boots since his death selling thousands of dollars worth every year if not more... I wish those people would get reported.

Pirated copies are even worse than stuff that was never released. They get reported all the time, but, for some reason it's the fans that share live shows or post songs on youtube that they go after.

djThunderfunk said: