Hi all,

I have been around on the Org for quite some time, but since his passing not very active.

The last week I''m enyoing SOTT DeLuxe, and more specific The Vault & Utrecht tracks. Like many fans I have some bootlegs and listening to SOTT I wondered:

The bootlegs are illegal while the contents are owned by Prince (or the estate). I guess obtaining them shouldn't be a problem for the estate, so why don't they issue a box with estate-approved bootlegs? I think this will be a huge financial success and good for all of us?

I don't know if this is a new idea, but I'm interested in your views.

Thx!

Marc

the concept of the 1998 Crysal Ball set was that it was a bootleg set. The CDs even said "Bootleg."

We hope that most of what is on bootleg is in the vault and in better quality.

When the "4Ever" set came out with "Moonbeam Levels" some speculated that the source was a bootleg. You will note that the version on the 1999 set is longer.

From Nine Inch Nails to Fugazi to the Grateful Dead to Springsteen, many have embraced this in one form or another. The estate seems very conservative when it comes to these kind of things but perhaps in the future.

Marc said:

Hi all,

I have been around on the Org for quite some time, but since his passing not very active.

The last week I''m enyoing SOTT DeLuxe, and more specific The Vault & Utrecht tracks. Like many fans I have some bootlegs and listening to SOTT I wondered:

The bootlegs are illegal while the contents are owned by Prince (or the estate). I guess obtaining them shouldn't be a problem for the estate, so why don't they issue a box with estate-approved bootlegs? I think this will be a huge financial success and good for all of us?

I don't know if this is a new idea, but I'm interested in your views.

Thx!

Marc

I'm not quite sure what u mean by "obtaining them" but with a few possible exceptions in which the only surviving copy of a recording would be said bootlegs, the vault should contain every studio and live recording in equal to better quality. SO normalmly they have everything they need, they just don't seem to be interested in releasing more than one or 2 releases a year at the moment.

OnlyNDaUsa said:

the concept of the 1998 Crysal Ball set was that it was a bootleg set. The CDs even said "Bootleg."

We hope that most of what is on bootleg is in the vault and in better quality.

When the "4Ever" set came out with "Moonbeam Levels" some speculated that the source was a bootleg. You will note that the version on the 1999 set is longer.

What we're pretty sure of is that, as with all the outtakes on PR SDE, P&AM83 and Bold Generation, it came from a cassette mixdown. Said mixdown was probably found in the vault, however. There actually is no need to speculate about the use of a bootleg in order to explain this.

databank said:

Marc said:

The bootlegs are illegal while the contents are owned by Prince (or the estate). I guess obtaining them shouldn't be a problem for the estate, so why don't they issue a box with estate-approved bootlegs? I think this will be a huge financial success and good for all of us?

I'm not quite sure what u mean by "obtaining them" but with a few possible exceptions in which the only surviving copy of a recording would be said bootlegs, the vault should contain every studio and live recording in equal to better quality. SO normalmly they have everything they need, they just don't seem to be interested in releasing more than one or 2 releases a year at the moment.

"obtaining" like getting the bootlegs from the market/fans and use these to sell them, maybe with improvements from the vault. To me it seems that there are more gems of Prince on bootlegs than the estate is able to find in the vault....

Marc said:

databank said:

I'm not quite sure what u mean by "obtaining them" but with a few possible exceptions in which the only surviving copy of a recording would be said bootlegs, the vault should contain every studio and live recording in equal to better quality. SO normalmly they have everything they need, they just don't seem to be interested in releasing more than one or 2 releases a year at the moment.

"obtaining" like getting the bootlegs from the market/fans and use these to sell them, maybe with improvements from the vault. To me it seems that there are more gems of Prince on bootlegs than the estate is able to find in the vault....

PS. I feel that many bootlegs, for example those recorded by the audience, may not have similar recordings in the vault?

Marc said:

Marc said:

But who are we to speculatate on such concepts as presented herein, thus making your whole argument a fallacy of immense nature. Prince wanted all his work destroyed upon his death, but those in power have denied his very last wish - Why did they cry?

Dandroppedadime said:

But who are we to speculatate on such concepts as presented herein, thus making your whole argument a fallacy of immense nature. Prince wanted all his work destroyed upon his death, but those in power have denied his very last wish - Why did they cry?

Nonsense.

Dandroppedadime said:

Dandroppedadime said:

But who are we to speculatate on such concepts as presented herein, thus making your whole argument a fallacy of immense nature. Prince wanted all his work destroyed upon his death, but those in power have denied his very last wish - Why did they cry?

Source(s)?

The latest words from Prince when asked about this on The View were (paraphrased) "someone will release the Vault" after he died. He didn't really elaborate, but he SURELY didn't say "I would actually like The Vault destroyed once I die." Not on the View, not on Arsenio, etc. He had the platform to do it right there and didn't.

And, based on what they're finding in the Vault, Prince didn't even destroy any of the "nasty" stuff either once he converted to JW. He saved it for some reason - either to release someday or revisit someday. But not destroy.

Turning Paisley Park into a museum was also something that Prince had in the works before he died. Maybe they opened to the public a little soon for "optics", but either way it was something he wanted.

What else . . . moving his Vault to Iron Mountain? Had to be done to save what was in there. Paisley had fallen behind on maintenance and climate control.

Marc said:

why don't they issue a box with estate-approved bootlegs? I think this will be a huge financial success and good for all of us?

I'm not sure I understand your question. Isn't that exactly what the estate did when they releases the Originals and the bonus discs in the Super Deluxe Editions of Purple Rain, 1999 and Sign O' The Times?

What they're doing now is intended to be a more strategic way to monetize the vault material.

If they just dumped the bootleg material on the market so it's accessible to everyone, then they would devalue a backlog of material and be letting the amateur bootlegs dictate how the collection is curated. That doesn't make sense.

What they can do is release the more celebrated bootlegs, and make it so there's a constant stream of good material, and people become patient. We now know if it's on a bootleg, we can count on a superior version coming out, there's nobody picking the bootleg over the official release and frankly the bootlegs are going to struggle to profit right now. Whatever they are doing has sent the inner circle tape traders into an existential crises. Rushing out the benefit and birthday shows would be smart though. There are some pretty obvious choices they're holdin back that makes little sense... but they also are trrying to spread the release schedule out. My guess is the thinking is "If we can get $250 yearly from he core fans it becomes this amount of profit".