page_title: Bootleg recording
section_title: Official releases
hierarchical_section_title: Bootleg recording / Official releases
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of the 1975 Bruce Springsteen bootleg, "The Jersey Devil"
context_page_description: A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. Making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging. Recordings may be copied and traded among fans without financial exchange, but some bootleggers have sold recordings for profit, sometimes by adding professional-quality sound engineering and packaging to the raw material. Bootlegs usually consist of unreleased studio recordings, live performances or interviews with unpredictable quality.
  The practice of releasing unauthorised performances had been established before the 20th century, but reached new popularity with Bob Dylan's Great White Wonder, a compilation of studio outtakes and demos released in 1969 using low-priority pressing plants. The following year, the Rolling Stones' Live'r Than You'll Ever Be, an audience recording of a late 1969 show, received a positive review in Rolling Stone. Subsequent bootlegs became more sophisticated in packaging, particularly the Trademark of Quality label with William Stout's cover artwork.
context_section_description: Record companies have described bootlegs as "grey area, live recordings", describing them as "semi-condoned". Research into bootleg consumers found that they are committed fans of the artist; a study of Bruce Springsteen fans showed 80% felt some bootlegs were essential purchases despite owning every official release. Springsteen has said he understands why fans buy bootlegs, but dislikes the market due to the lack of quality control and making profit over pleasing fans. Frank Zappa hated bootlegs and wished to control his recordings, so he created the Beat The Boots boxed sets, each containing eight LPs that were direct copies of existing bootlegs. He set up a hotline for fans to report bootlegs and was frustrated that the FBI were not interested in prosecuting. The first set included As An Am Zappa, in which he can be heard complaining about bootleggers releasing new material before he could.
  Throughout their career, the Grateful Dead were known to tolerate taping of the live shows. There was a demand from fans to hear the improvisations that resulted from each show, and taping appealed to the band's general community ethos. They were unique among bands in that their live shows tended not to be pressed and packaged as LPs, but remained in tape form to be shared between tapers. The group were strongly opposed to commercial bootlegging and policed stores that sold them, while the saturation of tapes among fans suppressed any demand for product. In 1985, the Grateful Dead, after years of tolerance, officially endorsed live taping of their shows, and set up dedicated areas that they believed gave the best sound recording quality. Other bands, including Pearl Jam, Phish and the Dave Matthews Band tolerate taping in a similar manner to the Grateful Dead, provided no profit is involved. Because of the questionable legality of bootlegs, fans have sometimes simply dubbed a bootleg onto tape and freely passed it onto others.
  Many recordings first distributed as bootleg albums were later released officially by the copyright holder. Provided the official release matches the quality of the bootleg, demand for the latter can be suppressed. One of the first rock bootlegs, containing John Lennon's performance with the Plastic Ono Band at the 1969 Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, was released officially as Live Peace in Toronto 1969 by the end of the year, effectively killing sales of the bootleg. The release of Bob Dylan's 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert on Vol. 4 of his Bootleg Series in 1998 included both the acoustic and electric sets, more than any bootleg had done.
  In 2002, Dave Matthews Band released Busted Stuff in response to the Internet-fuelled success of The Lillywhite Sessions which they had not intended to release. Queen released 100 bootlegs for sale as downloads on the band's official website, with profits going to the Mercury Phoenix Trust. Although the recording of concerts by King Crimson and its guitarist Robert Fripp is prohibited, Fripp's music company Discipline Global Mobile (DGM) sells concert recordings as downloads, especially "archival recordings" produced from the recordings from the concerts' mixing consoles. With an even greater investment of sound engineering, DGM has released "official bootlegs", which are produced from one or more fan bootlegs. DGM's reverse engineering of the distribution-networks for bootlegs helped it to make a successful transition to an age of digital distribution, "unique" (in 2009) among music labels. In the 21st century, artists responded to the demand for recordings of live shows by experimenting with the sale of authorized bootlegs made directly from the soundboard, with a superior quality to an audience recording. Metallica, Phish and Pearl Jam have been regularly distributing instant live bootlegs of their concerts. In 2014, Bruce Springsteen announced he would allow fans to purchase a USB stick at concerts, which could be used to download a bootleg of the show.
  According to a 2012 report in Rolling Stone, many artists have now concluded that the volume of bootlegged performan
caption: Bruce Springsteen has mixed feelings over bootlegs of his popular live performances.
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