"Iain Churches" wrote in message
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"Keith G" wrote in message
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"Iain Churches" wrote


I have not bought much on e-Bay recently, but a few years
ago I bought a "rare" James Taylor CD which turned out to
be a bootleg. The vendor had made up a black and white
inlay card on a photocopying machine with a logo
cut and pasted.



I bought a bootleg Blade Runner on vinyl a few years back - I knew it was
queer (I believe) it only came out on vinyl in Brazil or somewhere
equally
exotic and it fetches *toopid big money* when it (very rarely) comes up!
Anyway, the disc was badly flawed and I contacted the seller - he
apologised and sent me two more copies to see if I could get a good one
out of them!

He said he was going to give the 'Germans' (factory) a bollocking about
the quality! :-)

All the copies were much the same but it means both me and my son (a
lifelong vinyl addict himself) have got a 'copy' in the rack and they are
quite playable after the first *swishy* track!


Bootleg vinyl was not that common, though there is no
doubt that some small plants were "at it".




You are in the past tense - I am talking about *today*! Those Blade Runner
bootlegs are almost certainly still available, if they haven't been closed
down - although there's none on eBay atm!




But over-runs were a problem though, where the client ordered
5 000 pressings, and 500 extra were pressed and passed
out the back door. and sold at the pub. The clientele of the
Swiss Cottage in Finchley Road often had interesting things
on offer. The situation was corrected by supplying
only the correct quantity of labels and sleeves. Run-up
pressings had white labels, and the distribution of test-
pressings, clearly marked as such, became much more
tightly controlled.



White labels are eagerly sought after and traded by many people!




But these days pirate CD plants are everywhere, UK
included. The BPI are involved in some interesting
cases, including rooftop chases, and evidence being
tossed down chimneys, subsequently dismantled to
retrieve it.



If I have not been sold a complete pup, I believe CD over-runs are collected
by the likes of Securicor for guaranteed *secure disposal* and that only a
couple of pallets of same would be worth *tens of thousands* out the back
doors of pubs and on street markets...???