advertisement


Interesting article on counterfeit vinyl in the Grauniad

I've certainly had a couple in the past, before I was aware that counterfeit records existed. I remember being excited to see Wire's Pink Flag at a record fair for tenner so I bought it, when I got it home I noticed how papery the sleeve felt and how crap the art work was, like it had been scanned and reprinted! It probably had.
 
@deek I have a “Pink Flag” like that, and a “Chairs Missing”, a few iffy-looking U2 albums, and not-very-legit-looking copies of “Tago Mago” and “On The Beach”. Many of these were bought online from established bricks/mortar retailers.
 
It can be a minefield if one has never seen the original of a given title, or is lacking the knowledge of what the record label’s output of that period looks like, e.g. if you know exactly what a late-70s UK EMI/Harvest pressing looks like a fake Wire album shouldn’t distract you for more than a few seconds. One instinctively knows the matrix format, vinyl profile, cardstock etc etc and anything ’off’ becomes pretty obvious. Things become more confusing given these albums were released in the mid-80s on thinner vinyl, with thinner covers, bar-codes and (in the case of the first two) grey on black Harvest labels (154 still has the label print, the give-away is a lighter square-cut inner and a barcode!). Perfectly legitimate and very nice sounding records. Hunt them down, but don’t pay the price of a first press for them! They were also reissued on Four Men With Beards on 180g vinyl this century, which are fine if your expectations are for a CD in vinyl form.

PS Piracy has always been an issue. Back in the 1980s nine out of ten copies one saw of the ‘drag cover’ Man Who Sold The World or JD’s Ideal For Living 7” were a pirate. Some good enough to fool some dealers.
 
There's a guy at a local record fair who always has three or four tables full of this stuff. Easy to spot in his case because there are also lots of obviously bootleg live LPs mixed in. The records are cheap - mostly a tenner.

All of his crates are random assortment of titles which makes me suspect he's buying this stuff wholesale - mixed boxes of whatever titles they're cranking out that month.

He does a roaring trade and seems to have regular punters that come back every month.
 
paulfromcamden said:
There's a guy at a local record fair who always has three or four tables full of this stuff. Easy to spot in his case because there are also lots of obviously bootleg live LPs mixed in. The records are cheap - mostly a tenner.
Click to expand...

He’s playing with fire. I know someone who got busted by trading standards by having a small crate of concert VHS tapes (that long ago!) at a record fair along with a load of perfectly legitimate used vinyl. The police seized everything on the tavboe, seized everything he had at home (his whole record collection which would likely be worth a fortune now), his computer etc and legal proceedings dragged on for years. The case was eventually thrown out, but by which point the police had lost/stolen his record collection. Just a total nightmare. It taught me very clearly never to touch this sort of thing. If it comes in with a collection I just give it back or throw it out. I won’t even stock DOL, WaxTime etc, though that is as much due to it being low-quality crap.

PS There is a local record shop with pirate CDs in the racks. Again it amazes me. I guess over the past decades of austerity and state decline the resources to investigate this sort of low-level criminality no longer exists. Same with tax fraud.
 
I don't have any counterfeits anymore. I gave them away while I was 'Discogging' (did I just invent that verb?) my collection.

I remember Husker Du everything falls apart and Can's future days were fake! Both bought from record fairs. I know the seller, and he's still active at the fairs but I guess he's not responsible for counterfeiting. There's also an appropriately named record shop in Edinburgh where you can find these kind of pressings too.

I bought the UK original of Pink Flag a good few years ago now, think it set me back about £50.
 
Tony L said:
He’s playing with fire. I know someone who got busted by trading standards by having a small crate of concert VHS tapes (that long ago!) at a record fair along with a load of perfectly legitimate used vinyl. The police seized everything on the tavboe, seized everything he had at home (his whole record collection which would likely be worth a fortune now), his computer etc and legal proceedings dragged on for years. The case was eventually thrown out, but by which point the police had lost/stolen his record collection. Just a total nightmare. It taught me very clearly never to touch this sort of thing. If it comes in with a collection I just give it back or throw it out. I won’t even stock DOL, WaxTime etc, though that is as much due to it being low-quality crap.

PS There is a local record shop with pirate CDs in the racks. Again it amazes me. I guess over the past decades of austerity and state decline the resources to investigate this sort of low-level criminality no longer exists. Same with tax fraud.
Click to expand...
When I was a teenager I'd sometimes help out on a bootleg tape stall in Camden. It was a strange business. There were very occasional busts and court cases - and there was the occasional bit of ducking out the back way - but as far as I could tell relations with the local constabulary were mostly fairly cordial. Bottles of whisky were sent to the station at Xmas and I suspect the police mostly felt they had more important things to worry about.
 
MotelBlues said:
@deek I have a “Pink Flag” like that, and a “Chairs Missing”, a few iffy-looking U2 albums, and not-very-legit-looking copies of “Tago Mago” and “On The Beach”. Many of these were bought online from established bricks/mortar retailers.
Click to expand...

I have seen a counterfeit Tago Mago, with the 'live' cover not the 'brain' cover. I've also seen a dodgy looking Amon Duul ii Yeti with scratched out matrix numbers.
 
deek said:
I remember Husker Du everything falls apart and Can's future days were fake! Both bought from record fairs. I know the seller, and he's still active at the fairs but I guess he's not responsible for counterfeiting.
Click to expand...

He should have spotted it, or knew and turned a blind eye. I’ve seen the Can fakes, they are terrible. Any dealer should be able to spot them from across the room. Just obviously wrong on so many levels.

PS I’m talking UA label fakes here, the Spoon ones are rather more complex, as much as anything as no one would expect a fake of a reissue!
 
deek said:
I have seen a counterfeit Tago Mago, with the 'live' cover not the 'brain' cover. I've also seen a dodgy looking Amon Duul ii Yeti with scratched out matrix numbers.
Click to expand...

I’ve seen both, and yes, they are shockingly bad. A real UA Tago Mago has a textured top-loading envelope sleeve, the pirate emulates none of this even before we get to the labels being the wrong colour and the matrix all wrong. I think some were on green vinyl too! The Yeti is just as bad, the original has a very fragile matt textured finish to the cover. It is a long time since I’ve seen the pirate, but I think it even had scanned ring-wear (as almost all originals have)!

PS First three Kraftwek albums are very widely pirated too, as are Neu!
 
I don't know the seller personally, only by sight and I'm pretty sure he knows what he's selling.
 
'What's really silly is that when someone complained the seller just got arsy. If he had given the guy a refund he would not have been prosecuted.
 
Tony L said:
He’s playing with fire. I know someone who got busted by trading standards by having a small crate of concert VHS tapes (that long ago!) at a record fair along with a load of perfectly legitimate used vinyl. The police seized everything on the tavboe, seized everything he had at home (his whole record collection which would likely be worth a fortune now), his computer etc and legal proceedings dragged on for years. The case was eventually thrown out, but by which point the police had lost/stolen his record collection. Just a total nightmare. It taught me very clearly never to touch this sort of thing. If it comes in with a collection I just give it back or throw it out. I won’t even stock DOL, WaxTime etc, though that is as much due to it being low-quality crap.

PS There is a local record shop with pirate CDs in the racks. Again it amazes me. I guess over the past decades of austerity and state decline the resources to investigate this sort of low-level criminality no longer exists. Same with tax fraud.
Click to expand...
Amazon Market has been getting away with it for decades. Any query as to provenance gets a “we don’t hold that information” reply.
 
Finnegan said:
Amazon Market has been getting away with it for decades. Any query as to provenance gets a “we don’t hold that information” reply.
Click to expand...

It is bizarre. I’ve never personally received a pirate from Amazon, but I know what I’m doing, and only buy new releases there anyway. I’m actually far more worried about buying batteries etc as Duracell, Energiser etc are widely pirated and most sellers are in the marketplace. I’ve moved over to Panasonic Eneloop rechargeables and I think they are more likely to be legitimate.

Piracy is rife though, we sneer at China, India etc, but piracy is ingrained in our culture. EU copyright loophole crap in almost every new record shop etc. I have no interest in clothing/fashion, but it will be exponentially worse there. It is online too. I closed a thread a few minutes ago as it was encouraging the use of ad-blockers etc, the legalised piracy/theft devices of the modern age. Want to deny someone their income? Fine, just push a button from the safety of your sofa…
 
I dissappointed a lady sellling lego minifigures at a market stall in Malaga last year, I showed her why they were obviously fakes, There was no lego logo on the top of the head post. It also appears between the studs on top of the hip piece. She probably carried on after I walked away.
 
kensalriser said:
Can someone explain the copyright loophole?
Click to expand...

For a long while EU law only covered music copyright for 50 years, though bizarrely images held copyright longer. This is why there was a massive fly-tipping of really dodgy jazz pressings with the wrong covers etc; DOL, Waxtime and other fake labels producing shit “mastered” from cassette, CD or in some cases even YouTube videos. Things claiming to be Kind Of Blue, Blue Train etc, which obviously weren’t. Really obscure prog acts suffered similarly.

It is since been extended as rich living white people started to notice; Cliff Richard, Beatles etc were all hitting the point their music would be ripe for “legal” piracy. As such the copyright was extended, I think to 75 years, though it has done little to stem the influx of jazz piracy. That is still all over the place and can be found in major high st chains, Amazon, HMV etc. I’m not a lawyer so I’ve no idea why the legitimate rights holders (mainly Universal, Sony etc) don’t sue.

As stated earlier I refuse to stock them as I know they are crap. Sadly I’m one of very few dealers with that view. I just give them back when they come in or chuck them. Just junk as far as I’m concerned. They give a really bad impression of what vinyl is to new buyers so are destructive for us all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top