Discogs going after bootlegs

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achouza
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Discogs going after bootlegs

Post by achouza »

Not sure if folks have noticed but Discogs seems to be going after bootlegs more aggressively. Blocking them from being sold on their site, deleting any wantlist / collection / sales history info, and according to some folks deleting the release details as well.

Here's a good article discussing it:

https://thevinylfactory.com/features/do ... or-future/


Thoughts in general?

I use discogs quite a bit to track collection / wantlist and purchase items off my wantlist, and I think it super sucks. I have gotten a few of my bootleg singles off discogs at decent prices, not sure if moving the sales to ebay is going to either deflate prices through less demand or increase prices through less price transparency. Also their legal argument of liability makes no sense to me, ebay is based out of the USA, subject to the same laws, and to my knowledge has never actively banned sale of bootleg records.
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rsimms3
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Re: Discogs going after bootlegs

Post by rsimms3 »

I didn't read the article but I'm sure it's more about profitability than legality. Isn't Discogs about to go public or something? Can't attract advertisers revenue if they might be associated with illegal activities. Also, there's some grey area about bootlegs. I haven't fully researched it, but my understanding is that in the UK if a song or performance is played on the radio or for public consumption then it can be shared in different formats after a certain number of years. That makes the waters very murky because bands may not want performances issued on vinyl or CD but have no standing related to copyright in the UK. Hence the Pearl Jam live radio series, etc. If I'm not mistaken, Discogs takes a smaller cut of the sale than eBay so I'm thinking sellers will adjust their prices accordingly but it does make cataloging difficult. Would be nice if they left the catalog of boots but disallowed sales of them. The point of Discogs was the database, sales were secondary.
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Stl_ben
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Re: Discogs going after bootlegs

Post by Stl_ben »

It's all about legality. It's illegal to sell bootlegs, knockoffs, or whatever you want to call them. eBay has the same rules and will pull any bootlegs they find. I sell stuff for goodwill and we have the exact same rules don't sell bootleg stuff. It sucks, but don't really want the FBI coming down on us.
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achouza
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Re: Discogs going after bootlegs

Post by achouza »

Stl_ben wrote:It's all about legality. It's illegal to sell bootlegs, knockoffs, or whatever you want to call them. eBay has the same rules and will pull any bootlegs they find. I sell stuff for goodwill and we have the exact same rules don't sell bootleg stuff. It sucks, but don't really want the FBI coming down on us.
Yeah I guess its harder for ebay to identify bootlegs so its easier for them to get in trouble with FBI. Discogs catalogs if they are bootleg or not so they cant feign ignorance....

Damnn well I love bootlegs. There are alot of cool live recordings or unreleased music that only die hard fans want and dont merit full releases.

Hmmm we should make a shadow discogs based out of eastern europe that is built off the discogs releases and allows people to buy / sell those bootlegs. We can call it bootcogs... whos in? we can raise $50M through an ICO
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rival
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Re: Discogs going after bootlegs

Post by rival »

Discogs can still catalogue them, can't they? Just don't allow them to be sold in the marketplace. Having release info, and using the database as inventory of you collection is a very valuable tool. I don't have many bootlegs, but I certainly do enjoy discovering one and heading to Discogs to learn more about it.
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Stl_ben
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Re: Discogs going after bootlegs

Post by Stl_ben »

rival wrote:Discogs can still catalogue them, can't they? Just don't allow them to be sold in the marketplace. Having release info, and using the database as inventory of you collection is a very valuable tool. I don't have many bootlegs, but I certainly do enjoy discovering one and heading to Discogs to learn more about it.
Yeah they are still on discogs and you can add them to the database or your collection. They just aren't allowing them to be sold and are deleting the data on what they previously sold for.
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achouza
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Re: Discogs going after bootlegs

Post by achouza »

As long as they dont delete the release information (category numbers, songs...etc)...

It does suck to lose past sales history info, but with those sales being blocked in the future, historic pricing was going to become useless anyway

im lucky I got most of the bootleg singles I wanted before this change (ramones, iggy...etc)
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