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Deep cuts: how one Londoner’s fake vinyl empire sheds light on ‘industrial scale’ fraud
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2026
63 points (97.0% liked)
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Perhaps an unpopular opinion around here, but as far as I am concerned, this is a separate form of piracy that I believe in. This guy was actively making tons of money, selling to people who were not only willing to pay artists for their work, but were unaware they were purchasing a bootleg in the first place. This type of behaviour only gives weight large corporations’ arguments when they attack people who share replications of digital files/rips.
I think his sentencing is fair.
Counterfeiting is what has gone on here.
Piracy ok. Make money with piracy (beyond operation cost) not ok.
Almost there, though the vast majority of common digital "piracy" is for personal use, and generates a barely non-zero amount of money for said "pirates". You had it in the first bit, but the second could use some work. You'll get there! 🤘🏼
I think sell bootleg for price of blank cd + electricity is ok. Imagine you on countryside with no internet. How you pirate?
Sure as long as everyone involved knows that is what is going on.
Yeah this was counterfeiting, not piracy. People thought hey we’re getting collectibles, not just media.
Wait these supposed be collectible? No fuck that.
There's been an entire subculture dedicated to sharing recordings of live performances (on tape, originally) at the highest standard possible —all for free, and word of mouth only.
Its been a thing since at least the 80s, IIRC, and not only does no one hear of it from mass media outlets, but its collective impact on any/all related industries is negligible at best.
Gee, I wonder how a disjointed, disparate, and altogether disorganized "group" of pirates can be accused of moving that profit needle in the red simply by blocking ads, etc when this intrepid bunch of audiophiles've been doing much more, and passionately, for over 30 years...
"You wouldn't download a—" stfu, everyone would.
I think the people you're talking to are not interested in getting the artists' permission.
I was thinking more about the cd producer and purchaser. If the purchaser knows they are getting bootlegs it's just plain old copyright infringement, if not it's counterfeiting.
And why wouldn't the artist who made the thing not be included in, "everyone involved" that needs to know?
Is the original architect involved when you sell your house? Everyone involved in that specific transaction knows what is being traded, stop acting dense.
Sketchy analogy.
But if we are talking about famous artist architects (like your Frank Lloyd Wrights, and I'm sure there are others), the yeah they probably are actually.
But we're not talking about resale are we? We are talking about bootlegging legitimate artwork.
Even for legitimate copies, a retailer doesn't get in touch with the artist to let them know who they've sold a copy to.
Because that copy was already sold, and the artist already received their cut of the profits (however tiny). They're not entitled to any percent of resales, so there's no reason to be in contact with them.
Bootlegging is not the same as reselling. Especially since we're talking about digital music here. Something that can be copied exactly for free. This isn't even like someone painting a forgery, which would at least be a distinct piece of art. That would be more like if an artist recorded a cover of an entire album (and then claimed it as their own, which is where it becomes problematic imo. Just covering the album would be fine if they give credit to the original artist).
I've got tons of issues with how our current copyright system is set up, but so many people seem to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
There should be some protections for the people creating the actual artwork. It's ethically wrong to take someone else's artwork and sell it as your own without permission. It's insane that this even needs to be said.
The original post was about burning CDs and charging the dupication cost, we already covered the industrial scale boodtlegging for profit falls under counterfeiting.
In terms of profits to the original artist it's exactly the same as resale though, they get zero from both.
You are very naive if you think copyright is serving the actual artists producing art.
"Pirating" for your own use is far more economical than making/burning copies for others, and the latter is far easier to prosecute, for several reasons.
No need to burn, etc., just don't forget to seed >1.0 🙇🏼♂️
Yeah, more than piracy this is straight up fraud
Did you mean "a separate form of piracy that I believe in" or "separate from piracy that I believe in"? Because the first disagrees with the rest of your comment. Or maybe "a separate form of piracy that I don't believe in"?