DIGITAL BOOTLEGS

A BOOTLEG recording is an audio and/or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist, or under other legal authority. A great many such recordings are simply copied and traded among fans of the artist without financial exchange, but some bootleggers are able to sell these rarities for profit, sometimes by adding professional-quality sound engineering and packaging to the raw material.
    In the past, these used to exist in the form of vinyl or casette tape, and Christie were victims particularly in SE Asia, Russia and Poland (see below).
    But the late 1990s and early 2000s saw an increase in the free trading of digital bootlegs, sharply decreasing the demand for and profitability of physical bootlegs. The rise of standard audio file formats such as MP3 and FLAC, combined with the ability to share files between computers via e-mail, FTP, instant messaging, and specialised peer-to-peer file sharing networks, made it simpler than ever for bootleg collectors to exchange rarities.
    Older analog recordings were converted to digital format for the first time, tracks from bootleg CDs were ripped to computer hard disks, and new material was created with digital recording of various types, and all of these types could now be easily shared.
   There are at least four digital bootlegs of Christie material available through the net as of October 2011: one is a DVD of Christie video clips, the other three are CDs of songs culled from Jeff's reportoire.

The cover of the DVD bootleg which features Christie video clips

The digital 3-CD set which collects the works the Outer Limits, Christie, and Jeff as a solo artist.

The digital CD bootleg which contains 24 tracks.

    Fans should note that the DVD consists of clips copied directly from the videos uploaded to youtube. The cover of the product is very nicely done (although using artwork from the Russian CD which plagiarised photos from this site), but the quality of the clips is poor. It also strangely uses the logo for the Christie Again band as part of the DVD menu. A couple of the clips are incorrectly labelled ... a performance of San Bernadino on German TV is wrongly attributed to the BBC, while the first-ever Christie clip (Yellow River) is mysteriously dubbed "the Hamburg video".
    The 24-track digital CD is also definitely not an authorised product, even though it goes to great lengths to prove it is (for example, using a CBS logo on the disc label). The Japanese CD uses photos downloaded from this site. The 3-CD set merely collects the Past Imperfect set with the Christie digital bootleg mentioned above, and rearranges the song list to make it different from the original.
    True Christie fans will only buy the genuine product and realise that these bootlegs do not form part of any official Christie collection.

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PHYSICAL BOOTLEGS

	Pirated records featuring Yellow River, San Bernadino, Picture Painter, Everything's Gonna Be Alright, Iron Horse, Fools' Gold, Peace Lovin' Man, Man of Many Faces and Born To Lose.

SOUTH-EAST Asia was a haven for record pirates back in the early 70's, and every song that was a hit was cheaply mass produced on poor quality vinyl, either as singles, EPs (with four songs) or on albums (up to 12 songs).
    These products were illegal and obviously manufactured without any permission of the artists' recording labels, nor were any royalties paid.
   The records sold very cheaply, usually in covers that had pictures of one of the artists featured on the record, or sometimes none at all.
    The vinyl used for the bootlegs was thin and the sound reproduction was poor.
    Like other successful artists of the era, Christie was not immune to such piracy, and several of their recordings exist in these pirated forms.
    Unfortunately, many unscrupulous SE Asian dealers are currently selling these records for exorbitant prices, claiming them to be collectors' items.
    Inaccurate reviews by ignorant Western journalists in some music magazines have not helped either.
    Do not be fooled. These records were made without the artists' authority or knowledge, and if you pay a premium for them, you are merely swelling the coffers of rip-off merchants.

    Here are a few tell-tale signs of a pirated disc:
1) The cover artwork looks amateurish and poorly designed
2) The record company logo is a poor imitation of the original, or a variation - for example, EMI would be changed to JMI. Alternatively, there is no logo or record company name at all
3) The artists featured on an EP belong, in most cases, to different recording companies. For example, if you see the Beatles (EMI) and Creedence (Fantasy) on the same EP, you know it is a pirated disc, for there is absolutely no way different recording companies can be represented on the same item without complex legal agreements in place
4) The vinyl itself is thin and ragged on the edges. The sound quality is poor

    Of course, the bootlegs weren't restricted to Asia; the practice was prevalent in just about any other country where licencing wasn't policed very well, such as Communist regions. Remember the tell-tale sign — if the artists on the product belong to different companies, then it is a bootleg.
    In Poland, a different sort of bootleg was manufactured — the postcard disc, again featuring work of artists without permission.

  See here for a detailed analysis of Russian and Polish bootlegs.

    The art of piracy continues well into the current age, despite attempts to crack down on it.
    These days items like CDs and DVDs are the most often copied, with technology so advanced that even a novice can create a passable imitation — but it was in the 70s when bootleg vinyl records were in extensive and profligate supply.

See this message from a Christie fan.

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