[geodeticman.5]

JohninCt.,

I have not seen it or heard of the one you mention, but I am aware of several other commonly available bootlegs of live recordings especially. No one can position themselves as moral police in this matter, as it is a personal choice, but its worth pointing out to you something that possibly you may not have considered.

I had not, until I heard the reasoning, and raw info. Bootleg recordings, or in any event recordings that are not recognized in the easily accessible lists ( incl. lists in corfid) of valid CD releases, or other media past and present, deny Gordon his hard-earned pay when we buy them. He does not get his portion, as I am sure you can picture, of the sale of any unauthorized recordings

. As such, in most cases not only are they illegal to sell, but may very well be illegal to buy or own ( I do not know that much myself, but it stands to reason). One thing is for sure: the largest malpheasant involved ( that being the "criime" of intentional nature) is the entity that recorded it to begin with, then made copies for sale, and then distributed them for sale, and finally sold them, often to unknowing and hapless, if not innocent, victims.

I'm sure your intent , if you purchased it, would not be to rob Lightfoot of his royalties, but almost certainly it does. And you know, his stuff is so good; he has worked so hard to make good music, he surely has earned his royalties and deserves them. Even if his music stunk, and he did not work hard on them, and moreover we thought for some reason he did not deserve his cut, its still the law as I understand. But of course, it is good, he did work VERY hard as I am sure you'd be among the first to agree, and also that he DOES deserve his royalties on the sale of strictly legit official releases.

When I started collecting Gord's music, I did not know what were official versus otherwise recordings, and very easily could have innocently bought a bootleg or otherwise illegal recording. But those, fortunately for me ( and Gord) were not available in common new merchandise retail outlets in the US anyway as a rule, and I was shielded from the goods I would not have known at first were infact unofficial ( read: rips Gord off personally, and his band, and all the agents and levels involved in the performance, recording, producing, marketing, distribution, and sale of his recordings) and was not exposed to an unwitting illegal-to-sell recording of any kind.

By the time of the proliferation of E-bay, other auction and general retail sources of new and used recordings on the internet in general, fortunately by then I knew by-heart the list of his offical recordingsd and releases. But not all fans do know or could be expected to know at all times; so he still gets ripped off by both knowing thoughtless fans, AND unknowing well-meaning fans. I'm sure you would not intentionally rip-off Gord if you did know in a given case, so please forgive my pontification here.

I sure don't mean to be sanctimonius. Like you I'm sure, I just hate to see him get ripped. Check it out ! I don't mean to posture as the self-appointed Gord-protection police, but most of us, and you too, I bet, would openly discourage illegal Lightfoot recordings. There are those who profess they DO purchase or in any event own them, and its not my place to judge them. Just a heads-up, man. Gord rules !

~geo steve