Story Regarding Bootlegs

[gamemusicfreak]

Hey all, with the new article on bootlegs posted on the main page, I wanted to tell a small story about a unique experience I had following a Play! Concert.

This was at the Chicago premiere of Play! at the composer meeting event. I had tons of CDs with me, and it was so hard to decide which ones to bring, and even harder to carry them all around. Anyway, when I approached Mr. Koji Kondo, I presented my Zelda Windwaker and Ocarina of Time soundtracks to him for signing. Here's where something great happened. Before signing, he looked over both CDs carefully and said quietly: "Japanese". I knew immediately that he was confirming the authenticity of the discs, and I thought that was so cool! :) I wonder if anyone out there has had a similar experience...
This further emphasizes the point that our beloved composers are very aware of the piracy and how the bootlegs are an outright insult to their hard work.

[Gemeines]

Cool story! that would have made my day! I bet it Makes the musicians day better when he sees actual product in circulation too.

Sadly I have had the opposite experience that was quite embarrassing. (Not with a G.M.composer)

Back in 2001, I never knew about the whole bootleg thing.

My first Game music purchase ever was Vagrant Story OST.
It was $40.00 US and It was a Legit Square/Digicube copy.

but when I found a a site called Gameandanimesoundtracks.com (site long closed down) I found Vagrant Story OST among others for $20.00 I thought to my self, WOW these are much cheaper!!

I bought waay over $200.00 worth of game osts from this guy and loved it!

I had a pretty extensive collection.. (so I thought )= ) turns out that close to half of my full CD rack is bootlegs!!

I was selling one of the CDs on ebay that I thought was legit.
I recieved a polite e-mail stating it was a fake.
Turns out They were printed by "Ever Anime" and "Alion" all Bootlegs!

The woman who informed me on ebay was very gracious and said she was not angry, nor did she ask for a refund. No negetive feedback was exchanged.


At ebay I bought my precious FFX soundtrack (artbook/ artbox included sealed) Looked perfect! I paid 50$ for it. shipping not included from Hong Kong... A F*****G Bootleg!! )=

Sad truth be told- I probably wont be going back anytime soon to get legitimate copies either. I am done.. I already listened to them and still enjoy them despite them being fraudulent.

I can honestly say that my favorites printed by Digicube, square, Sleuepter, etc. are all originals bought from Kahori and other honest sellers.

.. I looked for legitiamcy and if need be- Resale Value.
I found Ms. Ezakis site this way.
back then, It was hard to find with a search engine. When I googled Game soundtracks or Game Music-- Cocoebiz was not in googles list at all. I guess I got lucky finding it.

As A comic book nerd I demand authenticity.

Damn Bootlegs.




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[zero]

From my point of view, a little % of the piracy problem is becasue the Videogame companies don´t care to release soundtracks in Europe and U.S.A. Many people can´t afford to import soundtracks from Japan, Japanese soundtracks are very expensive and you have to pay the shipping cost too. Some people buy bootlegs because they don´t know anything about it, but other people buy it because they can´t afford the originals (or they download the soundtrack from the internet).

Konami Europe is doing the right thing through Konami Style Europe:

http://www.konamistyle-europe.com/de/?cat=c43_Soundtrack.html

They sell Metal Gear, Silent Hill or ZOE soundtracks for a reasonable price, and you know what?, Silent Hill soundtracks are the top selling product of the shop (including games and other related stuff).

There is a huge potential in the videogame soundtracks but the Japanese companies don´t care about it, they only care about Japan.


P.d: Anyway, Konami Europe sucks too because they don´t sell soundtracks to Spain, Italy or even England.

[Eriol]

I think the sales potential of VGM album is overinflated. Attempts have been made in the past to sell domestic versions of VGM, and it doesn't sound like there have been any breakaway sales. A soundtrack that is top-selling on a website might have only sold 1000 albums, which isn't much.

With the proliferation of the Internet, it's probably more worthwhile to experiment with selling digital media.

[gamemusicfreak]

It also doesn't help that many domestic soundtrack releases contain only a minor fraction of the music from a particular game. Just maybe, if we started getting more complete official soundtracks outside of Japan things could change. That would be a great method to fight off the bootleggers. If you've seen the disc that is currently packaged with Baten Kaitos for the Gamecube (sold at Toys R Us stores) it only has seven songs on it. That's almost like an insult to Mr. Sakuraba, if you ask me. I'd hate to see it go digital, but I can sure see things going in that direction.