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The darkest depths of Mordor
2 months agoFor the past year or so, there has been a growing divide in the Zeppelin community concerning a bootleg company, Empress Valley Supreme Disc (EVSD for short) and their so-called 'soundboard revolution'. Specifically, a flame war is erupting between people who regularly buy EVSD's releases, and people who torrent or download them for free.
In order to fully understand, here's a bit of history:
Starting in 2002, EVSD began releasing previously unheard soundboards of Zeppelin usually once every year in what was dubbed the 'soundboard revolution'. These new soundboards were almost always from either 1975 or 1977. With these releases came a sort of 'gentlemen's agreement': those who wished to torrent/download the releases would have to wait until all the copies had shipped out. That way, EVSD would recoup their investment by having a certain number of people purchase the soundboards, which were always pretty expensive, costing hundreds of dollars.
Things went smoothly until two years ago, when the soundboard for the band's show in Seattle on March 21st, 1975 was released on soundboard. Soon after EVSD began shipping the soundboard, a user on the popular torrent site Dime called 'jesusmahdi' posted the show before shipments had finished. EVSD contacted him, asking him to pull the show because they had not yet recouped their investment. He complied...but not before someone else had managed to torrent it. From there, the floodgates were opened, and many people had managed to download the soundboard before it had finished shipping.
The resulting controversy caused EVSD to announce that they were pulling the planned release of a soundboard of the band's legendary 'Live on Blueberry Hill' bootleg. Some feared that this would mark the end of the 'soundboard revolution' if EVSD could not return a profit.
Fortunately, last year, the soundboard revolution continued with the release of the soundboard for the band's legendary gig in Osaka, Japan on September 29th, 1971. Unfortunately, it was only a partial soundboard, notably missing almost the entirety of the acoustic set and Whole Lotta Love. To add insult to injury, the prelude to the release of the partial soundboard was marked by EVSD releasing three songs from the show, one at a time (Immigrant Song, Friends, and Stairway to Heaven) and charging exorbitant amounts for it (about $60...for one song).
This release also included a 'fuck you' message to jesusmahdi, telling him to stop releasing the soundboard early. Jesusmahdi ended up releasing the show on Dime early anyway, and even humorously made the 'fuck you' message his avatar on the site.
The resulting controversy resulted in quite a nasty argument developing within the Zeppelin community, particularly in this thread on ledzeppelin.com. The insulting starts at the bottom of the page and just goes downhill from there. A portion of the thread had to be deleted by the administrators because things were getting so heated.
Supporters of EVSD argued that it was entirely inappropriate for anyone to put the show online early. They pointed out that EVSD has been contributing a lot to the Zeppelin community by releasing these boards, and as a result, we should be grateful and comply with their request to withhold releasing the show online. At times, the rhetoric got particularly heated with some accusing people who download the show as being children who just want everything for free and aren't willing to pay for it.
Opponents argued that EVSD's release strategy was utterly greedy and ridiculous and that their insults towards the community would only hurt them. Furthermore, they pointed out that piracy has been hurting the music industry for decades, and that EVSD shouldn't expect anything different for themselves.
This controversy has continued with the recent partial soundboard release of the band's show in LA on March 24th, 1975. Things got particularly nasty with this thread on Dime (note: you need a Dime account in order to read the thread). Once again, jesusmahdi uploaded the soundboard, and once again, an EVSD defender began an argument with other users.
So where do you all stand on this controversy? Do the torrenters deserve EVSD's new release strategy since they broke the agreement? Is EVSD being too greedy? Does EVSD deserve what the torrenters are doing now?
Here is my take, and you can feel free to disagree: I'm more against EVSD than the torrenters, although I understand the grievances of both sides. On the one hand, I can understand wanting people to wait until all copies are shipped before torrenting them. I can also understand the fears of an early torrent cutting into profits, as well as EVSD being displeased with jesusmahdi for torrenting the show early.
On the other hand, I think EVSD is fighting a losing battle. Fewer and fewer people are buying CDs these days. While vinyl has seen a resurgence, by and large, people prefer streaming. Furthermore, most of the rabid Zeppelin fanbase that constitutes EVSD's market is starting to get up there in age.
Bootlegging is not necessarily something that is passed down to future generations. Sure, there's a younger audience for Zeppelin, but they're much more likely to listen to the studio version of Whole Lotta Love on Spotify, as opposed to paying hundreds of dollars for a soundboard of a random live show.
As the older Zeppelin fans will die off over time, the market for EVSD will continue to shrink. This will mean that in order to maintain a profit, they will have to either jack up the prices to ridiculous levels, or continue releasing more and more of these 'samples' to spread the release out. This will only piss off more and more fans, and will cause more people to stop buying their releases out of protest. This has already begun happening, as evidenced by multiple users in the ledzeppelin.com thread vowing not to buy the soundboard unless it is complete.
While I could understand wanting to spend hundreds of dollars to get a brand new release of a never before heard soundboard, EVSD doesn't exactly have the best track record. Their release of the soundboard for the band's March 11th, 1975 Long Beach show ran at the wrong speed initially, forcing them to issue a speed-corrected version. Their release of the soundboard for the March 20th, 1975 Vancouver show was marred by the audio being overly compressed and hot, so a lot of people ended up downloading fan remasters. Not to mention their releases of audience recordings have sometimes included patches to other shows to fill in gaps...without saying so in the packaging. They aren't the worst company when it comes to messing up audio or misleading the public...but they aren't the best either. That is a major factor in my decision not to pay them. These practices are amateurish at best and fraudulent at worst. If they want money, they need to earn it, not simply expect it. Even with them unearthing these soundboards, is it too much to ask that they speed correct them and leave the sound untouched? Personally, I don't think so.
Lastly, I simply do not think that there are that many people who did not purchase EVSD's releases just because they were torrented early. If someone is willing to purchase a release that costs hundreds of dollars and includes elaborate packaging, I do not see them being concerned with torrents of the show. They've already decided to purchase rather than download for free, and I don't think an early release online would change that mentality. Likewise, the vast majority of people who download the show have already made up their minds to get it for free. They aren't going to want to purchase it even with a delay.
I think EVSD's best strategy going forward would be to adopt a preorder system. Announce that they have a new soundboard, announce that they need a certain number of people to preorder it, then once that target is reached, ship it out. I've seen some people worry that this strategy would mean people's money would be tied up for too long. To which I say that if someone is willing to spend that much on a bootleg, they are already tying up their money in something which is technically illegal. I don't think they would not particularly care how long it takes as long as they eventually get the soundboard. Furthermore, there are worries that someone from Led Zeppelin would find out about it and attempt to stop their practices. To which I say that if Jimmy or someone else from Led Zeppelin really wanted to, they would have found a way to stop EVSD by now. Furthermore, if EVSD does end up getting shut down by someone from Led Zeppelin, it'll serve them right. They do not occupy the moral high ground. They do not own these recordings in a legal sense. They are doing precisely the kind of practice that Jimmy and many musicians despise: charging fans ridiculous amounts of money for something that is often in inferior sound quality.
To me, EVSD is a perfect example of how bootleg companies are a necessary evil. Without them, it's a real possibility that these boards would never have seen the light of day. But their practices are very greedy and despicable imho. If EVSD cares so much about making money, they should see the writing on the wall: partial releases, rising prices, and insults to the community will only turn more and more people away from them. They need to change their strategy going forward if they hope to continue existing. But, then again, that's just my two cents.
(Friendly reminder: whatever your thoughts on this are, please be civil in the comments. Let's not have this turn into the threads I linked above).
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