So shall we recommend changing ‘bootleg’ to ‘unofficial’? Would that help?
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Honestly, so long as recordings are different than tracks and songs are only one type of work, people are going to have to learn our particular uses of existing terminology anyway; I’ve personally felt that our use of “bootleg” is actually one of the more natural definitions on here, even if it might be slightly expanded from its usual application. That said, I’m not particularly attached to it either, and the only concern I’d have over changing it to “unofficial” is that it becomes a lot harder to tell apart from “official” at a glance.
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As I see natural language allows new encyclopedia users and new editors to understand and engage with Musicbrainz with the most ease.
Natural language also functions to re-assure new users that MB is user-friendly - familiar terms being used in everyday ways say “This ain’t that hard”.
Every usage of jargon or uncommon meaning forms a barrier to easy use and steepens the learning curve.
And makes the environment more foreign and challenging.
Those of you who like graphs might want to consider how “perceived user friendliness” against “number of jargon terms” might look. I think we are looking at a sort of exponential graph where more than a small number of jargon terms produces a very large decrease in “perceived user friendliness”.
Sometimes the benefits of more jargon or additional uncommon usage can be argued to outweigh the costs. Metadata is weird stuff and so some weirdness is probably necessary. Though the cumulative effect on “perceived user friendliness” needs to be kept in mind.
“Bootleg” - nice familiar term to those who are into music recordings.
Here on MB it is being used close to it’s original music recording meaning “Live Bootleg”.
It’s bit twisted but probably familiar enough.
But then “Bootleg” is also being used for digital transfers of old, public domain recording. Which probably seems bizarre, foreign, suggestive of a challenging, trap-filled environment, that is less likely to be user friendly, in the eyes of a naive user of MB.
I’m thinking,
""unauthorized
An unofficial/underground release that was not sanctioned by the copyright holder. This includes unofficial live recordings (bootleg recordings) and pirated releases. (Does not apply to releases in the public domain.) "
All natural language which will give no cause for concern or alarm the unsuspecting passerby … 
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I agree with most of that, but not with making an exception for public domain works. My concerns:
- Maybe I’m in the minority, and maybe I’m misremembering how I thought of things before I came here, but I don’t think I thought of “bootleg” as “illegal”, but rather as “someone else’s copy”. Yeah it becomes legal when it enters public domain, but it’s still being put out by someone who has no connection to the original artists or label, it’s still relying on knowing copyright laws that vary based on where the release occurred, and it’s still making the definition all the more complex.
- If we make an exception for public domain, then we also need an exception for Creative Commons and other free-as-in-speach licenses.
- Surely, just because it’s legal to do so, some third party’s (single-artist) compilation or someone’s home music video don’t become “official” just because they’re perfectly legal? (Ignore the fact that the latter would be a standalone recording and wouldn’t have a status.) If we’re trying to maximize natural language, I’d find it a lot more confusing that something could be “official” without a word of input by the original artists/label than it would be that something could be both legal and a “bootleg”.
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Not really—if you put your work under a creative commons license, then you are authorizing others to copy, modify (unless -ND), and sell (unless -NC) as long as they follow the license terms. So if they do follow the terms, that’s not a bootleg, because it’s authorized by the artist.
I get what you’re saying—it’s weird to consider things like that official. But it’d also be weird to consider https://musicbrainz.org/release/69f8697a-fbd4-40e8-bed3-b0f558eec64a a bootleg. But that’s a bunch of public domain recordings, put out by people who have no relation to the original artists.
If we consider using public domain material as bootlegging, there is are a lot of classical recordings from before the 50s or 60s or so that have entered the public domain and are put out on CDs by major labels. Those all become bootlegs. (And depending on what we mean by the “the artist”, I’m pretty sure neither Mozart nor his publishers approved of any of the recordings in MB, his works being in the public domain since before recorded music existed.)
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My turn to say “I see what you’re getting at, but…” it’s also possible for someone to explicitly release their work to the public domain rather than waiting for the copyright to expire, and at that point the biggest difference between doing so and releasing something under restriction-free CC is that the latter’s a bit wordier. I’m not saying that’s an argument either way, just that if we mention “public domain” in a definition somewhere, it should be accompanied by something like “or a similar free license”.
That is a good point. I was primarily thinking of collecting together singles as a sort of unofficial, digital “box set”, but if all the recordings are free-use, then it’s easy enough to bypass existing albums and create a new release. Still, I do feel that repackaging a public domain album and re-releasing it as close to the original as the new medium allows is a bootleg despite what the law says about it. Maybe make some distinction based on originality?
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Good to see that others are aware of the problem with my version of “unauthorised by copyright holder”.
That being that AIUI prior tp ?1976? the recordist (bootleg recording maker) held the copyright. (Or at least was the primary copyright holder.)
Derobert pointed towards a problem with the current definition:
""bootleg
An unofficial/underground release that was not sanctioned by the artist and/or the record company. This includes unofficial live recordings and pirated releases."
To make that problem explicit:
The artist may very well not have authority to sanction a release.
The record company only has authority to sanction a release if they hold the copyright.
The only entity with authority to sanction a release seems to be the copyright holder/s. Which may not be a record company or the artist/s.
This is why I suggest “authorised” because we can be said, as members of the public, to be “authorised” to use public domain material. Yes it is a bit of a stretch - I suppose legal, permitted, allowed, or lawful would read be friendlier.
It looks to me like we are trying to capture metadata about copyright status.
How about we do that explicitly and separately?
And leave “bootleg recording”/“live bootleg” just as a type of unauthorised recording?
So we’d get something like (with slashes being “I’m not sure what the best term is”):
- (blank)
- Authorized
- Official / Commercial
- Promotional
- Free culture & Public domain (not “Creative Commons”—see below)
- Unauthorized
- Live bootleg / bootleg recording
- Mixtape
- Pirate
- Pseudo Release
(“Creative Commons” is a trademark so we probably don’t want to use that to describe releases that aren’t under a CC license. Though with our own promotion of CC, maybe it should be a separate category.)
A lot of “mixtapes” are “authorized” (using the above terminology) though, so this would be confusing.
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Perhaps something like “homebrew” would work better in that case? Granted, that term might intersect with “pirate” in some cases 
I think this should not be a separate category. Released under free licenses can also be “Official / Commercial”. I have bought a couple of releases that qualify for it. I rather think licensing is something different from the release status.
In the end anything with open licenses must be authorized (since you can’t grant a license on something you don’t own), but such licensed releases can still be categorized as Official, Commercial or Promotional
I am against adding more ‘bootleg’ divisions / categories. It will just mean that much more for a user to look up, and that much more confusion, on a category that honestly doesn’t deserve that much attention.
Edit: however I am for clarifying what we currently have if it’s confusing and someone has an efficient solution
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Don’t forget “playlist” on the list of terms that mean “a bunch of random songs i put together”
“Free culture & Public domain” was intended as a category for, e.g., if I grab a bunch of public domain or free/libre songs, and throw them together in a torrent. @WovenTales at least suggested this seems weird to consider “official”.
I guess I should have given more descriptions in the post!
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Yeah, I can see where y’all are coming from with putting public domain stuff under “official” – you have “bootleg” the primary determinant (or whatever we’re calling it), and since those are perfectly legal they go with the other legal releases. I’m just thinking of it with “official” being primary and indicating that the artists or the label representing them at the least wrote off on the release/compilation, and so once the recording enters the public domain and anybody can do anything with it, releases can be put together without anyone at all related to the artists even knowing about it – which I see as not having any official connection to the rest of the catalogue. I don’t have any particularly strong feelings that way, though, so wouldn’t mind if we wound up putting those as official, but I figured it would be good to provide another potential perspective for the discussion.
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Hey those are cover albums.
There are no Mozart recordings anywhere.
What is public domain here is the Works, it is another topic than artist recordings releases unofficially.
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LOL
This is a very cool concept - we’ll chuck out the CSG and make a new lot called “cover albums style guidelines”.
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Hey folks, I have some bootlegs that were given out as part of a Patreon-only “release.” The files are not widely available for the public unless you are at a certain Patreon tier. Are these kinds of additions ok? If so, how does one go about adding these “bootlegs?”
Ooh yes, please add all that you want to 
Here are two previous threads that discuss how to add them, and should hopefully cover most questions:
Thread 1
Thread 2
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They don’t sound like bootlegs, though. A bootleg is unauthorized, and if the artist is releasing them via patreon, that’s definitely authorized.
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