Is streaming music from iTunes, Spotify or Deezer always official, even if there is no physical counterpart?
Like this one:
or this
or is this always bootleg?
How can we tell it’s offical or bootleg?
Yes, iTunes, Spotify, and Deezer should always be official (or promotional), bootlegs are usually not online (and MusicBrainz doesn’t link to any). Edit: your examples seems to be official compilations.
To expand on @yvanzo’s response: those platforms should only have those recordings/albums if whomever has put them on those platforms have the legal rights to do this. You can have official Tupac releases (e.g., “best of”) to this day, if his estate puts them out.
If non‐legit releases get added to those platforms, there could be quite some legal trouble on their part, so I’d say it’s fair to assume anything from there is “official”. I reckon there is a chance for something to get through, but it’s so small that it’s not something we should generally worry about.
Thanks for the advise