[mb-users] need help tracking label & rammstein bootleg

[Brian Schweitzer]

>
> Hello! I've come upon this weird thing:
> http://musicbrainz.org/release/0c1bd80e-2bc1-44c6-9265-08204c96d53e.html
>
> Someone tried to add some release info, but it's very unclear to me if
> it's correct or not. I tracked a complete set of covers at
>
> http://www.freecovers.net/view/1/30f2b7a36a0542264bc7aaf57ae7a819/Rammstein_Muttertag-Back.html
>
> The back cover has cat# RAM9082001 barcode 9632587412542 and a clear
> label code LC9537 but nothing I can identify as a label. I looked for
> the label code but couldn't dig out anything.
>
> http://www.musik-sammler.de/media/42754 claims it's a bootleg, and
>
> http://www.priceminister.com/offer/buy/1070041/Rammstein-Muttertag-CD-Album.html#info
> calls it released as "Edition Rammstein", which might suggest some
> kind of self-released semi-official bootleg. But I couldn't track
> anything on their site about it.
>
> Is there anyone in the audience with enough label-code-fu or extreme
> Rammstein trivia skillz that could shed some light on this?
>

I don't have the Rammstein-foo to know about this particular release, but I
wouldn't pay the barcode and LC much attention if it is a bootleg.  I don't
recall which country it is offhand - one of the smaller island nations (San
Marino maybe?) - but what remains of the dying bootleg CD companies have
been taking advantage of yet another legal loophole to produce "legal"
bootlegs, just like the loopholes used in Japan in the 70's and in Italy in
the 80's.  Part of the law in whatever country it is requires that a barcode
and LC be visible on the packaging, but makes no requirements about a label
or logo - and it doesn't require that the barcode or LC be correct, only
that they be present.  So a lot of these have been floating out in the past
year or two, with random UPCs (some copied off real releases, some just
totally random and not even valid), and LCs that belong to other labels.
Any I've run into, I've put that type of info into annotations, rather than
events, so we don't end up with UPC clashes between the real release and any
fakes using that same UPC.

Brian
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