Revolutionary War

"Today," says Rock-Concert Producer Dennis Wilen, "any kid can take his tape recorder to a Rolling Stones performance and become a millionaire." Bootlegging--the production and sale of records by black-market operators --is easy. Enough of it is going on that record-industry executives are in a spin. Perhaps one out of every four stereo tapes sold in the U.S. is a bootleg, turned out by somebody who simply copied the original. According to industry estimates, bootlegging costs the recording companies, music publishers and artists as much as $100 million yearly in lost sales and royalties. Except in a few states that specifically prohibit bootlegging, the companies can do little to stamp it out. The federal copyright law does not cover sound recordings, though an amendment to close that loophole has passed the Senate and is being studied by a House subcommittee.

The most common bootleg victims are front-running artists: Bob Dylan, The Band, Jefferson Airplane--any star or group whose name alone is worth fat sales. The practice has long been a problem (Frank Sinatra records were bootlegged in the '40s), but technology has only recently made it attractive to young entrepreneurs. A variety of tape copiers, from $40 recorders to $100,000 stereo duplicating systems, can turn out cartridges, cassettes or reel-to-reel tapes, usually in less time than it takes to listen to them. Music-trade publications and underground newspapers carry ads for the machines, and many an Aquarian-Ager has been able to convert his basement into a tape factory. Nearly every city has record stores, gas stations and supermarkets with selections of bootlegged tapes and records, which are usually packaged in unadorned boxes and albums with plain white covers.

Sonic Treasures. The audio quality of bootlegs ranges from good to nearly unintelligible, but demand is soaring, partly because prices are usually about half as high as for legitimate recordings. Some sonic treasures can be found only on a certain type of bootleg, the so-called "underground" variety, which is put together from snippets of previously unpublished rehearsal tapes, live concerts and even radio broadcasts. The classic example is Great White Wonder, a hot seller that was made up of unused Bob Dylan tapes, some of which Dylan fans claim had been stolen from the basement of his Woodstock home.

The greatest competition for legitimate recording companies comes from big-time adult bootleggers. An outfit called the National Manufacturing Co. had nearly 100 workers on split shifts turning out 80,000 illegal tapes a week at its factory in Phoenix, Ariz., when marshals recently raided the place after a suit was brought by 59 music-publishing firms. In two months National Manufacturing had netted nearly $2,000,000. Some companies offer $6.95 tape cartridges for as little as $2.50 freight paid, with extra tapes thrown in with every large order to make up for any defects. Other shady operators, who typically use telephone answering services and ship the goods C.O.D., put together a selection of bestselling single recordings on one tape. A few counterfeiters duplicate not only hit records and tapes, but also labels and album covers--right down to the copyright mark. Recording-industry leaders say that the low operating costs and high profit margins have attracted organized crime to tape bootlegging.

Romantic Trip. Demand is so intense that even communes of young bootleggers have been springing up. Producer Dennis Wilen says that the communes are purportedly dedicated to "bringing music directly to the people without having to go through the bureaucracy of the music industry. The romantic aspect is the most compelling attraction. People can't go fight in the Spanish civil war any more, and the day of the desperado, of Robin Hood, is over. So they strike out at the fat cats of the music companies this way. It's an existential romantic trip."

The best-known bootlegging collective, southern California's Rubber Dubber, looks more like a corporation than a commune. It has a production staff of 40 to 50, plus a sales force of hundreds peddling to retailers and at rock concerts. Rubber Dubber sends direct-mail advertisements to record-store managers, retains an attorney to fight occasional lawsuits from legitimate recording companies, and even pays royalties to artists whose works are bootlegged. The organization produces upwards of 300,000 albums a year.

Bootlegging is becoming a career for some young Americans. "Uncle Wiggly," as one 26-year-old Los Angeles bootlegger is known, worked his way through an Eastern business school by wholesaling pirated records. Now that he has his M.B.A., Uncle Wiggly has chosen to stay in the business. "There's a lot of satisfaction in this work," he says. "Many of our salesmen would otherwise be pushing drugs. We give a lot of money to the free clinic and to the peace coalition. I don't think there's anything illegal about this."

Uncle Wiggly offers his customers a selection of twelve records, with the guarantee of a new title every six weeks. "Right now we're working on a Janis Joplin album that's going to be the biggest bootleg ever," he says. "We're taking orders, and then we're going to deliver them all in the same 24-hour period. You see, if we don't do it that way, somebody will get hold of an early copy, duplicate it and start competing with us." One of his worst problems, he notes, is bootlegging.

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