All About Music

Here a post on Music Business Worldwide: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/bootleg-vinyl-from-russia-china-and-3-other-things-you-might-have-missed-about-global-music-piracy-trends-from-the-riaas-notorious-markets-submission/ It’s big on RIAA concerns but might be of interest to smaller artists.

In part, the article states:

“In some cases, Russian and Chinese sellers will sell directly on retail platforms, shipping the goods to consumers from Russia or China,” the RIAA wrote. “In other cases, the principals behind the Chinese and Russian counterfeits sell to third-party sellers on platforms that may or may not know they are buying and reselling counterfeits.”

Particularly worrying is that these bootlegs are often “high quality products made to closely resemble authentic ones,” and consumers may not be able to tell the difference, the RIAA noted.

At times, these CDs and vinyls are “best of” and “greatest hits” collections never released by labels, and at other times they may be vinyl or CD versions of albums that were never officially released in those formats, the RIAA said. Unauthorized copies of boxed set collections are becoming increasingly common as well.

I don’t know whether this is a big deal to most independent artist, but it’s something to consider.