Are you "Aiding and Abetting"?

[Risky]

Once again eBay (that well known car boot sale in the ether) is advertising Shadows Backing Tracks for sale via several CDs by different sellers. I asked one of these sellers recently to send me a 60 sec sample of a specific track, so that I could verify that the tracks are genuine and not rip-offs of UBHank, Shadows Workout etc. The seller has chosen not to reply to me... draw your own conclusions!

Please remember that when you buy rip-offs, you may well be getting the BTs on the cheap, but you are "Aiding and Abetting" a criminal activity (in Scotland you would call that Art and Part). In any case, wouldn't it be better to pay £10-15 for the real thing and help to encourage those people that go to the trouble of making them in the first place. Without them there wouldn't be any BTs to rip off.

Phil

[David Martin]

Well said that man...

[John Haldane]

I totaly agree with Phil.
John H

[stratmantd]

£10 - 15 for a cd of backing tracks?

[Risky]

£10 - 15 for a cd of backing tracks?

I guess that a dozen or so tracks for around £12 (£1 per track) doesn't compare with selling 144 tracks for £7.99, as one of the sellers on eBay is offering.

You have to smile when you read that these are "Pro quality backing tracks recorded in the style of the artist. Recorded in the studio by real musicians using real instruments".

These are truly "real" musicians, many of whom are members of this site, who are either retired or have a day job to go to! I doubt if the seller even knows their names, let alone the huge effort that goes into producing each track.

Not only is this theft of intellectual property, it is also robbing legal suppliers, such as Leo's Den, of making a living. Like all counterfeiters they will move on to other projects when they have saturated the market

Phil

[stratmantd]

It still seems a bit steep when you consider that you can probably buy the real thing for less.

Just out of curiosity, if you are so scathing of ebay and some of those who sell on it, why go to the site at all? Save yourself the stress and keep away from it.

[Stratpicker]

Thats just the issue, Tom - you CAN'T in most cases buy the "real thing" if you mean the REAL BTs that go with the specific album or recording.
I can only think of 'Mastertrax' that qualifies in this regard anyway.
And I would suspect that allowing these rip-off merchants free rein, as seems to be the case, is one of the reasons that Waffles and Robbo never got beyond "Into The Spotlight 1" which is a real shame!!
If I look at my rack of genuine backing track CDs, the overall cost of replacing them - if I COULD (UBH5 no longer exists for instance) - scares me! These guys all put in hours and days of work to give US something to work with and maybe £12 - 15 a time is a cheap price to pay for this.
Just a thought - if they all gave up doing it because it wasnt worthwhile any more there would be nothing for one to smugly buy off eBay for sweet FA. Maybe that is what will happen. What will we do then?
cheers
ian

[noelford]

I'm utterly gobsmacked that anyone would consider £15 too much to pay for a dozen professionally produced, high quality backing tracks. Their value to a guitarist who doesn't play in a live band is a lot more than the price of, say, a couple of bottles of average wine!

[Risky]

It still seems a bit steep when you consider that you can probably buy the real thing for less.

Just out of curiosity, if you are so scathing of ebay and some of those who sell on it, why go to the site at all? Save yourself the stress and keep away from it.

Your words Tom suggest that you have never bought any BTs - you must be one of the few!

All I had to play with originally were the Shades of The Shadows tapes. These were not good quality, suffering badly from "wow and flutter". Oddly, when the same tracks came out on CD, they contained the same problems. Then, in 1997, came Patrick Terret's imports of the UB Hank series which were digitally recorded. I was more than happy to pay £36 at that time to get a decent quality set of BTs. With 22 tracks that seemed great value to me. They cost less than half that price now.

I am not so scathing of eBay as you might imagine, having bought and sold a number of things myself. I just object to good ideas being abused by petty criminals.

Phil

[AlanMcKillop]

Ah, Shades of Shadows ........ mine were on CD (I think), got them from Manchester.

Maybe they were cassette tapes after all.