Should discographies list pirates?

I'm curious to know what people think about this question. I've posted some thoughts at www.grunin.com/eroica/pirates.htm, but I'm very interested in other points of view.

Regards, Eric Grunin

Seeing that some 'pirates' are the only available versions, how can they not be listed? My opinion is that if a 'pirate' sells it is an indication to the holder of the original source that their deteriorating asset has commercial value. I've willingly re-bought a pirate issue in an offical release to get better sound. The tragedy is when the offical release is *worse* (usually overfiltering).

Eric,

I pondered the same issue and came down on the side of listing them. It will make your work alot harder since they are hard to trace and, as can be imagined, pirates are not always truthful about the provinance of their recordings. My feeling is that if they are offered for sale to the public, then an individual interested in reviewing the recorded legacy of a composer or performaner should be given the information about the recording's

No.

'Pirates' (which I take to be live recordings with all the usual imperfections of execution and sound) often show the artist in a more advantageous (or at least different) light than 'official' studio recordings. E.g., Rubinstein's 'pirate' of Chopin E-minor concerto (before being 'ligitimized' by the NYPO edition) shows him to be a spontaneous, risk-loving performer that studio recordings only hint at. Furtwangler's studio recordings never matched the 'pirates', good though they are. Ditto for for Richter, who actually encouraged 'pirates' of his concerts. So I'd say YES to your question, even when considering repertoire already recorded under 'official' conditions, studio or live, if only because interesting artists never perform a piece in the same way on different occasions.

I think 'pirate' recordings should be listed, but should *clearly* be identified as such, even if they're the only issue available.

Absolutely. To pretend that they simply don't exist is a total lie.

Regards, Eric Grunin

I answered the same question the same way for my Toscanini web discography. I feel it's also important to list them to clarify the often inaccurate date and venue information given.

None of the responses so far differentiate between 'pirate' and 'bootleg'. It has been my understanding that there is a difference - is the distinction no longer used?