Have you ever read the book "Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry" by Clinton Heylin? It's a pretty interesting read on the bootleg record underground, including the stories behind famous bootlegs like Dylan's "Great White Wonder." It also has quite a bit to say about those copyright gap "import" releases and the loopholes in the law that allowed them.
As someone who used to work in a record shop that specialized in these sort of quasi-legit releases (they got busted a few years ago and closed down their storefront but still operate via mail order) I have mixed feelings about bootlegs. On one hand, they are obviously stealing money from the artists and you're potentially buying something that could be really shitty in both sound and packaging. On the other hand, there is a demand for them that is small but fervid and no major label could possibly fufill their desires. If some guy wants a recording of every Who live show and outtake he can possibly get his hands on, theres just no way that MCA could justify putting them out. It just wouldn't be profitable. (Though legit archival releases have obviously become more popular in recent years.) And there are definitely fans like that. At the aforementioned record store, we used to get these Beach Boys bootlegs that were double CDs of each legit Beach Boys album. Each of these bootlegs contained every single take of every song from their respective album i.e. 9 versions of "Help Me Rhonda" on the "Beach Boys Today!" boot. I believe there was even an entire CD of different outtakes and individual tracks from "Good Vibrations." Yeah, a whole CD of one song. Not exactly my idea of great listening but we would sell dozens of them. The hardcore Beach Boys fans were eating it up. Of course, I don't know how many were pressed and sold in total but I suspect it wouldn't be enough for Capitol.
I did manage to pick up a few neat things there myself, like a very nicely packaged and excellent sounding version of "Smile" (this was before Brian Wilson's redux a few years ago) and a "European" CD of the entire ? and the Mysterians discography (which, for legal reasons, has never been reissued in the state.) Of course, there was a good amount of CD-Rs with ugly xeroxed covers obviously made in some guy's basement and who knows about the sound quality. It's always caveat emptor when you're dealing with guys on the wrong side of the law eh?
