Newbie question: How do these guys do it?

Many thanks first. I randomly found this site and saw Spiderman 3’s full score and The Dark Knight Rises one too. Question is, how the heck do people get their hands on this kind of magic pixie dust in the first place? If specifics cannot be given, for the good of all, that’s cool. But fundamentally, are these good souls basically insiders?

1) Full score CDs are sometimes pressed in limited quantities to act as promotional material for composers, or as award submissions – the famous "For Your Consideration" albums.

2) Really full scores *have* to be an inside job. I know of at least one recording sessions leak which was perpetrated by the composer himself in order to get a score with limited release potential "out there". Other times, somebody at the studio will be responsible. There are any number of people floating around the recording consoles at a session (composers, orchestrators, contractors, orchestra members, friends, family, studio people, you name it) and most are recorded straight to a computer.

It’s not particularly difficult for somebody to surreptitiously slide a USB drive in there and copy the whole session. It’s also possible to plug a recording device into the stereo output on the console (this is the rough mix they use to listen live in the studio to what’s being recorded) – these are sometimes easy to spot because the mix is dodgy and there are brief passages where some or most of the orchestra completely disappear leaving a particular instrumentalist performing solo. This happens because the recording engineer mutes some channels (naturally not effecting the master recording – only the monitor output in the control room and therefore any clandestine recording being made from the monitor output) to check for a microphone fault or a performance deficiency.

3) Potentially anybody who has access to clean music tracks could be responsible. Sometimes "new" bootlegs appear around the time of DVD re-releases – when some studio doing a new 5.1 remix or an isolated score track or whatever has access to complete score elements. Again, when nobody’s looking you quietly RAR up the score, FTP it somewhere and the score community online will spread it like wildfire. You can do all this in fifteen seconds flat.

I think that covers most possibilities…?

Thanks for the reply. I’m just so far removed from this line of work that I’ve always wondered how it’s done. Thing is I’d gladly pay for these full scores but sometimes they just never get released officially (marketing/contractual problems plagued the Spiderman 3 score I believe).

Many thanks first. I randomly found this site and saw Spiderman 3’s full score and The Dark Knight Rises one too. Question is, how the heck do people get their hands on this kind of magic pixie dust in the first place? If specifics cannot be given, for the good of all, that’s cool. But fundamentally, are these good souls basically insiders?

Simple answer: Stolen material. In case of complete recordings, often a composer has a private CD-R (or HDD) copy and would lend it to friends, family, potential customers, etc – One of them leaks it.

In case of "recording sessions", same as above, or a sound engineer or anyone in the studio with access to the session masters will make a copy and leak it. It’s theft. Pure and simple.

Which is why I think there’s a line between sharing LEGIT material that the composers or companies wish to see on the market, and for which, at some point, someone paid the regular price – and sharing stolen material. And it’s not a fine line.

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