History of bootlegging Broadway plays

missthemountains said: "Hey friends. I was wondering if anyone could help me with something. I was wondering when exactly the law strikingdown recording Broadway plays and musicals came into effect, and if there were any famous cases of bootleggers who were ever caught. Also if anyone knows what is believed to be the first known bootleg recording of a Broadway play or musical that would be cool too. I'm not interested in discussing the ethics of such, but I'm curious if anyone has ever been caught for doing it and been publicly punished because of it. I'm having trouble finding much of anything. Sorry if this has already been discussed."



I would think the audio was recorded before the video. Cameras only became relatively discreet in the past few decades.

The first bootlegs surely came from the sound board / booth from back in the day.

Updated On: 11/10/17 at 07:17 PM

The bootlegging of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas back before portable audio recording was really something: the book and score were copied by ear during performances by gifted transcriptionists, then sent to other theatre companies and even overseas to America for bootleg productions.