Just about any rock/pop band has its fair share of bootlegs and Genesis and its members are no exception to this and there are literally thousands of them available to fans especially in this, the age of the Internet. What is the reasoning behnd making a bootleg in the first place? Well, you may simply want a souvenir of the show you attended. Or the prospect of making some financial gain from your efforts by the sale of copies may be your reason although if we are honest, most fans hardly fall into the latter bracket as trading circles have existed for years now where recordings are traded freely and without commercial gain.

There is also the aspect of preserving a historical legacy to be considered – yes, this material IS of historical interest if only to certain people. The gaps in the band's visual and audio record where recordings were not kept or on some cases, recorded over is testament to the cavalier attitude the band have displayed toward their own work. Shocking and frustrating to us but quite natural if you are a creative artist moving on from one project to another. The fans have been assiduous in collecting this material from a vast range of sources, collecting and in some cases restoring it and ensuring it is available to future fan generationsfor them to enjoy. A prime example of this would be the Tony Stratton-Smith Present Genesis film from 1973. Never released officially as the band did not like the end result, it is nonetheless the only major visual document of the band from a crucial phase in their career.

The other side of this coin is the example of the legendary footage from the band's performance at the Atomic Sunrise Festival in 1970, another priceless artefact from the band's career and the only visual record of the band with both John Mayhew and Anthony Phillips known to exist. This footage has been in the hands of a private collector for many years. How he acquired it is unknown and he has remained as silent as the footage itself on this subject. The film is silent, and as there is no extant audio recording from the event despite the recollections of several band members that it WAS 8 track audio recorded it cannot be restored in the same manner as the preceding item. The owner has tried on several occasions to commercially exploit this film, even going as far as arranging a screening at the venue where it was filmed.

The owner has even offered to sell the footage to the band's management for a substantial sum. They declined, not necessarily because of the cost but because they have always maintained that the footage had been stolen, and they stated so in a letter written to longstanding Genesis fan, Mino Profumo many years ago in response to an enquiry from him.

That doesn't apply to things like soundboard recordings etc though does it? As the recent example of the fans who very unwisely decided to place a large number of such recordings acquired from the estate of someone who had worked for the band on to the Internet discovered, yes it DOES apply. All such recordings are and remain property of the band's management/record company. Whether they are going to be commercially exploited or not does not matter from the legal standpoint and their copyright remains the property of the management.

That's not quite the end of the matter though. When you purchase a concert ticket etc you believe that the little piece of paper in your hands is your property too, don't you? You would be wrong in that assumption! That little piece of paper also belongs to “The Management”. So too do things like tour itineraries, AAA passes, tour posters, programmes etc, virtually any form of memorabilia is covered by the same protections. Photographs remain the property of the photographer who took them, although the subject may be able to argue for the free use of their image. And of course, if that photographer has taken photographs for promotional use by a band or artist, their rights may (or may not) be reassigned to the artists' management in return for payment.