Guide on how to recognise bootleg:

I thought of doing a guide on how you could recognise bootleg since it could be hard to see and some
people might have trouble finding out. In the beginning I had quite a hard time finding out myself.
I will make this guide using my bootleg and real copy of DISORDER. (sorry for the reflection I couldn’t
help it) Usually it works kind of the same for DVDs.

As you can see in picture 1 both of them look very alike on the cover and you would think they are
the same. (the only visible differences are because of the reflection) when we take a look at the back
(picture 2 and 3) we can already see some differences the original copy (2) has PS company and
made in Japan written on the back while the bootleg version (3) says MIya Records. Both of them
have a number (purple circle) later more about numbers.

Now if we look at the CDs themselves (picture 4) you can already see the difference. The one on top
is the real version it has a different picture than on the cover of the box and the colours are more
intense (black is really black and not blue-ish) while the bootleg CD has the same picture as on the
cover and the black is not really black but blue-ish

We can also see difference if we take a look of the booklets on the inside (pictures 5 and 6) Picture 5
is from the real version and picture 6 is from the bootleg version. You can see the main difference at
the bottom. At the real version there is (amongst other things) some information about the FC and
the url to the OHP while on the bootleg version booklet there is only a big number.

Also when you take a close look you see there is some watermark on it (same as the cover picture)
and you can’t see that on the bootleg version. However not al CDs have a watermark like this so it’s
not a first thing you have to pay attention to.

Of course seeing things like this is kind of hard when you cannot open the CD or buy it online
therefore we will take a look at the side of the CD box (picture 7). The first thing you notice that one
of them has a black side and the other a white side, however it is hard to know what colour it should
be when you are not sure what the original looks like. Beside that some bootleg versions have the
same colour as the original on the side.

This is why we take a closer look at the numbers (picture 8). The original CD holds the number PSTA-
0052 while the bootleg version says Miya Records MICP-0044. (the same case with the numbers on
the back mentioned before. These numbers are usually also on the inner ring of the CD shown on
pictures 9 and 10) This number is easy to find back online, for example when you go to the OHP and
click discography you can find most of the numbers again or on trusted sites (like CDJapan) you can
find them too. (sometimes on CDJapan have a bit longer number as catalog number but last letters
and numbers should be the same). The unfortunate thing is that sometimes the numbers change
when there are reissues (the numbers on CDJapan do not match the one on my original copy since
they are reissues) and on the discography page it only matches the first number (the one that is next
to the limited edition copy) while the regular edition states a number of a reissue. (on this link you
can see a lot of numbers also from reissues : http://wlifers.livejournal.com/6100.html I am not sure
how often it is still updated though ^^”) The numbers for European, American and other Asian
releases have other numbers yet again ^^”

Also there are sometimes IFPI codes on the inner ring of the CDs (you can see it on picture 9) I think
these are only on original CDs and not on bootleg. However when I checked some other singles
sometimes one of the numbers wasn’t there (some had no IFPI code and some not the number also

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on the side of the CD). Most of the CDs release under Sony music only had the IFPI code, this code
seemed to be the same for all CDs produced under Sony (IFPI L275).

I think most non-Japanese versions have something about PS Company written on them (for example
on the EU version of Stacked Rubbish there was a small round logo saying PS Music as you can see in
picture 11) For the CDs released under Sony music it could be that it says something about Sony
music because there I cannot find anything about PS Company even on the Japanese versions.

In case you want a buy a CD and want to make sure if it is bootleg or not it is probably smart to ask
for the number on the CD or even a picture of the number on the side. (the number on the side is
usually the right number you need to know) The other things are quite hard to see when you do not
have the CD yet and I think the number on the side is the best thing to recognise them by.

So this is what I know about bootleg if you have comments about anything I missed out on or
additional info please let me know in the comments below ^^ (because this is mainly based on my
own experience and I didn’t see a really clear guide on how to recognise it before)

Also if you have any questions please feel free to comment them here and I will try my best to
answer them. (for example you can’t find a number from one of your CDs/DVDs I will try to help you
find it)

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