The Discussion of Collectors & Leaks

I think both collectors and leakers are cocky, but the collectors are especially stuck up, imo. Why do they feel so entitled to material that they had no involvement in creating?
Largely because more times than not, they're not supposed to really have them. That's why they keep them under wraps unless they need to expand their collection, since a lot of how they obtain the files and trade them around is being done under the table. Couple that with the amount of money they spend to expand their collection, and any risk of leaks translates to a risk of money being drained down the toilet as its value goes down. And like I mentioned, record labels may shut their doors to the sources, who are the ones giving them to the collectors in the first place.
 
I think to put a bow on it - if there was a legal & non-damaging way of leaking things, I think people would seriously consider it if they were true fans of MJ. The second it got outside of the producers/engineers hands, it was never anyone else’s fault.

Michael/the estate trusted the people he worked with, and the people he worked with let him down by taking tapes home/leaving tapes on clouds/computers online.

To gatekeeper material I personally feel has no other reason but to fill an ego or a wallet, and I hope every piece of material that is outside of collaborators/the estate’s hands should leak as to bring some form of peace to the community.


I’ll move everything said in this thread to the other thread once I’m back on my PC.
 
I don't hate collectors by default just because they own stuff fans don't have, I've been given rares before and you're explicitly told not to share or even tell anyone that you have it so I understand how it works. But the problem is that most collectors I've encountered are unhinged egomaniacs who think they're above the rest of the community just because they own unheard songs and that's what gets on my nerves.

Like chill the hell out, the regular person isn't gonna give 2 shits that you own a mumbled demo, that's something only a niche part of the community is even gonna care about. Take that away and you're exactly the same as everyone else so I don't get where that attitude is coming from. Not to mention that as more of those songs get leaked I see that most of them aren't even that interesting to begin with, it's a waste of money that someone would spend hundreds or even thousands on them.

And this isn't exclusive to the MJ community either, any community you go where there are people who own something that isn't available to the public have that same attitude - Years ago I used to be in a gaming community and there were people who owned unreleased assets and they acted similarly. It always got on my nerves because again, not only is no one outside of the community you're in is gonna give a shit about what you have, but owning some file that others don't is really not something that makes you better than anyone.

But if you're a collector who doesn't make a big deal out of the things you have it's really no problem for me lol.
 
The one thing I don’t understand is withholding information about unreleased material, such as recording dates and state of completion.

Everyone already knows it’s mostly substandard stuff - instrumentals, mumbling etc., so it would be nice, for the sake of the historical record, to share that kind of information. Especially since the Estate are so careless/vague when it comes to recording dates.
 
The one thing I don’t understand is withholding information about unreleased material, such as recording dates and state of completion.

Everyone already knows it’s mostly substandard stuff - instrumentals, mumbling etc., so it would be nice, for the sake of the historical record, to share that kind of information. Especially since the Estate are so careless/vague when it comes to recording dates.
^ this. When you already leak a snippet of an obscure/unknown track I don't see a point of holding back any details about it, simply because - as I said before - the material already loses its value, because the target audience can already create a picture of how the whole track sounds like. The same applies to leaking compressed MP3 copies or lossless files. As some pointed out earlier however, the files are often modified by collectors so they could find out who leaked the song.
 
Here's the bottom line. Whenever a snippet leaks, the value decreases. By the time GYWOOM Leaked, there was no point in gatekeeping it, as so many snippets of it had leaked, we essentially had the whole song already. It's entirely for monetary gain. If the tracks were worthless, leak them. Like the instrumental tracks. They don't even have Michael's vocals. Or ANY vocals. They're literally just beats.
 
Here's the bottom line. Whenever a snippet leaks, the value decreases. By the time GYWOOM Leaked, there was no point in gatekeeping it, as so many snippets of it had leaked, we essentially had the whole song already. It's entirely for monetary gain. If the tracks were worthless, leak them. Like the instrumental tracks. They don't even have Michael's vocals. Or ANY vocals. They're literally just beats.
GYWOOM cd quality version is still not leaked right?
 
Here's the bottom line. Whenever a snippet leaks, the value decreases. By the time GYWOOM Leaked, there was no point in gatekeeping it, as so many snippets of it had leaked, we essentially had the whole song already. It's entirely for monetary gain. If the tracks were worthless, leak them. Like the instrumental tracks. They don't even have Michael's vocals. Or ANY vocals. They're literally just beats.
And that's where the ego comes to play. Water for exemple has nothing more to it, except the instrumental segments. It's crazy that hasn't been leaked, even though there is both CDQ and Sminar Recording in circulation. Innocent Man as well. Same as all the Dangerous instrumental Tracks.
I gotta give credit to Motif, he's the only one who provides some sort of information and a few laughs as well.
 
And that's where the ego comes to play. Water for exemple has nothing more to it, except the instrumental segments. It's crazy that hasn't been leaked, even though there is both CDQ and Sminar Recording in circulation. Innocent Man as well. Same as all the Dangerous instrumental Tracks.
I gotta give credit to Motif, he's the only one who provides some sort of information and a few laughs as well.
Motif does what he does lol. But yeah. We've literally heard all the vocals on Water and Innocent Man. Just leak it already
 
Literally tonight I’m re-recording the guitar of innocent man with a mate to do a “wild” mix of it, the full song has basically leaked in regards to what vocals.
And I think motif shared the melody of the rest of the instrumental. Thanks in advance! Can't wait.
 
I think to put a bow on it - if there was a legal & non-damaging way of leaking things, I think people would seriously consider it if they were true fans of MJ. The second it got outside of the producers/engineers hands, it was never anyone else’s fault.

Michael/the estate trusted the people he worked with, and the people he worked with let him down by taking tapes home/leaving tapes on clouds/computers online.

To gatekeeper material I personally feel has no other reason but to fill an ego or a wallet, and I hope every piece of material that is outside of collaborators/the estate’s hands should leak as to bring some form of peace to the community.


I’ll move everything said in this thread to the other thread once I’m back on my PC.
I kind of disagree with the aspect of leaking things being "damaging", aside from songs like say Chicago 1945, Dream Away, or The Loser for examples. But it's clear the estate isn't going to do anything with these songs regardless. It is clear they haven't cared about leaks much considering Lord Jackson leaked a huge collection of CDQ unreleased tracks including C1945 which is like one of the biggest gems if not THE biggest of the entire vault and the estate didn't do shit about it, nor did they do anything about Weight Off Me or Dream Away or any of those "vocally complete" tracks that they could've released over the last 16 years. I don't think fans are ENTITLED to leaks perse but I see zero problem with mumble demos, instrumental demos, or chorus only tracks that producers and writers probably don't even remember existing, only fans would care about that kind of stuff. I do concede to the argument of leaking vocally complete songs having damage but still like I said, that's likely the only way they will be able to see the light of day. I'd be shocked if they included any actual new music in this biopic rollout or whatever other lame projects they have planned in the next 5 years.
 
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I kind of disagree with the aspect of leaking things being "damaging", aside from songs like say Chicago 1945, Dream Away, or The Loser for examples. But it's clear the estate isn't going to do anything with these songs regardless. It is clear they haven't cared about leaks much considering Lord Jackson leaked a huge collection of CDQ unreleased tracks including C1945 which is like one of the biggest gems if not THE biggest of the entire vault and the estate didn't do shit about it, nor did they do anything about Weight Off Me or Dream Away or any of those "vocally complete" tracks that they could've released over the last 16 years. I don't think fans are ENTITLED to leaks perse but I see zero problem with mumble demos, instrumental demos, or chorus only tracks that producers and writers probably don't even remember existing, only fans would care about that kind of stuff. I do concede to the argument of leaking vocally complete songs having damage but still like I said, that's likely the only way they will be able to see the light of day. I'd be shocked if they included any actual new music in this biopic rollout or whatever other lame projects they have planned in the next 5 years.
Yeah, half-baked demos leaking is as harm free as it could get. Even if the estate was fulfilling out every wish, mumble demos and instrumentals would be among the last things they’d release by virtue of them being so unfinished.

But I was listening to “Dream Away” the other day and remembered how Steve Porcaro held onto this one for four decades, didn’t speak a word about it… and the first time he ever played it for a select group of fans, it was recorded. Same with “Chicago 1945,” which he refused to let the estate tamper with and was pretty regularly working on in the hopes of an official release… only for it to surface in the Lord Jackson theft. Situations like that are just heartbreaking and unfair, not only to MJ, but also to Steve, who was just trying to do best by him and share music with some fans.

I’m developing an aversion to finished songs leaking only because it damages future prospects. I know the estate isn’t making many moves at the moment, but continuous leaks only lessen the likelihood of anything substantial ever happening. And that’s not even considering what the kids will have once they take over.
 
Yeah, half-baked demos leaking is as harm free as it could get. Even if the estate was fulfilling out every wish, mumble demos and instrumentals would be among the last things they’d release by virtue of them being so unfinished.

But I was listening to “Dream Away” the other day and remembered how Steve Porcaro held onto this one for four decades, didn’t speak a word about it… and the first time he ever played it for a select group of fans, it was recorded. Same with “Chicago 1945,” which he refused to let the estate tamper with and was pretty regularly working on in the hopes of an official release… only for it to surface in the Lord Jackson theft. Situations like that are just heartbreaking and unfair, not only to MJ, but also to Steve, who was just trying to do best by him and share music with some fans.

I’m developing an aversion to finished songs leaking only because it damages future prospects. I know the estate isn’t making many moves at the moment, but continuous leaks only lessen the likelihood of anything substantial ever happening. And that’s not even considering what the kids will have once they take over.
I mostly agree.

But why does it hinder the estate to release leaked tracks like "Chicage 1945"? Only us fans know about songs like Hot Street before they get an official release, don't you think?
 
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Screenshot-2025-08-18-144555.png

I wonder what song that was. I took this screenshot years ago in the old ITSWMJ thread
Is this Hallucination @GYWOOM ?
 
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