In an attempt to ensure continued progress in the NIRVANA trading community, the Live Nirvana Distribution Union has drawn up a set of trading guidelines for all traders, old and new.

1. Do not distribute diminished quality recordings
2. Do not distribute CDR’s and DVDr’s for profit
3. Report any quality errors on recordings not found in original text files
4. Please keep and list appropriate generation information

1. Do not distribute diminished quality recordings:

We fully appreciate that for every trader, hearing new material is vastly more important than its quality - indeed many traders started by collecting hissy, generated old cassettes, to which the loud levels of distortion imparted a certain charm.

We also are fully aware that even the master copies of many recordings sound pretty bad. So why do we care?

Whenever a recording is copied or transferred using an imperfect copying method, whether compressing an audio to MP3, or a DVD to VCD, or copied on an analog format such as cassette tape, some quality in the music is lost. If this is done several times (in the course of normal trading activity), then what started off as a pleasant sounding live recording will become steadily worsened.

However, in the 21st century, there is no longer any need to resort to imperfect copying methods. Doing so may be convenient, but it is harmful to anyone who receives the recordings further down the trading chain.

Every trader has the right to hear each recording in the best available quality.

You may not personally mind how good your copy of a concert sounds, but people who obtain it from you may well care, and if your copy is inferior, anyone who trades with you for a copy will have to replace their copy at a later date, which is a waste of everyone's time.

Most concerts were recorded to analog cassette, and the LNCU aims to track down the lowest generation possible of each and every concert to ensure no future quality loss. The process of tracking down such cassettes is laborious and pain staking; when such recordings are compressed or copied imperfectly, the whole effort in tracking down the better-quality cassette is wasted.

Those formats that we endorse are: CDR’s, using an approved copying program*, DVDr’s, 44.1 khz WAV’s, and the lossless compressed media such as SHN’s and APE’s. In some cases the only format available is MP3 or RM, and this is the only time it should be accepted.

Please do not convert any DVDs to VCD, nor CDRs to MP3, except for private use, or for research purposes.

* - Programs such as Nero, Exact Audio Copy, Clone CD and CDRWin are widely accepted and used in many trading communities. If you are using Nero, make sure to select all the tracks AFTER track number 1, right click‡Properties, then set the pause to 0 seconds. When using Exact Audio Copy, Clone CD, or CDRWin, either make a CD Image (which creates a .cue sheet) or open an existing CUE sheet and burn. If there are still gaps in between tracks, open the CUE sheet in your notepad and erase INDEX 00.


2. Do not distribute CDR’s or DVDr’s for profit

Selling recordable media for profit is illegal. Trading, on the other hand, is tacitly sanctioned by the band.

Do not sell CDR’s or DVDr’s on eBay or other auction websites. Do not sell CDR’s and DVDr’s to other traders.

In any event, no one should be forced to resort to buying any live recordings: there are plenty of LNDU members who will gladly supply other traders with live material by the 'blanks and postage' ("B+P") method (http://livenirvana.com/begin/index.html)

Please report any eBay auctions that break copyright law to eBay and the relevant authorities. Once NIRVANA fans are aware that they do not have to pay to hear live material, the demand for such items on eBay etc will disappear.


3. If you discover a problem with a distributed recording, please do let the LNDU President know about it.

Whenever new concerts and upgrades are reported, there is naturally an instant demand for the recording to be circulated as quickly as possible. Occasionally, transfers are imperfect, or a download is faulty, and the recording that begins to circulate becomes damaged.

Since our aim is to circulate only the best available versions of each concert, we politely ask that all of you listen to your recordings before you trade them on to check for such problems, and if any recordings sourced from an LNDU Distribution are flawed, do let Bill Schofield (bs@livenirvana.com) know as soon as possible.

If everyone takes the time to listen to each recording before passing it on, defective versions can be identified and eliminated much earlier.

From now on Bill will host a section on his site (www.geocities.com/nirvanafan8/) where he will not only list what shows are in the current LNDU distribution, but will also have all .txt files documenting all known errors on such recordings available to download. We expect people to pass this information along when trading, so anyone can ascertain which flaws were present on the master circulating copy, and which were caused by faulty distribution.


4. Please keep and list appropriate generation information.

This is really more of a general request rather than an LNDU one. It’s just common practice to label all of your recordings with the correct generation and lineage (recorder and microphone) information. Failure to do so will cause misinformation and chaos amongst the community. This is pretty self-explanatory, so there shouldn’t be much discussion about generation labeling. If you’re not sure, ask the trader you received the discs from. We don’t need a bunch of ANA(M)>CDR?’s circulating when it can be easily traced back. You may also wish to consider using the LNTH source numbers for shows with more than one source.


Also, there will be strict enforcement of these guidelines. Those who are found to be flagrantly breaking these guidelines may, in the future, find it more difficult to trade within the LN community and other Nirvana trading communities. People have the right to deny you if you can’t follow these guidelines. And you could be subjected to the LN Bad Trader’s List if you continuously break the guidelines.


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We would like to emphasize that these guidelines are not intended to be 'elitist' or 'exclusive' by any means. As we have emphasized, our aim is to ensure every trade can obtain every recording in the best available quality free of charge. It is only by rigorous application of the above guidelines that this will become possible.

LN and LNDU do of course welcome all new traders; indeed these guidelines are actually for your benefit, so that when you trade for a recording, you receive the best possible quality, so you do not have to 'upgrade' it later. All new traders have to start somewhere, and by indicating your compliance with these guidelines, you will find it much easier to set up trades.

We fully accept that it may be more convenient to trade compressed formats such as MP3s, but again, we do ask you all to consider those who will in turn receive the recordings from you.

It is an uphill battle from here on in, but if people can work together the community will be better off. I have faith in the people who help out in the distributions. There ARE many good traders out there who can be trusted. I want to keep adding people to that list. It would be nice in 20 years from now when most of us are done with trading for people to look back and say "Hey, they did a great job by keeping order. If it weren't for them, none of us would have these recordings in such great quality" If everyone works together, we can continue to find and distribute the sole reason we are all here: the music.

-Bill Schofield
LNDU President