Although most commonly used to distribute and publicize limited-release musical demo tapes in underground musical genres such as punk, hardcore, and extreme metal, the system has also been used to distribute bootleg recordings of live concerts,[1] recordings of radio broadcasts,[2] original radio-style programming by amateur broadcasters,[3] and videotapes of underground films and pornography.
[4] The practice faded in prominence in the 2000s, as the rise of Internet technologies such as audio and video streaming, file sharing services and podcasting largely supplanted the need to mail out physical copies of recorded content.
Tape trading was a postal system reliant, penfriend style nature of an underground network that relied heavily on the cooperation of fans of different musical genres worldwide as well as the acts being promoted this way themselves eschewing any copyright in order to further spread their notoriety.
This form of trading was especially, but not exclusively, used as an underground distribution method for content that was politically censored: for instance, the Cassette Education Trust, an anti-apartheid activist organization in South Africa, used tape trading as the "broadcast" platform for its political and cultural programming prior to its launch as Bush Radio, the country's first licensed community radio station,[3] and the Hungarian punk rock band CPg used its tape trading network to redistribute anti-Communist political commentary from Radio Free Europe alongside its music.
The cult sc-fi comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000, which was broadcast on the then-niche Comedy Central cable channel and was often unable to repeat episodes due to rights disputes over the movies they made fun of, contained an explicit instruction in its closing credits to "keep circulating the tapes" which helped the show build and maintain its fanbase.