Wells and Wellington affair

The Wells and Wellington affair was a dispute about the publication of three papers in the Australian Journal of Herpetology in 1983 and 1985. The periodical was established in 1981 as a peer-reviewed scientific journal focusing on the study of amphibians and reptiles (herpetology). Its first two issues were published under the editorship of Richard W. Wells, a first-year biology student at Australia's University of New England. Wells then ceased communicating with the journal's editorial board for two years before suddenly publishing three papers without peer review in the journal in 1983 and 1985. Coauthored by himself and high school teacher Cliff Ross Wellington, the papers reorganized the taxonomy of all of Australia's and New Zealand's amphibians and reptiles and proposed over 700 changes to the binomial nomenclature of the region's herpetofauna.

Members of the herpetological community reacted strongly to the pair's actions and eventually brought a case to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature to suppress the scientific names they had proposed. After four years of arguments, the commission opted not to vote on the case because it hinged largely on taxonomic arguments rather than nomenclatural ones, leaving some of Wells and Wellington's names available. The case's outcome highlighted the vulnerability to the established rules of biological nomenclature that desktop publishing presented. As of 2020, 24 of the specific names assigned by Wells and Wellington remained valid senior synonyms.

## Background and publication

### Australian Journal of Herpetology

The Australian Journal of Herpetology was a scientific journal specialising in herpetology. Its publisher, the Sydney-based Australian Herpetologists' League, was established to facilitate the journal's production. The journal's editorial board consisted of three Australian researchers: Harold Heatwole, an associate professor at the University of New England (UNE) in Armidale, New South Wales, Jeffrey Miller, also of UNE, and Max King of the Australian National University. Richard W. Wells, a first-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in biology at UNE who had previously collected zoological specimens for several Australian museums, served as the journal's editor. Its editorial board refereed submitted manuscripts and, once accepted, sent them to Wells for publication. Because of Wells's enrolment at UNE, the Australian Journal of Herpetology was able to use a mailing address at the university.

In 1981, the Australian Herpetologists' League released the first and second issues of the first volume of the Australian Journal of Herpetology. They contained papers written both by professional and amateur researchers concerning a number of topics in Australian herpetology, including a description of a novel python species, "Python" bredli. The journal gained individual and institutional subscribers in Australia and abroad. Meanwhile, Wells did not complete his first year at UNE and moved to Sydney.

### Wells and Wellington's papers

For two years, the journal did not release any further issues. During this time, the editorial board continued to forward accepted manuscripts to Wells, who maintained his UNE address despite having left Armidale. Then, without the board's knowledge, a 56-page double issue consisting of a single article, "A Synopsis of the Class Reptilia in Australia" by Wells and Cliff Ross Wellington was published dated 31 December 1983. The paper reassessed the taxonomy of Australia's entire reptile class; in doing so, the pair named 33 novel genera and raised eight further genera from synonym status and established 214 additional species, either by elevating subspecies or resurrecting synonyms. The herpetologist Michael J. Tyler described the paper as including "more taxonomic changes [to Australia's herpetofauna] than had been proposed by all other authors in the previous decade". This issue of the journal listed Wells as the managing editor and Wellington as the advertising sales manager, a change from its prior two issues. Further, the journal stated that copyright was now held by Australian Biological Services, an entity which listed Wells's address for contact and payment.

A single-issue supplemental series to the Australian Journal of Herpetology was released in 1985, dated 1 March. At first, only spiralbound printouts of the issue were reported as being available although in September 1985, several professionally printed copies were distributed in Brisbane, effectively rendering the publication date 30 September 1985. The issue contained two articles, both again coauthored by Wells and Wellington. The first, "A Classification of the Amphibia and Reptilia of Australia", reassessed Australia's amphibians, naming at least 57 novel genera, resurrecting nine more from synonym status, naming 146 novel species, and resurrecting 110 from synonym status. The second, "A Synopsis of the Amphibia and Reptilia of New Zealand", offered a similar treatment to New Zealand's amphibian and reptile classes, naming four novel genera and elevating or describing six new species. Among other references, "A Classification of the Amphibia and Reptilia of Australia" cited over 500 alleged papers, some ostensibly nearly 100 pages long, written primarily by Wells in 1983 and 1984 in the unknown journal Australian Herpetologist. Neither Australian Herpetologist nor the hundreds of papers purportedly published therein were reported as having been available at any major Australian libraries or listed in the Australian Bibliographic Network as of 1985. The first article also referred to several specimens housed in the "Australian Zoological Museum" which was Wells's private collection.

## Rationales and responses

### Initial reactions

Upon the release of "A Synopsis of the Class Reptilia in Australia", all three members of the Australian Journal of Herpetology's editorial board resigned. The trio wrote letters to the editor of the Herpetological Review, a journal published by the international Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, to clarify that the Australian Journal of Herpetology was not affiliated with UNE past its second issue and that Wells and Wellington's papers had been self-published and had not undergone peer review. Heatwole also encouraged authors whose papers had been accepted for future issues to send their work elsewhere, as Wells was unresponsive to calls to return their manuscripts to them.

British paleontologist Tony Thulborn described reactions from professional herpetologists to the pair's actions as ranging "from disbelief to outrage". News of "A Synopsis of the Class Reptilia in Australia" and the fallout of its publication was reported throughout 1984 in several New South Wales newspapers, including the Illawarra Mercury, the Blue Mountains Gazette and The Sydney Morning Herald. The latter wrote that the events were "one of the most interesting scientific bun-fights in Australia's history".

Wells and Wellington's combined work put forth more than 700 changes to the binomial nomenclature of Australia's reptiles and amphibians, until this point believed to include around 900 species. Herpetologists asserted that the duo had described species without providing adequate diagnostic characteristics and established new taxa without identifying or examining type species. G. B. Monteith contended that the pair had named numerous species in trivial ways (including, for instance, naming a species after Darth Vader), and wrote that although Wells and Wellington had given some taxa names honouring working herpetologists, many of those namesakes supported suppressing the duo's work. Gordon C. Grigg, president of the Australian Society of Herpetologists, and the evolutionary biologist and ecologist Richard Shine wrote in a letter to the Herpetological Review that "the effect of these [Wells and Wellington's] publications, if taken seriously, would be to destabilise permanently the nomenclature of the Australian herpetofauna." The letter was cosigned by over 150 other herpetologists. In September 1984, the Australian Society of Herpetologists elected to petition the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) to suppress all of the names proposed in the first of the pair's three papers, the only one published at that point.

Word spread outside the world of herpetology in 1985 when Monteith, an entomologist, reported on the affair in the Australian Entomological Society News Bulletin. Monteith's article, "Terrorist Tactics in Taxonomy", was subsequently republished in newsletters covering other fields of taxonomic study. The botanist Jan Frederik Veldkamp remarked that "this all may seem to be very funny, and it's happening to zoologists, anyway, but there is no reason to be so smug about this", continuing that plant nomenclature as governed by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature could be similarly susceptible to destabilization. In 1986, Thulborn reported on the situation in the international journal Nature.

### Wells and Wellington's justifications

Wells and Wellington, the latter a teacher at Blaxland High School, said that they did "years of research" before publishing their first paper. Wellington claimed in 1984 that their work was self-published due to a dispute with the Australian Museum, to which the pair had donated several specimens. Nonetheless, he said that the museum had prevented him and Wells from using its reptile collections for their research, further saying that,

> "It became obvious to us that there were people in the know who were keeping a lot of things to themselves [...] Our studies showed that there were many animals which were very distinctive and should have full specific status. Because some scientists were suppressing this for their own ends, these animals were suffering. How can you talk about conserving animals when you don't even know they exist?"

Relative to other continents, Australia's herpetofauna had been subject to less in-depth research, primarily due to the continent's low population density, uneven population distribution, and high biodiversity. Monteith described the duo's justification for their papers as "a radical conservation ethic" and wrote that their intent appeared to be based on the belief that describing individual populations as distinct species would hasten efforts for their conservation. Wells and Wellington said in the introduction to their first paper that they hoped their work would be taken "not as anarchistic taxonomic vandalism, but as a decisive step intended to stir others into action". They intended to encourage others to generate research either to ratify their conclusions or counter them, either way putting out material to further understanding of reptile and amphibian life in the region.

### ICZN case 2531

Binomial nomenclature, the widely used system of identifying distinct species through two-part Latin names, is related to and distinct from the study of taxonomy, the description and arrangement of these different taxa in relationship to one another. Changes to taxonomy, whether subject to peer review or not, are regarded as reliant on the discretion of subsequent researchers who may choose to incorporate them into or ignore them in future works on the basis of their scientific rigour and the evidence provided. Changes to zoological nomenclature, meanwhile, are governed by the ICZN's International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (the Code), of which a key component is the Principle of Priority: that "the valid name of a taxon is the oldest available name applied to it". Thus the publication of a new name, so long as it complies with Code requirements but regardless of the quality of the source in which it appears, establishes it as a name of record.

The ICZN published Grigg's case for suppressing the names provided in "A Synopsis of the Class Reptilia in Australia", "A Classification of the Amphibia and Reptilia of Australia" and "A Synopsis of the Amphibia and Reptilia of New Zealand" in the June 1987 issue of their journal, the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. Case 2531 received "strong arguments" from at least 91 writers and was retrospectively characterised by the herpetologists David Williams, Wolfgang Wüster and Bryan Grieg Fry by "the usual professional decorum being notable by its absence in some of the attacks upon Wells and Wellington".

In the initial case to suppress the names, Grigg described several specific issues with the Wells and Wellington works. He wrote that their claim that they examined almost 40,000 specimens (translating to more than ten each day every day for ten years) was unlikely. According to Grigg, the duo had taken 205 subspecies or synonyms directly from a 1983 book by Harold Cogger and colleagues and had elevated or resurrected them to species status with no further discussion. He added that while Wells and Wellington had claimed to have visited several museums outside Australia to examine specimens in their collections, these museums confirmed with him that they had not lent or shown specimens to either Wellington or Wells. Grigg wrote that while many taxonomists would likely reject the nomenclature contained in the three papers because of the quality of the underlying taxonomy, non-taxonomists unaware of the situation surrounding the works might accept the nomenclature, leading to nomenclatural destabilization. This outcome, Grigg speculated, would require piecemeal acceptance or refutation of all of the hundreds of changes offered by the pair in their papers.

The researcher Glenn M. Shea wrote that the names in "A Synopsis of the Class Reptilia in Australia", even those accompanied by "inadequate or erroneous" diagnoses, fulfilled the requirements of the Code and were thus available. However, Shea listed 43 species from "A Classification of the Amphibia and Reptilia of Australia" whose diagnoses did not differentiate them from the populations from which the pair was attempting to split them, and also identified three species whose diagnoses were reliant on works that were still in press at the time of Shea's comment (late 1987). Shea identified several proposed species whose holotypes were collected from outside the species' proposed ranges and several well-known populations of species that were suddenly without names based on Wells and Wellington's diagnoses.

The researcher Jonathon Stone wrote that the ICZN permitting Wells and Wellington's names would set a negative precedent for subsequent researchers to enact nomenclatural changes without peer review. Several researchers rejected the argument that suppressing the pair's names was an act of censorship. The Australian Museum's Allan E. Greer rejected calls to suppress the names, noting that the Australian Museum, Cogger, Shea and others had already (by 1988) used some of the nomenclature in subsequent research. The taxonomist and nomenclaturist Alain Dubois and colleagues at the French National Museum of Natural History argued that the names should not be suppressed because it was not within the ICZN's purview or power to make taxonomic (versus nomenclatural) judgements; this sentiment was shared by a number of other authors. They wrote that many of Wells and Wellington's names could be rendered synonymous or unavailable through other means: proposed taxonomic changes like elevating subspecies to species were likely to be rejected by the world zoological community (rendering the names moot) and taxa lacking descriptions would automatically be considered nomina nuda per the provisions of the Code. However, Dubois and colleagues proposed that in some cases it might be advantageous for the ICZN to consider suppressing individual names on a case-by-case basis.

In 1989, the researcher Kraig Adler published the book Contributions to the History of Herpetology. Its index of herpetologists by John S. Applegarth intentionally omitted Wells and Wellington on the basis that their works were "inconsistent with acceptable practices of taxonomy". Philippe Bouchet and colleagues at the French National Museum of Natural History described Applegarth's attitude as akin to "the Stalinist falsification of history" and by extension, asked facetiously if the pair "should be physically eliminated using an ice-pick".

The ICZN decided the case in September 1991. The commission wrote that while Wells and Wellington had ignored many of the Code's ethical tenets and while taxonomic arguments against the pair's works were strong, the ICZN did not have the power to rule on the case on those grounds and thus opted not to vote on the case, thereby closing it. The immediate result of the ICZN opting not to vote on their case was to leave researchers of Australian herpetofauna with "a certain amount of detective work to determine which Wells and Wellington names are available, and for what species". Shea and fellow researcher Ross A. Sadlier synonymised around 60 of the duo's proposed species in a 1999 paper. The authorship of, means of publication of, and backlash to the final three Australian Journal of Herpetology articles are sometimes referred to collectively as the "Wells and Wellington affair".

## Legacy

In 2001, the American herpetologist John Iverson, and the Australian herpetologists Scott Thomson and Arthur Georges evaluated the changes proposed by Wells and Wellington to Australian turtles and found that just three of them represented available names. In 2017, the Turtle Taxonomy Working Group recognised one subgeneric, one specific, and one subspecific name originally proposed by the duo as being valid senior synonyms among the world's turtle taxa. A 2020 update of the Reptile Database indicated that 23 specific names for reptiles first published in the Australian Journal of Herpetology papers were recognised as valid senior synonyms at the time: sixteen lizards (including three geckos), six snakes and one turtle. One amphibian, the northern corroboree frog (Pseudophryne pengilleyi), also retains a specific name assigned by the pair. Additionally, several generic names proposed by Wells and Wellington have been accepted and used by subsequent researchers.

Although Wells and Wellington indicated that they intended to write reassessments of fish in Australia, reptiles in Papua New Guinea and global herpetological taxa similar to their three papers in the Australian Journal of Herpetology, Wells withdrew somewhat from the world of academic herpetology after the affair. He and Wellington republished several of their Australian Journal of Herpetology descriptions, some with slight changes, in the following decades. The first instance of this was apparently in the Australian Herpetologist in the late 1980s; Wells alone published other taxonomic works in the vanity journal Australian Biodiversity Record in the 2000s. In 1997, Robert Sprackland, Hobart Muir Smith, and Peter Strimple initiated another case with the ICZN (number 3043) to suppress a specific name (Varanus keithhornei) published by Wells and Wellington in 1985 in favour of a name proposed in 1991 by Sprackland, who had not seen the pair's 1985 description. Suppression was widely opposed and the ICZN decided in 2001 to conserve Wells and Wellington's name as the senior synonym. Both Wellington and Wells have occasionally weighed in on other ICZN cases or defended names from their Australian Journal of Herpetology papers as senior synonyms.

In its 1991 case decision, the ICZN noted that the affair highlighted the need to update its Code to account for the effects that desktop publishing was having and would continue to have on the availability of scientific names. Nonetheless, 25 years after the affair, the herpetologists Van Wallach, Wolfgang Wüster and Donald G. Broadley wrote that "taxonomy remains as vulnerable to acts of nomenclatural vandalism as it was then". Indeed, the term "taxonomic vandalism", coined in the introduction to the pair's 1983 paper, has come be the most widely used term to describe the act of publishing low-evidence taxonomy for the purpose of proposing many new scientific names without peer review. Wells and Wellington's case was cited during a different ICZN case initiated nearly three decades later, concerning the taxonomic work of another amateur Australian herpetologist, Raymond Hoser. Hoser, who writes about Australian herpetofauna in the self-published Australasian Journal of Herpetology, gave the Pilbara death adder its scientific name (Acanthophis wellsi) in honour of Wells.

## See also

- Journal hijacking

1980s publication of three articles and its aftermath


Bootleg recording

A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. Making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging. Recordings may be copied and traded among fans without financial exchange, but some bootleggers have sold recordings for profit, sometimes by adding professional-quality sound engineering and packaging to the raw material. Bootlegs usually consist of unreleased studio recordings, live performances or interviews without the quality control of official releases.

Bootlegs reached new popularity with Bob Dylan's Great White Wonder, a compilation of studio outtakes and demos released in 1969 using low-priority pressing plants. The following year, the Rolling Stones' Live'r Than You'll Ever Be, an audience recording of a late 1969 show, received a positive review in Rolling Stone. Subsequent bootlegs became more sophisticated in packaging, particularly the Trademark of Quality label with William Stout's cover artwork. Compact disc bootlegs first appeared in the 1980s, and internet distribution became increasingly popular in the 1990s.

Changing technologies have affected the recording, distribution, and profitability of the bootlegging industry. The copyrights for the music and the right to authorise recordings often reside with the artist, according to several international copyright treaties. The recording, trading and sale of bootlegs continues to thrive, even as artists and record companies release official alternatives.

## Definitions

The word "bootleg" originates from the practice of smuggling illicit items in the legs of tall boots, particularly the smuggling of alcohol during the American Prohibition era. The word, over time, has come to refer to any illegal or illicit product. This term has become an umbrella term for illicit, unofficial, or unlicensed recordings, including vinyl LPs, silver CDs, or any other commercially sold media or material. The alternate term ROIO (an acronym meaning "Recording of Indeterminate / Independent Origin") or VOIO (Video...) arose among Pink Floyd collectors, to clarify that the recording source and copyright status were hard to determine.

Although unofficial and unlicensed recordings had existed before the 1960s, the very first rock bootlegs came in plain sleeves with the titles rubber stamped on them. However, they quickly developed into more sophisticated packaging, in order to distinguish the manufacturer from inferior competitors. With today's packaging and desktop publishing technology, even the layman can create "official" looking CDs. With the advent of the cassette and CD-R, however, some bootlegs are traded privately with no attempt to be manufactured professionally. This is even more evident with the ability to share bootlegs via the Internet.

Bootlegs should not be confused with counterfeit or unlicensed recordings, which are merely unauthorised duplicates of officially released recordings, often attempting to resemble the official product as closely as possible. Some record companies have considered that any record issued outside of their control, and for which they do not receive payment, to be a counterfeit, which includes bootlegs. However, some bootleggers are keen to stress that the markets for bootleg and counterfeit recordings are different, and a typical consumer for a bootleg will have bought most or all of that artist's official releases anyway.

The most common type is the live bootleg, often an audience recording, which is created with sound recording equipment smuggled into a live concert. Many artists and live venues prohibit this form of recording, but from the 1970s onwards the increased availability of portable technology made such bootlegging easier, and the general quality of these recordings has improved over time as consumer equipment becomes sophisticated. A number of bootlegs originated with FM radio broadcasts of live or previously recorded live performances. Other bootlegs may be soundboard recordings taken directly from a multi-track mixing console used to feed the public address system at a live performance. Artists may record their own shows for private review, but engineers may surreptitiously take a copy of this, which ends up being shared. As a soundboard recording is intended to supplement the natural acoustics of a gig, a bootleg may have an inappropriate mix of instruments, unless the gig is so large that everything needs to be amplified and sent to the desk.

Some bootlegs consist of private or professional studio recordings distributed without the artist's involvement, including demos, works-in-progress or discarded material. These might be made from private recordings not meant to be widely shared, or from master recordings stolen or copied from an artist's home, a recording studio or the offices of a record label, or they may be copied from promotional material issued to music publishers or radio stations, but not for commercial release. A theme of early rock bootlegs was to copy deleted records, such as old singles and B-sides, onto a single LP, as a cheaper alternative to obtaining all the original recordings. Strictly speaking, these were unlicensed recordings, but, because the work required to clear all the copyrights and publishing of every track for an official release was considered to be prohibitively expensive, the bootlegs became popular. Some bootlegs, however, did lead to official releases. The Who's Zoo bootleg, collecting early singles by the Who, inspired the official album Odds And Sods, which beat the bootleggers by issuing unreleased material, while various compilations of mid-1960s bands inspired the Nuggets series of albums.

## History

### Pre-1960s

According to the enthusiast and author Clinton Heylin, the concept of a bootleg record can be traced back to the days of William Shakespeare, when unofficial transcripts of his plays would be published. At that time, society was not particularly interested in who had authored a work. The "cult of authorship" was established in the 19th century, resulting in the first Berne Convention in 1886 to cover copyright. The US did not agree to the original terms, resulting in many "piratical reprints" of sheet music being published there by the end of the century.

Film soundtracks were often bootlegged. If the officially released soundtrack had been re-recorded with a house orchestra, there would be demand for the original audio recording taken directly from the film. One example was a bootleg of Judy Garland performing Annie Get Your Gun (1950), before Betty Hutton replaced her early in production, but after a full soundtrack had been recorded. The Recording Industry Association of America objected to unauthorised releases and attempted several raids on production. The Wagern-Nichols Home Recordist Guild recorded numerous performances at the Metropolitan Opera House, and openly sold them without paying royalties to the writers and performers. The company was sued by the American Broadcasting Company and Columbia Records (whom at the time held the official rights to recordings made at the opera house), who obtained a court injunction against producing the record.

### 1960s

The first popular rock music bootleg resulted from Bob Dylan's activities between largely disappearing from the public eye after his motorcycle accident in 1966, and the release of John Wesley Harding at the end of 1967. After a number of artists had hits with Dylan songs that he had not officially released himself, demand increased for Dylan's original recordings, particularly when they started airing on local radio in Los Angeles. Through various contacts in the radio industry, a number of pioneering bootleggers managed to buy a reel to reel tape containing a selection of unreleased Dylan songs intended for distribution to music publishers and wondered if it would be possible to manufacture them on an LP. They managed to convince a local pressing plant to press between 1,000 and 2,000 copies discreetly, paying in cash and avoiding using real names or addresses. Since the bootleggers could not commercially print a sleeve, due to it attracting too much attention from recording companies, the LP was issued in a plain white cover with Great White Wonder rubber stamped on it. Subsequently, Dylan became one of the most popular artists to be bootlegged with numerous releases.

When the Rolling Stones announced their 1969 American tour, their first in the U.S. for several years, an enterprising bootlegger known as "Dub" decided to record some of the shows. He purchased a Sennheiser 805 "shotgun" microphone and a Uher 4000 reel to reel tape recorder specifically for recording the performances, smuggling them into the venues. The resulting bootleg, Live'r Than You'll Ever Be, was released shortly before Christmas 1969, mere weeks after the tour had finished, and in January 1970 received a rave review in Rolling Stone, who described the sound quality as "superb, full of presence, picking up drums, bass, both guitars and the vocals beautifully ... it is the ultimate Rolling Stones album". The bootleg sold several tens of thousands of copies, orders of magnitude more than a typical classical or opera bootleg, and its success resulted in the official release of the live album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! later in the year. "Dub" was one of the founders of the Trade Mark of Quality (TMOQ or TMQ) bootleg record label.

### 1970s

During the 1970s the bootleg industry in the United States expanded rapidly, coinciding with the era of stadium rock or arena rock. Vast numbers of recordings were issued for profit by bootleg labels such as Kornyfone and TMQ. The large followings of rock artists created a lucrative market for the mass production of unofficial recordings on vinyl, as it became evident that more and more fans were willing to purchase them. In addition, the huge crowds which turned up to these concerts made the effective policing of the audience for the presence of covert recording equipment difficult. Led Zeppelin quickly became a popular target for bootleggers on the strength and frequency of their live concerts; Live on Blueberry Hill, recorded at the LA Forum in 1970, was sufficiently successful to incur the wrath of manager Peter Grant. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band recorded numerous concerts for radio broadcast in the 1970s, which resulted in many Springsteen bootlegs.

Some bootleggers noticed rock fans that had grown up with the music in the 1960s wanted rare or unreleased recordings of bands that had split up and looked unlikely to reform. For instance, the release of Golden Eggs, a bootleg of outtakes by the Yardbirds had proven to be so popular that the bootlegger had managed to interview the band's Keith Relf for the sequel, More Golden Eggs. Archive live performances became popular; a 1970 release of Dylan's set with the Hawks (later to become the Band) at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966 (incorrectly assumed to be the Royal Albert Hall for years) was critically and commercially successful owing to the good sound quality and the concert's historical importance.

In Los Angeles there were a number of record mastering and pressing plants that were not "first in line" to press records for the major labels, usually only getting work when the larger plants were overloaded. These pressing plants were more than happy to generate income by pressing bootlegs of dubious legality. Sometimes they simply hid the bootleg work when record company executives would come around (in which case the printed label could show the artist and song names) and other times secrecy required labels with fictitious names. For example, a 1974 Pink Floyd bootleg called Brain Damage was released under the name the Screaming Abadabs, which was one of the band's early names. Because of their ability to get records and covers pressed unquestioned by these pressing plants, bootleggers were able to produce artwork and packaging that a commercial label would be unlikely to issue – perhaps most notoriously the 1962 recording of the Beatles at the Star Club in Hamburg, which was bootlegged as The Beatles vs. the Third Reich (a parody of the early US album The Beatles vs. the Four Seasons), or Elvis' Greatest Shit, a collection of the least successful of Elvis Presley's recordings, mostly from film soundtracks.

Bootleg collectors in this era generally relied on Hot Wacks, an annual underground magazine listing known bootlegs and information about recent releases. It provided the true information on bootlegs with fictitious labels, and included details on artists and track listings, as well as the source and sound quality of the various recordings.

Initially, knowledge of bootlegs and where to purchase them spread by word of mouth. The pioneering bootlegger Rubber Dubber sent copies of his bootleg recordings of live performances to magazines such as Rolling Stone in an attempt to get them reviewed. When Dylan's record company, Columbia Records objected, Rubber Dubber counteracted he was simply putting fans in touch with the music without the intermediary of a record company. Throughout the 1970s most bootleg records were of poor quality, with many of the album covers consisting of nothing more than cheap photocopies. The packaging became more sophisticated towards the end of the decade and continued into the 1980s. Punk rock saw a brief entry into the bootleg market in the 1970s, particularly the bootleg Spunk, a series of outtakes by the Sex Pistols. It received a good review from Sounds' Chas de Whalley, who said it was an album "no self-respecting rock fan would turn his nose up" at.

### 1980s

The 1980s saw the increased use of audio cassettes and videotapes for the dissemination of bootleg recordings, as the affordability of private dubbing equipment made the production of multiple copies significantly easier. Cassettes were also smaller, easier to ship, and could be sold or traded more affordably than vinyl. Cassette culture and tape trading, propelled by the DIY ethic of the punk subculture, relied on an honor system where people who received tapes from fellow traders made multiple copies to pass on to others within the community. For a while, stalls at major music gatherings such as the Glastonbury Festival sold mass copies of bootleg soundboard recordings of bands who, in many cases, had played only a matter of hours beforehand. However, officials soon began to counteract this illegal activity by making raids on the stalls and, by the end of the 1980s, the number of festival bootlegs had consequently dwindled.

One of the most critically acclaimed bootlegs from the 1980s is The Black Album by Prince. The album was to have been a conventional major-label release in late 1987, but on 1 December, immediately before release, Prince decided to pull the album, requiring 500,000 copies to be destroyed. A few advance copies had already shipped, which were used to create bootlegs. This eventually led to the album's official release. Towards the end of the 1980s, the Ultra Rare Trax series of bootlegs, featuring studio outtakes of the Beatles, showed that digital remastering onto compact disc could produce a high-quality product that was comparable with official studio releases.

### 1990s–present

Following the success of Ultra Rare Trax, the 1990s saw an increased production of bootleg CDs, including reissues of shows that had been recorded decades previously. In particular, companies in Germany and Italy exploited the more relaxed copyright laws in those countries by pressing large numbers of CDs and including catalogs of other titles on the inlays, making it easier for fans to find and order shows direct. Similarly, relaxed copyright laws in Australia meant that the most serious legal challenge to unauthorised releases were made on the grounds of trademark law by Sony Music Entertainment in 1993. Court findings were in favour of allowing the release of unauthorised recordings clearly marked as "unauthorised". The updated GATT 1994 agreement soon closed this so-called "protection gap" in all three aforementioned countries effective 1 January 1995.

By this time, access to the internet was increasing, and bootleg review sites began to appear. The quality control of bootlegs began to be scrutinised, as a negative review of one could adversely harm sales. Bootlegs began to increase in size, with multi-CD packages being common. In 1999, a 4-CD set was released containing three and a half hours of recording sessions for the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations", spanning seven months.

The tightening of laws and increased enforcement by police on behalf of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other industry groups—often for peripheral issues such as tax evasion—gradually drove the distributors of for-profit vinyl and CD bootlegs further underground. Physical bootlegging largely shifted to countries with laxer copyright laws, with the results distributed through existing underground channels, open-market sites such as eBay, and other specialised websites. By the end of the decade, eBay had forbidden bootlegs.

The late 1990s saw an increase in the free trading of digital bootlegs, sharply decreasing the demand for and profitability of physical bootlegs. The rise of audio file formats such as MP3 and Real Audio, combined with the ability to share files between computers via the internet, made it simpler for collectors to exchange bootlegs. The arrival of Napster in 1999 made it easy to share bootlegs over a large computer network. Older analog recordings were converted to digital format, tracks from bootleg CDs were ripped to computer hard disks, and new material was created with digital recording of various types; all of these types could now be easily shared. Instead of album-length collections or live recordings of entire shows, fans often now had the option of searching for and downloading bootlegs of songs. Artists had a mixed reaction to online bootleg sharing; Bob Dylan allowed fans to download archive recordings from his official website, while King Crimson's Robert Fripp and Metallica were strongly critical of the ease with which Napster circumvented traditional channels of royalty payments.

The video sharing website YouTube became a major carrier of bootleg recordings. YouTube's owner, Google, believes that under the "safe-harbor" provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), it cannot be held responsible for content, allowing bootleg media to be hosted on it without fear of a lawsuit. As the technology to host videos is open and available, shutting down YouTube may simply mean the content migrates elsewhere. An audience recording of one of David Bowie's last concerts before he retired from touring in 2004 was uploaded to YouTube and received a positive review in Rolling Stone. Bilal's unreleased second album, Love for Sale, leaked in 2006 and became one of the most infamously bootlegged recordings during the digital piracy era, with its songs since remaining on YouTube. Lana Del Rey's 2006 demo album Sirens leaked on YouTube in 2012. In 2010, YouTube removed a 15-minute limit on videos, allowing entire concerts to be uploaded.

## Copyright

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works has protected the copyrights on literary, scientific, and artistic works since 1886. Article 9 of the Convention states that: Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall have the exclusive right of authorising the reproduction of these works, in any manner or form. ... Any sound or visual recording shall be considered as a reproduction for the purposes of this Convention. This means a composer has performing rights and control over how derivative works should be used, and the rights are retained at least 50 years after death, or even longer. Even if a song is a traditional arrangement in the public domain, performing rights can still be violated. Where they exist, performers rights may have a shorter duration than full copyright; for example, the Rome Convention sets a minimum term of twenty years after the performance. This created a market for bootleg CDs in the late 1980s, containing 1960s recordings.

In the US, bootlegs had been a grey area in legality, but the 1976 Copyright Act extended copyright protection to all recordings, including "all misappropriated recordings, both counterfeit and pirate". This meant bootleggers would take a much greater risk, and several were arrested. Bootlegs have been prohibited by federal law (17 USC 1101) since the introduction of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA, PL 103-465) in 1994, as well as by state law. The federal bootleg statute does not pre-empt state laws, which also apply both prior to and since the passage of the federal bootleg statute. The US v. Martignon case challenged the constitutionality of the federal bootleg statute, and in 2004, U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. struck down the port banning the sale of bootleg recordings of live music, ruling that the law unfairly grants a seemingly perpetual copyright period to the original performances. In 2007, Judge Baer's ruling was overruled, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that the anti-bootlegging statute was within the power of Congress.

## Official releases

Record companies have described bootlegs as "grey area, live recordings", describing them as "semi-condoned". Research into bootleg consumers found that they are committed fans of the artist; a study of Bruce Springsteen fans showed 80% felt some bootlegs were essential purchases despite owning every official release. Springsteen has said he understands why fans buy bootlegs, but dislikes the market due to the lack of quality control and making profit over pleasing fans. Frank Zappa hated bootlegs and wished to control his recordings, so he created the Beat the Boots! boxed sets, each containing LPs that were direct copies of existing bootlegs. He set up a hotline for fans to report bootlegs and was frustrated that the FBI were not interested in prosecuting. The first set included As An Am Zappa, in which he can be heard complaining about bootleggers releasing new material before he could.

Throughout their career, the Grateful Dead were known to tolerate taping of the live shows. There was a demand from fans to hear the improvisations that resulted from each show, and taping appealed to the band's general community ethos. They were unique among bands in that their live shows tended not to be pressed and packaged as LPs, but remained in tape form to be shared between tapers. The group were strongly opposed to commercial bootlegging and policed stores that sold them, while the saturation of tapes among fans suppressed any demand for product. In 1985, the Grateful Dead, after years of tolerance, officially endorsed live taping of their shows, and set up dedicated areas that they believed gave the best sound recording quality. Other bands, including Pearl Jam, Phish and the Dave Matthews Band tolerate taping in a similar manner to the Grateful Dead, provided no profit is involved. Because of the questionable legality of bootlegs, fans have sometimes simply dubbed a bootleg onto tape and freely passed it onto others.

Many recordings first distributed as bootleg albums were later released officially by the copyright holder. Provided the official release matches the quality of the bootleg, demand for the latter can be suppressed. One of the first rock bootlegs, containing John Lennon's performance with the Plastic Ono Band at the 1969 Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, was released officially as Live Peace in Toronto 1969 by the end of the year, effectively ending sales of the bootleg. The release of Bob Dylan's 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert on Vol. 4 of his Bootleg Series in 1998 included both the acoustic and electric sets, more than any bootleg had done.

In 2002, Dave Matthews Band released Busted Stuff in response to the Internet-fuelled success of The Lillywhite Sessions, which they had not intended to release. Queen released 100 bootlegs for sale as downloads on their website, with profits going to the Mercury Phoenix Trust. Although the recording of concerts by King Crimson and its guitarist Robert Fripp is prohibited, Fripp's music company Discipline Global Mobile (DGM) sells concert recordings as downloads, especially "archival" recordings from the concerts' mixing consoles. With an even greater investment of sound engineering, DGM has released "official bootlegs", which are produced from one or more fan bootlegs. DGM's reverse engineering of the distribution-networks for bootlegs helped it to make a successful transition to an age of digital distribution, "unique" (in 2009) among music labels. In the 21st century, artists responded to the demand for recordings of live shows by experimenting with the sale of authorized bootlegs made directly from the soundboard, with a superior quality to an audience recording. Metallica, Phish and Pearl Jam have regularly distributed instant live bootlegs of their concerts. In 2014, Bruce Springsteen announced he would allow fans to purchase a USB stick at concerts, which could be used to download a bootleg of the show.

According to a 2012 report in Rolling Stone, many artists have now concluded that the volume of bootlegged performances on YouTube in particular is so large that it is counterproductive to enforce it, and they should use it as a marketing tool instead. Music lawyer Josh Grier said that most artists had "kind of conceded to it". Justin Bieber has embraced the distribution of video clips via Twitter to increase his fanbase.

Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have a unique approach to bootlegging. An entire section of their official website is devoted to releasing bootlegs of their shows. The band permits the distribution and sale of bootlegs, so long as they are given copies to distribute via torrenting and as hard copies on vinyl and CD.

## See also

- Cam, a bootleg recording of a film in a movie theatre
- Magnitizdat, for live recordings of banned bards and musicians in the Soviet Union

Unauthorized recording or release


Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopian Airlines (commonly referred to as Ethiopian; Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ አየር መንገድ, romanized: Ye-Ītyōṗṗyā āyer menged), formerly Ethiopian Air Lines (EAL), is the flag carrier of Ethiopia, and is wholly owned by the country's government. EAL was founded on 21 December 1945 and commenced operations on 8 April 1946, expanding to international flights in 1951. The firm became a share company in 1965 and changed its name from Ethiopian Air Lines to Ethiopian Airlines.

The airline has been a member of the International Air Transport Association since 1959 and of the African Airlines Association (AFRAA) since 1968. Ethiopian is a Star Alliance member, having joined in December 2011 (2011-12). The company slogan is 'The New Spirit of Africa.' Ethiopian's hub and headquarters are at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, from where it serves a network of 125 passenger destinations—20 of them domestic—and 44 freighter destinations. The airline has secondary hubs in Togo and Malawi. Ethiopian is Africa's largest airline in terms of passengers carried, destinations served, fleet size, and revenue. Ethiopian is also the world's fourth-largest airline by the number of countries served.

## History

### The 1940s: early years

After the liberation of Ethiopia, Emperor Haile Selassie I asked the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to help him to establish an airline as part of his modernization effort. According to the BBC News it is possible that the Emperor intended the creation of a quality national airline to help dispel impressions of Ethiopian poverty. In 1945, the Ethiopian government began negotiations with both Transcontinental Air Transport and Western Air Express (later merged into TWA). On 8 September 1945, TWA signed an agreement with the American historian and foreign affairs advisor to Ethiopia John H. Spencer to establish a commercial aviation company in Ethiopia.

The carrier, originally called Ethiopian Air Lines (EAL), was founded on 21 December 1945, with an initial investment of ETB 2,5 million, divided in 25,000 shares that were entirely held by the government. The company was financed by the Ethiopian government but managed by TWA. At the beginning, it relied upon American pilots, technicians, administrators and accountants; even its General Managers were from TWA. Minister of Works and Communications Fitawrari Tafasse Habte Mikael became EAL's first president and chairman, whereas H. H. Holloway —who was American— was appointed by TWA as general manager. The board held the first meeting on 26 December 1945 (1945-12-26), with a key point of the agenda being the deposit of E£75,000 in a bank in Cairo for the acquisition of aircraft and spare parts. Shortly afterwards, the airline negotiated for landing rights with Aden, Egypt, French Somaliland, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, and five Douglas C-47s were bought; these aircraft were flown to Addis Ababa in February 1946 (1946-02).

The new airline's maiden flight to Nairobi carried a shipment of East African currency equivalent to US\$3.7 million in February 1946 (1946-02), but the first revenue scheduled service was on 8 April 1946 (1946-04-08); it travelled the Addis Ababa–Asmara–Cairo route using one of five Douglas C-47 Skytrains acquired from the US Government. This route later operated on a weekly basis. The Skytrains were initially intended for military use, although Ethiopian operated them in a mixed passenger-cargo configuration. Soon afterwards, the carrier launched services to Aden and Djibouti, as well as a domestic flight to Jimma. The main five routes in the early years were Addis Ababa–Asmara, Addis Ababa–Djibouti–Aden, Addis Ababa–Khartoum, Addis Ababa–Cairo (routed via Jeddah or Khartoum) and Asmara–Khartoum.

Henry Bruce Obermiller replaced Holloway as a general manager in June 1946 (1946-06). In July the same year, four more Skytrains joined the fleet. New scheduled services to Sheikh Othman and Nairobi were launched in July 1946 (1946-07) and June 1947 (1947-06), respectively. In 1947, Waldon Gene Golien became the general manager, and the company started operating charter flights to Jeddah during the Hajj season. That year in February, three more Douglas C-47s were acquired to operate new international routes. A service to Mukalla was inaugurated in June 1947 (1947-06). In September, Port Sudan was added to the route network (it was previously a technical stop en route to Cairo), Lydda was incorporated as a scheduled destination in October and charter flights to Bombay were launched in November. Services to Lydda and Mukalla were discontinued in February and , respectively. In September, the route to Bombay became a scheduled route, with EAL flying as far as Aden, and BOAC operating the Aden–Bombay sector. The route also included stops at Mesirah Island in Oman and Karachi. For a brief period until April 1948 (1948-04), Mesirah Island was used as a refuelling stop; since then, services to French Somaliland and Aden started on a twice-weekly basis. EAL was allowed to fly to Aden using Sheik 'Othman Airport, located 16 kilometres (10 mi) away from the city, whereas BOAC used the Khormaksar Airport facilities, just 5 km (3 mi) from the city. Aden was under British rule at the time as was Sudan, and the British Empire denied EAL landing rights at Khartoum, forcing the airline to move the refuelling stop on the Aden route to Port Sudan. The carrier recorded a £40,000 profit for 1949.

### The 1950s: start of long-haul routes

Services to Bombay were withdrawn in . Also this year, a US\$1,000,000 (equivalent to \$12,163,209 in 2022) loan granted from the Ex-Im Bank enabled the carrier to incorporate Convair CV-240s, aimed at operating international routes. Two CV-240s, named "Eagle of Ethiopia" and "Haile Selassie I", entered the fleet in December 1950 (1950-12); starting January 1951 (1951-01), these aircraft were subsequently deployed on the Addis Ababa–Cairo, Addis Ababa–Nairobi, and Addis Ababa–Jeddah–Dhahran–Karachi routes, with Dhahran and Sharjah being incorporated to the route network on 20 February. In April 1952 (1952-04), the airline was appointed general sales agent for TWA in Kenya, Tanganyka, Uganda and Zanzibar, and by May the same year the fleet consisted of two Convair-Liner 240s and nine Douglas DC-3s or their subtypes, operating a route network that was 11,000 km (7,000 mi) long. Services to India and Sharjah were discontinued in 1953. On 14 July, a new agreement with TWA that succeeded the original one was signed. Unlike other companies, the airline's preamble stated that it was "the ultimate aim that EAL shall eventually be operated entirely by Ethiopian personnel".

A new service to Athens via Khartoum and Wadi Halfa was launched on 3 April 1954 (1954-04-03). A third Convair CV-240 ("The Spiritual Power") was purchased from Sabena in 1955 for US\$560,000 (equivalent to \$6,117,565 in 2022). These aircraft were equipped with rocket-assisted take-off devices. This was a common practice for a small number of airlines in the World that EAL had abandoned by . Also in 1955, Ethiopian inaugurated a self-owned maintenance facility. That year, Vic Harrell succeeded Swede Golien as general manager of the company. The carrier was in need of newer and larger aircraft, and three different aircraft types —two from the Lockheed Corporation, the Constellation and the Electra, and the Douglas DC-6— were considered for the fleet renewal programme. Two Douglas DC-6Bs were eventually ordered in 1956 for US\$4 million, including spares; an option for a third machine was also taken. Another loan obtained from the Ex-Im Bank, a  million one dating back to 1955, was partly used to finance the two purchased aircraft.

Benghazi was briefly served between 7 November 1956 (1956-11-07) and 15 January 1957 (1957-01-15). In 1957, a third DC-6B was purchased. Likewise, that year the airline had been asked to take a Lockheed L-749 that had been given as a gift to the Emperor, who declined it. Ethiopian paid US\$1.6 million for this airframe, and it was incorporated into the fleet on 4 June; the aircraft was destroyed by fire on 10 Jul in an accident in Sudan. Two Yemeni cities, Hodeida and Taiz were first served on 1 September 1957 (1957-09-01). On , flights to Wadi Halfa were terminated. The incorporation of three Douglas DC-6Bs took place between May and July, and EAL started a new link between Addis Ababa and Athens, via Cairo, using these recently delivered aircraft. On 21 Jun, the route was extended both to the north and to the south so that Frankfurt and Nairobi became linked by the same corridor, operated with DC-6Bs. By this time, the Convairs were redeployed to serve domestic and regional routes. Given that radio operators were no longer required as part of flight crews, they were assigned other tasks with the airline. Swissair handled the pilot training for the DC-6B aircraft at Zurich. The suspension of fifth freedom rights between Djibouti and Aden prompted the discontinuance of the route that linked them. EAL joined the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on 1 January 1959 (1959-01-01). During the year, two Boeing 720Bs were ordered and scheduled for delivery in December 1961 (1961-12), two more DC-6Bs entered the fleet, services to Nairobi were suspended once more and the airline's list of domestic destinations saw the incorporation of Bulchi, Dodollo, Lalibela and Masawa.

### The 1960s and 1970s: the jet age

Port Sudan was removed from the list of destinations on . The airline had its first fatal accident on 15 July when a DC-3 crashed en route from Bulchi to Jimma, killing the pilot. A Convair 240 was sold to Allied Stores of Israel on 18 July. On 12 August, an order with Boeing for two Boeing 720B aircraft was placed. EAL's general manager had already brought the idea of acquiring two jet aircraft for long-haul operations up already in February, suggesting the Boeing 720B. The Sud SE-210 Caravelle, the de Havilland D.H.106 Comet 4 and the Boeing 720B were all taken into account. Hot and high condition of some EAL operations made the Caravelle inappropriate, whereas the Comet was considered obsolete. The first east–west link made by an African airline started on 8 November, when the Addis Ababa–Accra–Lagos–Monrovia route was launched using DC-6B equipment.

The second fatal accident took place on 5 September 1961 when another DC-3 crashed shortly after takeoff from Sendafar; a flight attendant and four passengers lost their lives in the accident. The event urged the Civil Aviation Department to investigate the accidents. It was found that the lack of infrastructure at many airfields, marginal even for DC-3 operations, was a major contribution. Landing sites at Gore, Mizan Teferi and Tippi were included in the list of airfields that would require closure. On 13 January 1962, the crew and passengers lost their lives in another accident involving a DC-3—registration ET-T-1, EAL's first aircraft of the type—this time the crash taking place at Tippi while the aircraft was taking off. The event prompted the government to decide to close the airfields at both Mizan Teferi and Tippi. In March 1962 (1962-03), more DC-3s were acquired, and registered ET-ABE and ET-ABF. During the year, the "ET-T-" registration would change to simply "ET-". Jack B. Asire became general manager in April 1962 (1962-04).

It was also decided to build a new airport to replace the Lideta Airfield, which was unable to accommodate the Boeing 720 jetliner the company intended to acquire. This was the birth of Bole International Airport, where the company set its headquarters.

In December 1962 (1962-12), the arrival of Boeing 720s ordered directly from Boeing marked the carrier's entrance into the jet age. These two aircraft were registered ET-AAG and ET-AAH and were named the "Blue Nile" and "White Nile", respectively. The first jet service took place on 15 January 1963 (1963-01-15) when one of these aircraft was deployed on the route to Nairobi. The following day, a new service to Madrid was flown using the new jet equipment, with Frankfurt joining the jet network soon afterward. On 1 April, the Boeing 720 replaced the DC-6B on the Addis Ababa–Athens route; during that month, the West African corridor also benefited from jet operations. The airline entered into a pool agreement with Aden Airways and Sudan Airways on the Khartoum–Asmara–Aden service. A new flight to Conakry was launched on 8 May 1963 (1963-05-08). Kano, which had been served since 18 March 1962 (1962-03-18), was removed from the list of destinations that day. On 30 November 1963, the airline lost another DC-3 (ET-AAT) in a test flight at Addis Ababa; the crew of suffered minor injuries. Rome was served for the first time on 5 June 1964 (1964-06-05) on a weekly basis; the flight was routed via either Khartoum or Athens as part of a pool agreement with Alitalia.

Also in the early 1960s, the carrier provided some initial aviation support to the Ethiopia-United States Mapping Mission in its operation to acquire topographic maps of Ethiopia. The firm changed from a corporation to a share company in 1965 and changed its name from Ethiopian Air Lines to Ethiopian Airlines.

By 1966, the contractual relationship with TWA was adjusted to reflect the transfer of management with the appointment of an Ethiopian deputy general manager, and Col. Semret Medhane was appointed to the post. Two Boeing 720s were in operation and a Boeing 707-320C was due to be phased in by March 1968 (1968-03), when the carrier ordered a second -320C.

In 1970, the fifth renewal of the original 1945 contract changed TWA's role from manager to adviser. On its 25th anniversary in 1971, the company was ready to continue without foreign assistance. Since then, Ethiopian Airlines has been managed and staffed by Ethiopian personnel. The first Ethiopian General Manager was Col. Semret Medhane, appointed in 1971. Two Boeing 720Bs were acquired from Continental Airlines in 1973. In 1975, the carrier ordered five Dash 7s. By then, Ethiopian Airlines had ended its 30-year relationship with TWA. The airline became a new customer for the Boeing 727 in 1978, ordering two. The 727s arrived in the late 1970s as a replacement for the oldest Boeing 720s.

### The 1980s and 1990s

The DHC-5 Buffalo entered Ethiopian's fleet in the early 1980s. In 1982, Ethiopian became the first African carrier in ordering the Boeing 767, as well as the first airline to order the Boeing 767-200ER. On 1984-6-1, the first of these aircraft set a new distance record for a twinjet, flying 12,100 km (7,500 mi) non-stop from Washington, D.C. to Addis Ababa, on delivery to the company. The Boeing 767-200ERs came to replace the remaining Boeing 720s. ATR 42s and Twin Otters were incorporated into the fleet in the mid-1980s, with the first of six Twin Otters entering the fleet in early 1985. The Boeing 737-200 joined the fleet in late 1987.

In 1990, Ethiopian became the first passenger airline in taking delivery of the Boeing 757 Freighter, receiving the first of five Boeing 757-200s a year later. By 1996 the airline was flying to Bangkok, Beijing, Durban and Johannesburg; routes to Ivory Coast and Senegal were also being operated. Furthermore, the Fokker 50 entered the fleet to operate domestic routes; actually, Ethiopian became the last company in taking delivery of this aircraft in 1997, just after the collapse of Fokker due to financial problems. In the late 1990s the carrier saw the incorporation of Copenhagen and Maputo to its international network, as well as New York City and Washington as transatlantic destinations; the frequent flyer programme, named "Sheba Miles" after the legendary Queen of Sheba, was launched too. In 1998, the airline disrupted their flights to the Eritrean capital Asmara after a war erupted between the two countries.

### 2000 – present

A fleet renewal started in the early 2000s, with the incorporation of the Boeing 737-700 and the Boeing 767-300ER; The airline discontinued its service to Newark in favour of serving Washington in 2004. In the late 2000s the airline announced it would be the launch customer of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and placed orders to acquire brand new Airbus A350-900s, Boeing 777-200LRs and Bombardier equipment.

In late September 2010 (2010-09), Ethiopian Airlines was officially invited to join Star Alliance under the mentoring of Lufthansa. The carrier became a member of the alliance in December 2011 (2011-12), the third Africa-based carrier in doing so—following EgyptAir and South African Airways—and the 28th member worldwide.

## Corporate affairs

### Management and ownership

The current CEO is Mesfin Tasew, who was appointed by the airline's board of directors on 24 March 2022. Mesfin has been working at Ethiopian Airlines since 1984. He also was the CEO of Asky Airlines, a strategic partner of Ethiopian Airlines. Prior to that, Tewolde Gebremariam has been serving as the airline's Group CEO from 2011 until his resignation on March 2022. The airline, which is wholly owned by the Government of Ethiopia, has traditionally been unfettered by government intervention, even during times of significant turmoil and domestic hardship. Whereas many African state-owned airlines were and remain often poorly run, with staffings often serving nepotistic purposes, and business decisions being made on political grounds, Ethiopian Airlines remained professionally run and managed, leading The Christian Science Monitor to term it in 1988 a "capitalist success in Marxist Ethiopia".

The Derg, after expanding the airline's workforce, which had resulted in a decline in service quality and revenues, allowed the airline to be run on a "strictly commercial basis". Captain Mohammed Ahmed was appointed CEO in 1980 and slashed the workforce by 10%. The airline continued the acquisition of Western, rather than Soviet aircraft, despite the links between the communist government and the Soviet Union, purchasing the Boeing 727 in 1979 and the Boeing 767 in 1984. Despite famine, unfavorable exchange rates, and general economic disarray, the airline managed to retain its reputation, particularly in the provision of maintenance and training. The Financial Times noted that it managed to remain one of the most profitable airlines in Africa throughout the decade.

Despite the violent overthrow of the communist government by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front in 1991, the airline managed to post a profit for the fiscal year. In 1994, 40 top executives including the general manager Capt. Zelleke Demissie were fired after they signed a letter rebuking a government report, and a new general manager from outside the industry, Dr. Ahmed Kellow, was appointed. The airline would regain operational independence when longtime company veteran Bisrat Nigatu was appointed to the top post in 1997, and remained fiscally sound, despite disruptions caused by the Eritrean-Ethiopian War.

In 2018 it was announced that the Ethiopian government would partially or wholly privatize several state-owned enterprises, amongst them Ethiopian Airlines, although it would retain a majority stake in key firms, including the airline. In October 2020, the Ministry of Finance postponed the planned privatization of the state owned airline.

### Organization

The Ethiopian government reorganized the airline as a fully owned aviation holding group in July 2017. The aim was to maximize efficiency, enhance customer service to a global standard, and ease of longterm planning. The initial group consisted of: The Ethiopian Airports Enterprise (EAE), the Passenger Airline company, Cargo Airline, and Logistics Company, Ethiopian Aviation Academy, Ethiopian In-flight Catering Services, Ethiopian MRO Services, and Ethiopian Hotel and Tourism Services. The MRO Services is the largest such operation serving the continent and the Med-Eastern region; fully accredited by FAA and EASA. The Cargo and Logistical division are expanding to increase annual capacity to 1.5 million tons.

### Head office

Ethiopian Airlines currently has its head office at Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa, but intends to build a new head office facility. A contest for the design was held in 2009, but none of those plans were proceeded with. On 16 February 2011, it held a second round, and in September 2011 it was announced that BET Architect Plc won the contest. The airline stated that the estimated Br300 million complex will be constructed on a 50,000 m<sup>2</sup> (540,000 sq ft) plot at Bole International Airport. The company that received 4th place in the competition's second round has threatened to take legal action, accusing the airline of not giving due consideration to the proposed design.

### Business trends

Performance figures for the government-owned Ethiopian Airlines are available in their Annual Reports and occasional press reports. Available recent trends are (as at year ending 30 June):

### Strategic ambitions and landmarks

The airline was featured by The Economist as an example of excellence in late 1987, and economist Paul B. Henze recognised it in 2000 as being "one of the most reliable and profitable airlines in the Third World". In July 2011 (2011-07), Ethiopian was named Africa's most profitable airline for the year 2010 by Air Transport World, and it has also been praised by AFRAA for its sustained profitability over recent years.

As a longterm company policy, in addition to the carrier's main activities, revenues are also generated by providing aircraft maintenance to foreign airlines, and specialist training for both Ethiopian and foreign trainees. Every year, pilots and technicians graduate from both the Pilot School, inaugurated in 1964, and the Aviation Maintenance Technician School, established in 1967. The American Federal Aviation Administration accredited the airline's maintenance division with licence No. ETIY 102F.

Ethiopian Airlines started "Vision 2010" in 2005, which aimed to increase passenger traffic to 3 million, revenue to US\$1 billion and employees to 6,000 by 2010. By 2010, Ethiopian had exceeded all goals set in "Vision 2010", and the company's net profit for the fiscal year ended 2010-6-30 was US\$121.4 million. The results were attributed in part to an aggressive marketing campaign and major cost-cutting measures.

In 2010, Ethiopian adopted "Vision 2025", a 15-year development strategy, under which the airline anticipates increasing its fleet to 120, the number of destinations to 90, carrying more than 18 million passengers and 720,000 tonnes (790,000 short tons) of cargo, with 17,000 employees. "Vision 2025" also considers a fourfold expansion of the capacity building for trainees in the airline's aviation academy.

Ethiopian signed in July 2013 (2013-07) a deal for the acquisition of 49% of the Malawian carrier Air Malawi. The new airline will be named Malawian Airlines. The remaining shareholding will be held by the government of Malawi and private Malawian investors. Malawian Airlines started operations in January 2014 (2014-01). For the operation year 2013–14, Ethiopian Airlines was ranked the most profitable airline in Africa and 18th most profitable airline in the world with a profit of \$228 million.

In January 2018, Ethiopian signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Zambian government to assist in the relaunch of Zambia Airways. The airline has a 45% stake in the airline; the rest of the shares are held by the Zambian government. This move is aimed at developing Lusaka as an aviation hub for Southern Africa and fits with the airline's multiple hub strategy outlined in its 15-year Vision 2025 strategic plan.

In February 2018, Ethiopian and its Togo based regional airline partner ASKY Airlines formed a strategic partnership with the Guinean government to establish a startup carrier Guinea Airlines by June. This partnership is in line with the airline's 15-year Vision 2025 strategic plan to establish strategic partnerships with many African countries, enabling them to regain market share for travel. It is also in line with the recently launched African Single Air Transport Market.

Ethiopian Cargo and Logistical co. have formed a joint venture entity, yet unnamed, with DHL. The focus for the new company will be providing ground logistics to and from airports, seaports, and the rapidly expanding industrial parks of the region.

The business growth continued with an announcement, in April 2018, of a planned aerospace manufacturing facility. There is a small existing unit, under Ethiopian MRO Services, that manufactures wire-harnesses for the Boeing co. The new division, a joint venture with Aerosud of South Africa, will be capable of designing, and manufacturing, aircraft parts for plane makers. Negotiations are underway with Boeing, Honeywell, Airbus, and Bombardier Aerospace among others in search of clients. Accreditation will be sought from the FAA and EASA. The needed human resource will be groomed from the local technical schools and higher learning institutions. In July 2018 Ethiopian Airlines signed an agreement with German ACM Aerospace to set up a facility that will manufacture and supply aircraft seat covers, safety belts, carpets, and other interior parts.

Ethiopian Airlines launched a Mozambican subsidiary, Ethiopian Mozambique Airlines, in December 2018. The carrier competed with LAM Mozambique Airlines and Fastjet in the country's domestic market.

In January 2021, Ethiopian Airlines signed an interline agreement with South African carrier CemAir.

In May 2021, Ethiopian Mozambique Airlines ceased operations.

## Destinations

As of June 2020, the carrier served 127 international, 22 domestic passenger destinations, and 58 cargo destinations. Ethiopian serves more destinations in Africa than any other airline. As of April 2013, the carrier's five densest routes were Addis Ababa–Dubai, Addis Ababa–Johannesburg, Addis Ababa–Guangzhou, Addis Ababa–Nairobi and Addis Ababa–Beijing.

In late April 2012 (2012-04), the airline said it planned to start serving the Latin American market but no firm dates were disclosed. In August that year, Abuja, Accra, Douala, Dubai, Entebbe, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Harare, Kilimanjaro, Lagos, Lomé, London, Luanda, Lusaka, Malabo, Maputo, Mombasa, Mumbai, Nairobi and Rome would be served on an rotational basis with the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and that upon delivery of the second aircraft of the type these would be assigned on fixed scheduled routes.

In February 2013 (2013-02), unofficial reports disclosed the carrier's plans to launch new services to Ho Chi Minh City, Manila and Seoul starting in June the same year, as well as the company's intention to start flying the 9,899-nautical-mile-long (18,333 km) São Paulo–Lomé–Addis Ababa–Guangzhou run in July 2013 (2013-07). In June 2013 (2013-06), unofficial sources reported that the launch of flights to both Ho Chi Minh City and Manila were cancelled, and that they will be replaced with a flight to Singapore starting in September 2013 (2013-09); as announced, flights to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo commenced in July the same year. Flights to Singapore were launched in December 2013 (2013-12). A new link to Shanghai was launched in March 2014 (2014-03), while new services to Vienna started in June 2014 (2014-06) and to Doha in December the same year.

Tokyo-Narita was added on 20 April 2015. Other new destinations are Los Angeles (the carrier's point to be served in the Americas) and Dublin. A new service to Manila was launched in July 2015 (2015-07). The Addis Ababa–Lomé–Newark run commenced on 3 July 2016 (2016-07-03).

Buenos Aires became the second stop for the airline in the continent starting on 8 March 2018 as an addition to the existing Addis Ababa-São Paulo run. The list of cargo destinations has grown with the recent addition of: Los Angeles, Mexico City, and three additional cities in Africa. The daily uplift now stands at 650 tons. The plan, by 2025, is to grow the service points to 57 with a fleet of 18 aircraft, having the capacity to uplift 1.5 million tons annually.

Nosy-Be became the second stop, after Antananarivo, in Madagascar starting on 27 March 2018. The thrice-weekly service will be an outbound extension of the existing connection to the Comoros with a direct return to Addis Ababa. On the same day Kisangani and Mbuji Mayi, in the DRC, joined the Ethiopian network; bringing the total points served in Africa to 58.

As part of normalising relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the carrier restored service to the latter's capital Asmara on 18 July 2018.

### Alliances and codeshare agreements

#### Alliances

In October 2007 (2007-10), Ethiopian Airlines' frequent flyer programme ShebaMiles and Lufthansa's Miles & More entered into partnership, allowing members of each programme to earn and spend miles on both airlines' networks. In July 2008 (2008-07), the carrier entered a strategic partnership with Lomé-based start-up airline ASKY Airlines, in which Ethiopian holds a 40% stake. Ethiopian Airlines is responsible for aircraft maintenance and operational management. The plan is to turn Lomé into Ethiopian Airline's regional hub for the West African market. ASKY started operations in January 2010 and became profitable after a few months. Ethiopian officially joined Star Alliance in December 2011 (2011-12).

#### Codeshare agreements

Ethiopian Airlines has codeshare agreements with the following airlines:

- Aegean Airlines
- Air Canada
- Air China
- Air Côte d'Ivoire
- Air Europa
- Air India
- All Nippon Airways
- Asiana Airlines
- ASKY Airlines
- Austrian Airlines
- Azul
- EgyptAir
- El Al
- Flynas
- ITA Airways
- Kuwait Airways
- LAM Mozambique Airlines
- Lufthansa
- Malawi Airlines
- Malaysia Airlines
- Oman Air
- RwandAir
- Saudia
- Scandinavian Airlines
- Shenzhen Airlines
- Singapore Airlines
- South African Airways
- SriLankan Airlines
- TAP Air Portugal
- Turkish Airlines
- United Airlines

## Fleet

### Recent developments

In February 2005 (2005-02), Ethiopian Airlines signed a preliminary agreement to buy up to ten Boeing 787 Dreamliners (five firm orders plus five options), becoming the first African carrier to order 787s. On 31 May 2005 (2005-05-31), Boeing announced that Ethiopian had exercised its purchase rights and confirmed a firm order for ten aircraft. The carrier was the first African airline to order and to operate the Boeing 777-200LR. and took possession of its first (the 900th delivered 777 model) in November 2010 (2010-11). Ethiopian Airlines was also the first African airline to begin operating the Airbus A350 aircraft in 2016.

## Services

Cloud Nine and Economy Class are the two classes available on most of Ethiopian Airlines' flights, but not on all-economy-layout Dash 8s.

### Food and drinks

On all flights, passengers are provided with food and complimentary beverages onboard, in both classes. The food service consists of hot meals, hot or cold snacks, or light refreshments, depending on the length of the flight and the time of the day. The choice of acquiring special drinks at an extra cost is available too. The airline also offers assorted menus for passengers having special meal requirements.

### In-flight entertainment

#### Cloud Nine

Ethiopian Airlines' Business Class is named Cloud Nine. Passengers travelling in this class are provided with onboard amenities and a wide variety of reading material. On routes operated with Boeing 777-200LR equipment passengers are provided with sleeper seats and on-demand audio and video services, with 85 channels on 15.4 inch IFE screens.

### Economy Class

A variety of meals —ranging from light snacks to hot dishes— and amenities are provided to passengers flying on this class, both depending upon the length of the flight. Reclining seats and on-demand audio and video, with 80 channels and 8.9-inched screens, are available on Boeing 777-200LR services.

### Lounges

Ethiopian Airlines passengers are offered two lounges at Bole International Airport. Cloud Nine passengers can wait for the departure of flights at the Cloud Nine Lounge, where they are provided with a wide variety of amenities, as well as personal computers or wireless connection. Likewise, ShebaMiles cardholders with Gold or Silver status can make use of the Sheba Miles Lounge facilities. Customer Service agents are available at both lounges in order to assist passengers with any query regarding their flights.

## Accidents and incidents

According to the Aviation Safety Network records for Ethiopian Airlines, the airline has had 61 accidents and incidents since 1965, plus six more for Ethiopian Air Lines, the airline's former name. As of March 2019, these occurrences resulted in 494 deaths. On 10 March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a 4-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa en route to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board from more than 30 different nations. Prior to the 2019 accident, a hijacking was the carrier's deadliest accident, when an aircraft crashed into the Indian Ocean due to fuel starvation in 1996. The third-deadliest accident occurred in 2010, when an aircraft crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after it departed Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport, killing all 90 people on board. The crash of a Boeing 737-200 in 1988 led to 35 fatalities and is the fourth deadliest accident experienced by the company.

## Controversies

### Ethnic profiling allegations

In November and December 2020, Ethiopian Airlines was accused of banning or placing on leave those who are ethnic Tigrayans a minority, in relation to the Tigray War. The company denied the allegation, stating no employee was "suspended or terminated due to their ethnic background". A December 2020 article in The New York Times claimed the airlines' CEO, Tewolde Gebremariam, who is of Tigrayan origin, was also banned from leaving Ethiopia after the Tigray War started. Tewolde has been seen and interviewed at international events in October 2021.

### CNN allegations of military activities

A CNN investigation alleged that Ethiopian Airlines Cargo airplanes transported weapons to airports in Eritrea during the Tigray War. The airline billed Ethiopia's Ministry of Defense at least six times in November 2020. The article's reporter claimed that using civil aircraft to "smuggle" military weapons violates international aviation law. However, CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo explained in a subsequent interview that it is not a violation of international law for commercial airlines to provide cargo services to governments in times of war. Ethiopian Airlines denied transporting weapons for the war and stated the goods transported were "food stuff and refill". On 7 October 2021, a since-deleted post on Ethiopian Airlines' Facebook page quoted the CEO as saying the airline had started an investigation of "treasonous" employees and that the airline "will continue fulfilling demands of the government. The airline later stated that the Facebook account was temporarily compromised and the posted statement was fake.

#### Government possible involvement regarding China-Airline stake

Recently, Girma Wake, the Airlines's current Chairman and former CEO of the Airlines: has resigned, and has been replaced by current Ethiopian Airforce Marshal Yilma Merdasa. This has been speculated that the Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed replaced such a key airlines figure due to the fact that Mr. Wake denied the PM's purpose to sell the Airline's Cargo department to China. The matter is still ungoing, and other details can be unraveled.

## See also

- List of airlines of Ethiopia
- Transport in Ethiopia

Flag carrier of Ethiopia