Live classic concert recordings that were once only found on illegal bootleg cassettes in obscure music stores are now starting to take hold legally online. NY1's Technology reporter Adam Balkin filed the following report.

In a humidity-controlled Chelsea vault lies thousands of tapes, video and live concert audio recordings from some of the most well-known bands ever known. It's just one of the vaults owned by Wolfgang's Vault, a website that's leading the way in bringing classic concerts online in a legal manner. The site allows viewers to stream many of the shows for free or download them for a fee.

Recently, in as single day, Wolfgang's Vault added 1,000 new concerts to its online collection of 3,000 recordings.

Developers say it is proof that over the last year, artists and labels have finally started seeing the value in distributing unreleased material in an official way.

"We have full rights and agreements behind all of these downloads, and it's been controversial in the early days but all that's been cleared aside," says Matt Lundberg of Wolfgang's Vault. "Have people heard some of these recordings? In many cases, yes, if they're really old recordings there may've been someone bootlegging that same show in the audience with their own tape deck. So someone in the audience may've heard the same performance but not from our tapes.

"The quality ranges from at the low-end soundboard recordings, at the other end of the spectrum are recordings like the King Biscuit Flower Hour, where they got a full 12-track mobile truck that would actually go to the concert venue," continues Lundberg.

The copyright holders of all this content finally decided to start releasing the material to avoid having the material illegally distributed online, and to also give classic bands new opportunities to stay relevant.

"As radio tightens up, as record sales continue to spiral downward, you know, artists are looking for any way they can to put their music in front of fans," says Ray Waddell of Billboard Magazine. "So I think they'll embrace it and continue to."

The same spirit has led websites like Billboard, YouTube and MySpace have tested services that allow fans to catch live concerts as they are happening from the comfort of their own homes.