Comments on: Music Writers Will All Be Criminals If Universal Music Group Has Its Way

By: MrStarhead

MrStarhead — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 09:31:59 +0000

You can tell how an album’s doing by where the promo copies are being sold at Amoeba in LA; if it’s been out less than a year and you can pick up a stack of 15 in the clearance bin, it’s a flop. If the promos are still in the regular bins, it might be doing all right.
And as an aside, I’ve bought stuff from that Roast Beast guy, and he’s all right. Ships quick and doesn’t screw you on the back end like a lot of eBay types.

By: revmatty

revmatty — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:40:17 +0000

@AustinSoundcheck: This has nothing to do with digital distribution and everything to do with controlling copies of physical media they send to radios, reviewers, record store buyers, etc. I ran stores for the Wherehouse chain for about 5 years back when the web was just being created. The labels were hassling used record stores and collectibles dealers back then just the same and using the same arguments unsuccessfully.

We probably got 100 or so promo CDs a week at the various places I worked (more or less depending on the volume of the store of course) mostly for new artists or lesser known artists they were trying to push. We fairly routinely got memos from one label or another 'reminding' us that the promos were ONLY to be used in store play so customers would hear them (which is why you sent us 25 copies of Joe Jackson's Laughter and Lust, a wildly underrated album in my opinion, so that we could play all 25 copies in the store?). Any other use was 'illegal' and we were to return all promos at the end of the promotion period.

Not that anyone paid attention to those memos, but they did send them out on occasion. And we dropped the promos in a box in the managers office and employees were welcome to take whatever they wanted on a first come first served basis. Oddly enough the Vanilla Ice Live album was still sitting in the box years later when I quit...

By: Chris N.

Chris N. — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:41:38 +0000

I would bet serious money that 90% of the promo CDs in used record shops come from label employees. How does that figure in?

By: Captain Wrong

Captain Wrong — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:20:33 +0000

OIC, they just filed now according to the EFF. Still, this started back in August. I thought it was settled law anyway.

By: Captain Wrong

Captain Wrong — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:19:15 +0000

Looks like someone else has Hypebot in their feeds too. ;)

Although, to be fair, I first read this on William Paltry's Copyright blog...back in August of last year.

By: Empire

Empire — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:12:23 +0000

So if I send, like, a million CDs to UMG that say "For promotional use only" and "Must be surrendered upon demand," then they just have to keep them forever, at their own expense, just in case I ask for them back someday?

I wonder how much it costs to store a million CDs forever...

By: davidm

davidm — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:58:45 +0000

Hey, I shop at PREX too! You can tell an album is going to be bad when there’s 2 big sections of shrink wrapped promos all together. I always assumed they came from WPRB, but the sheer number of duplicates seems to make that impossible.

By: Clevertrousers

Clevertrousers — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:50:14 +0000

Funny, most music writers that I know resemble Grimace, not the Hamburglar… oh, yeah, and UMG is dumb and smelly, etc…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:43:13 +0000

@GhostOfDuane: Agreed. They never stop looking for ways to get out, but they're just tightening the noose.

By: GhostOfDuane

GhostOfDuane — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:33:11 +0000

@AustinSoundcheck: seriously. why can't they just keel over and die already? anything less would be letting the terrorists win.

By: iantenna

iantenna — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:12:36 +0000

i was at a record store in SLO recently and noticed that the dude had sharpied out the “NOT” in “NOT FOR RESALE” on all their old columbia vinyl. i laughed out loud when i saw that, i guess it’s not so funny anymore.

By: Chris N.

Chris N. — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:06:28 +0000

If I put a second sticker on it that says OTHER STICKER INVALID, do I own it then?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:04:53 +0000

The music industry is just making itself look worse by fighting the digital revolution.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:59:14 +0000

If being a blithering idiot was illegal, all record execs at UMG would most certainly be on death row right now.

And I'm not referring to Death Row Records either...