The Promo Release Debate

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Mike Blakesley

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Hmm. Stores should NOT be selling promos. They are probably clearly stamped, "PROMOTIONAL USE ONLY -- NOT FOR SALE," or else they are drilled or cut to mark them.

I've got a notion to email Shout Factory and let them know about this, since you were kind enough to put the name and address of the store in your post.
 
Whether they're stamped or not, they clearly are not meant for sale yet because the release date isn't until Feb. 8! No warehouse or distributor SHOULD have them in stock yet, so they are undoubtedly promotional items.
 
it's a tiny hole in the wall store. they buy stuff from people off the strret who bring em into the store in stacks. this is new york city after all. i'm sure some poor record reviewer brought em in to pay his outrageous ny rent
 
hi all, how is everyone doing? I like to say about those promos of the lost treasures, and the other 2, they should not be selling promos but some stores they do. like a cd store here in Cleveland,Ohio used to be called the record exchange, now it is called the exchange. they get them from the record distrub. then to make money they mix them in with the other used cd's. now I have a herb alpert second wind that at one of the people at a used cd store GAVE me a copy becasue they new I liked herb alpert's music and it was on the almo label and it is marked Promotional right on the cd it self. can't wait till feb. 8
bob
 
Mike: I agree with you. I think you should write Shout Factory. Whoever got these releases first probably also received notification and reminders in several places that these CDs were promotional releases only. If these showed up in a local, hole in the wall store about 6 years from now, I can understand why the promos would be on the shelf for sale. While it's still illegal, it's inevitable for one to find old promo LPs and 45s in many used record stores today. But for a shopkeeper to put a release like this--not yet released to the public market--on the shelves is clearly irresponsible and gives him an easy, but dishonest profit edge. As well, it lets him get rid of a play copy he could have used to interest many other customers, in this case, in Herb's music.
 
The sale of promos, while clearly stated to be illegal (and the discs usually stamped "Property of the Record COmany, Not for sale, Trade, Etc") is a fact of life.

In Los Angeles every used record shop sells them. And we're talking record shops across the street from the very record companies that make them. If they're not going to try to "enforce" the "No Promo Rule" in their own neck of the woods (L.A.) they're certainly not going to do it in NY or (especially) Cleveland. I'm sure the companies consider it part of "the cost of doing business" and are more interested in going after pirates (and grandmothers and teenagers downloading from sites like Kazaa).

--Mr Bill
 
I used to visit a store on the east side, Car City Records, that used to sell me sealed promo copies of new jazz releases, right on release day. They'd get maybe half a dozen of these titles in the store, and sell them making 100% profit. Can't do much about it though--worst case, you'd cut off the supply of one store in the country, and the hundreds of others would still get it. Can't say it thrills me to know stores are doing this either--I know a reviewer who got contacted by an artist's attorney when he tried to sell one of his recent promo CDs on eBay.

USED promos are not the issue. In LPs, especially, they are coveted collectors' items. CD promos are usually drilled, stamped, saw-cut or have the barcode punched or blacked out. And occasionally the CD is stamped too.
 
I mentioned the fact that I come across so many promos in used record stores today because I, like many of you, am guilty of buying these technically illegal copies in the past for the price and sometimes the better sound. Even if the promo is 30 years old, I always felt a little awkward walking up to the counter with this pressing in my hands. I know that used promos aren't as big a deal as recent, fresh promos. But I'm just defending the principle of the thing here. Like I said before, it's irresponsible for the store owners to stock their shelves with these obvious promos namely because it puts the customer in a compromising position of buying them - regardless of their age. I try to find copies of albums that are legitimate releases. I also realize that record stores could lose some- or maybe a lot- of money by removing the promos from their shelves. Therefore, I must respectfully disagree that while the sale of promos is a fact of life, it is not totally unavoidable.
 
You guys are hilarious! Someone gets the a cd with the first TJB recordings in 30 years and everyone talks about how stores shouldn't sell promo copies.
 
I was wondering about that myself. The pictures make it look like it could be a digipak with the bar printing on the right edge, or a jewel case with the bar printing on the inside of the trayliner. I guess I'll go to my local used record store and find out. Har!
 
This seems to me to be a laughing matter to some. I just try to look at it from the perspective of the artist who gets cheated when promos go on sale, and the store owner- not the artist or the label- makes an unfair profit. If you were an artist whose recent promo copies were getting sold in used stores, and thus you weren't getting any money in return, would you appreciate that? If we're supposedly supportive of Herb Alpert's efforts, then by all means someone should write Shout! Factory with a complaint about this. :mad:


... Dave ::not taking sides, just trying to defend the principle of the thing::
 
I worked in music retail for well over a decade and the stores I worked in sold used CDs as well as new. Virtually all of the reps for all of the labels sold or traded promo copies of new product to the store. I remember it being a regular thing, week in and week out. At the last store I worked at, we discussed the situation and decided not to break street dates by selling promos ahead of time (or items marked promo) but the employees still bought them from the reps for their own personal collections. As far as Herb Alpert product goes, the average kid in a used CD store may not even know it's promotional if it isn't stamped or drilled and probably has no knowledge of the actual street date. Store employees were also constantly given promotional product to play in the stores or sometimes as gifts for making store displays and such. After the store play copies had lived out their usefulness, they always ended up in the hands of an employee. As the years have gone on, I've sold off the majority of the thousands of CDs that I collected over the years and many of those had to have been promotional products, so I guess I'm as guilty as anyone of this action. I don't think Shout! Factory or any label for that matter is going to keep this from happening. Not that I'm condoning it either, though.

Death, taxes, and promos.
 
i think you guys are absolutely hilarious

you'd think you worked for the record companies!

i mean, we're not talkin about stealing from aunt penny's cake and pie company.

let me ask you a question: why are record companies profits down the toilet?

A. a few promo copies being sold or
B. charging outrageous prices to the consumer for years and years.
do you really think it costs the record company 18.99 to make a cd?

i'm a little shocked and appalled by your morality issue here.
i have over 7,000 vinyl records and have grabbed every promo copy i could find over the years, mainly because they were the first pressing, and usually clearest sounding. when you guys were young hippies did you actually stop before you bought that promo only jefferson airplane lp on vinyl? ("hmmm maybe this is not right. i'm preventing $2 from going to RCA victor stock!")

i have a promo only of the "what now my love" lp. should i send it personally back to herb with an apology?

geez

by the way, for those who care, the cds are shrinkwrapped gatefolded cardboard, with a luscious little color booklet, a little inset of upcoming releases, and a special thanks to lani for her support in making this whole project possible. herb has no special nostalgia for the old days, bur when listening to some of these trax, got the same old chills he used to get when recording them

walt
 
I just think it's sooooo ironic that I could probably walk into a couple of known CD retailers and buy a promo copy ahead of street date, like Walt did...and yet if I went to Shout!Factory's media and promotions staff and asked for promo copies to help promote these recordings on one of the most popular A&M/TJB sites on the 'net, I would get *nothing*. When we used to review jazz CDs at another website, our main contact used to have to fight tooth and nail to get promo copies to review, and these were even from contacts established over a couple of decades! And yet I could walk into a local shop and buy the SAME title still in its shrink wrap, with a saw cut in the side of it. :mad:

When a recording is well past the release date (a year after, perhaps, or after the artist's NEXT recording is released), I have no major problems with buying promo copies. LPs? Forget it...I don't even flinch, since promo pressings are often better than production copies due to being pressed early in the life of the stampers. And more rare, too, from a collector standpoint. LPs, too, haven't been a mass market item since the early 90s. I doubt A&M is going to send over the Promo Posse because I have a Baja Marimba Band promo LP! :D
 
All: I've split this part of the thread into its own discussion so we are not thread crapping all over Walt's original post.

Carry on. :)
 
good idea. thanks. i can't believe not one person has mentioned the music yet. it is gonna whack your herb lovin heads like a two by four
 
walterphil said:
good idea. thanks. i can't believe not one person has mentioned the music yet. it is gonna whack your herb lovin heads like a two by four

I'm hoping it does! :D Thanks!
 
i wrote my review to my gods n godesses group at yahoo to an excited response (potential 800+ members). i know a lot of these guys will purchase the herb cds. did these promos i bought do their job? i think so.
 
I've always been fascinated by the abundance of promo copies being sold in independent record stores. It's illegal, and yet no one seems to think anything of it. I live near a widely-known independent record shop, and finding promo copies of brand-new releases (quite often still sealed) in there is like - pardon the cliched expression - shooting fish in a barrel. Every other newer CD I pick up in there has got at least one promo punch-hole in it. It's hard finding copies of newer CDs there that aren't promo copies. As a collector who's never really cared for promotional copies of records/CDs, I find this mildly irritating. (Though not quite as much as stores who sell record-club releases but cover up the "Mfd. by BMG" UPC labels with their own UPC stickers so you don't really know what you're buying. Anyone else here seen that before?)

Jeff F.
 
First of all, sorry for the thread crap. I was just mad.

Second:

i think you guys are absolutely hilarious

you'd think you worked for the record companies!

i mean, we're not talkin about stealing from aunt penny's cake and pie company.

Excuse me Walt, but I DO WORK FOR THE RECORD COMPANY. I sell CDs, therefore I work for them indirectly. And you are right, the illegitimate selling/purchasing of a few promos is not going to put them out of business, but does that make it right?

Think it over. Those CDs you bought -- not one red cent of that money is going to Herb Alpert, Shout Factory or anyone else EXCEPT the little fly-by-night hole-in-the-wall store in New York. Now if we were talking about somebody who sells millions of records here in 2005, this might not be a big deal -- but if Shout Factory prints up, say 10,000 of these promos and all but a few of them wind up in the grimy hands of these hole-in-the-wall people, that's a lot of sales being taken away from our friend Herb, who may then decide that it's just not worth the hassle to do further reissues. If legitimate stores don't see good sales, they may decide not to carry future issues. Is this what we're aiming for? I think not.

Sure Herb is billionaire, he doesn't need the money, but there are other people besides him with their tails riding on this program -- lots of people who work at Shout Factory, for example.

Before you go justifying yourself with all this "oh, it's just a big fat record company" nonsense, try looking at the big picture. Theft is theft.
 
well yes...theft is theft
but there's theft
and then there's theft

and like i said
i know i've generated interest and sales
in my yahoo group today
 
You're saying you wouldn't have posted to the Yahoo group either way?

The only way you're getting off the hook, buddy, is by going out to a store on February 8 and buying three more CDs. Think of them as backups (and you can probably make a fortune on eBay when they go out of print again.) :D
 
Walterphil, you need to go back to where you bought them illegal promo's and make a citizens arrest... ASAP! Or, call 1-800-FBI-PROMO and report these atrocities. The FBI will swoop in and bust up that den of CD shysters. Tear gas and stun guns set on “fry-their-but”, that’ll do the trick.

Just a little humor… nothing serious.
 
Excuse me Walt, but I DO WORK FOR THE RECORD COMPANY. I sell CDs, therefore I work for them indirectly. And you are right, the illegitimate selling/purchasing of a few promos is not going to put them out of business, but does that make it right?

Agreed, Mike. I too have worked in the music (CD, DVD) retail business in a national chain store for some time. That was my primary motivation for replying to this thread originally, because I know of street-peddlers and local, unaffiliated stores that get their hands on copies of new albums, and the artist doesn't get a cent of their profit. Just because the business may be big, and the artist may already be bankrolling in the millions, that doesn't make it right.

Secondly, I don't consider this what walterphil calls a "morality issue." It's an issue of principle, like Mike B. has already clearly stated above. The more the attitude of "defeating big business for their outrageous prices" prevails, the more people will get into selling illegal copies. This is unfair for all artists because it's simply dishonest to them. Most of them have no control over the pricing that the music company slaps on their albums.

I apologize if I had ever thread-crapped. I just have taken a passionate stance on this issue along with Mike Blakesley. Of course I would never return a promotional copy with a personal note to the artist apologizing for taking a few bucks away from him/her. I have promos, as I said before, like many of you do. But Herb is our friend, and we owe him honest business and nothing less.
 
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