Beware of promo CDs on eBay

Not always, depends if it's in the title or not as to how much actual exposure it gets. Still, the 24KT Sampler on an average is the most expensive DCC Gold CD. The promo of promo's.

 

Gee I've got a couple of those.

As a law abiding citizen & officer of the Court, looks like I'll have to return them to the manufacturer.

 

My guess is that the ""Promotional Use Only - Not For Sale" condition is a contract between the record company and the reviewer/store which received the promo CDs from the label. The reviewer who gives the CDs away violates the contract, but this does not make the CDs illegal. Once they hit the second hand market (Ebay or used CD store) the label cannot prevent the further distribution.

 

Maybe Marie or other people selling them could be a little more accurate in their descriptions. Any promos that I've run into before had a sticker on the rear insert or a black mark or hole punched through the barcode. Even a sawed jewel case can be replaced & not look too terrible. This one was the first one I've run into with the paragraph stamped on the front cover. If the description had stated this, then I wouldn't have bid on it.

 

I don't recall the label, but it could have been one of Telarc's jazz labels, or 33 Jazz...it was a known label, but a relatively unknown artist. I thought to myself, "big deal, so she sells one less of the two dozen CDs she'll end up selling anyway". Since then, I was a bit wary of who I sold to. Since I was on the "review" list of a couple of labels, I was a bit higher profile than someone who got promos through other channels. But that could also be my cop-out--I can just say I bought the promo CD "somewhere" but don't remember where.

 

I bet it was a WEA (Time/Warner) label. Far as I remember, they were the only ones to use this type of stamping on the front.

Used to frustrate those of us who reviewed them---it also prevented us from scanning them to put the CD cover on the web. WEA had the answer for it though--they had a separate, private website where they have scans just for reviewers to use for publication, sans the gold foil paragraph. It's been so long that I don't remember the address for it.

 

Reprise (which is Time/Warner).

Well, that helps if I decide to bid on one again. Just stay away from the Time/Warner ones. Thanks Rudy.

 

I collected a lot of promo 12" singles and EPs in the 80s and they are among the most prized items in my collection. Many of them have plain white jackets with the track and album info and warnings (For promotional use only. Not for sale.) in plain type. Others had unique artwork and different photos and layout (the Geffen 12" radio promos for So), Talking Heads, Pretenders etc. From the audio standpoint, they often used the entire side of the disc for one song, and they sound great. As time went on more and more of these were simply the retail version with a gold promo stamp on the front cover, which mars the item, IMO. CD single promos have many of the same characteristics, which to me as a collector makes them fun to seek out.

 

OK, lets assume that is true, if a label makes up 1000 promos, and the band gets $1-$3 royalties per album sale. it might total $3,000. If there were five members to the band, it just cost them each $600. Big deal. You have to spend money to make money. I would guess that by providing these promotional materials, it will likely will lead to sales that offset these costs.

Aaron

 

In fact, back in the days of vinyl, promos were often the preferred collectible, as only the promo vinyl was often pressed with "Quiex" or virgin vinyl.

 

As a music collector, I often seek out the promo issues if they are different in some way from the standard commercial issue (gold stamped, promo silkscreened on the disc, etc.). The reason I find them more desirable is because they are pressed in more limited quantities.

The only bad thing about buying a promo is that the artist gets nothing from the sale. Then again, if you are like me and buy x-different pressings of CDs by my favorite artists (the japanese, european, etc.) - I guess they are still getting some money from me somewhere!

 

Another way to screw the artist if abused by the record company. The cost for the production and distribution of such disks is taken off the top of the artists account. The artist is given no royalties for each disk distributed as a promo. If excessive disks of this type are distributed then it cuts into the number of disks counted as sales. One of the many ways artists find that they have sold lots of albums and received no royalty check for the record company.

Richard.

 

"You have to spend money to make money. I would guess that by providing these promotional materials, it will likely will lead to sales that offset these costs."

I agree with Aaron's statement shown above, and also think that everyone seems to be forgetting what promotional CDs/LPs are for. They are made to be played with hopes of customers liking what they hear and inquiring about the title being played, so they can purchase the CD/LP. Years ago, when I worked part-time at used record stores, we would play promos and it generated a lot of sales of the regular releases. Also, when we would play advanced promos, we would usually get requests to order many extra copies of a title than we normally did. I think that today the record companies are more concerned about people making CD-R copies of their titles, than they are of someone selling promo copies of their releases; at least you would think that they would be.



Ed Hurdle
HeavyDistortion

 

From an industry perspective, I'd think that the sale of promos might even be more offensive than CDRs or pirated discs because the seller is taking something manufactured by the record company and given away solely as a promotional tool and then used to make a profit. At least with CDRs, the industry gets the initial sale of the item. Maybe it doesn't bother the industry because they charge the artist for the costs of the promos.

 

xx

 

You actually think bands get $1 to $3 royalties per album/CD ? The top royalty rate is about 20% of wholesale cost. The wholesale cost of a $15.98 CD is just over $7.00. This figures out to about $1.40 before promotion, recording, packaging and management costs (which usually are figured off gross not net). Twenty percent is about the top royalty rate for established/resigned bands, most artists receive much less.

 

Alan,
Cost on new releases can be $10-12 so that doesn't put my estimates too far out of line. IIRC recall Universal just lowered some costs down to $9 on new releases so your $7 seems a tad low to me. Promotional cd's are a fraction of the cost of one video and probably offers a better return.

Best,
Aaron