It’s happened before, to me and to many colleagues. In promoting a new CD, we send out loads of free copies to press and radio contacts. A few of those recipients then sell them and they end up on ebay or Amazon selling for $3 – $7. Keep in mind we are not talking about an old release. We are talking about a fresh CD, released only a few weeks ago, that is still being actively promoted. Obviously legitimate stores, those that are actually PAYING us for our music, cannot compete with a price set by those who get the CDs for nothing.
I understand that not everyone wants to retain every CD they receive. If you receive a courtesy CD that you don’t want, here are a couple of suggestions for how to address the situation without further destroying the music business. First, consider donating it to a local library. There is a chance that they might one day sell it but by then it will be a stale release so the bulk of the legitimate sales will have already taken place. Second, if you don’t like an artist’s or label’s music, ask them to remove you from their mailing list. Don’t worry about hurting our feelings. Most of us have limited resources and would rather direct our promotional time and money towards those who are interested in what we have to offer.
We debated whether to clip a piece off the corner of the paper packaging so that the CD at least cannot be sold as “new” for $3. In the end we decided to open the plastic wrapping, but not to damage the CD itself. We wanted the recipient to have a quality experience with the CD from start to finish. We also felt it was insulting to send out a damaged package.
Unfortunately it’s nearly impossible to tell who is doing the selling, or where the CD came from. It’s a shame that, because of a handful of bad apples, we will have to start cutting the corners on the CD digi-paks before sending out promotional items. I hope the 99% of our media friends who are not to blame will understand this decision and not take offense.