PROMO ONLY NOT FOR SALE
jjfad027
1,594 Posts
Was this ever strictly enforced by distributors or anyone for that matter?
Comments
I believe the Supreme Court ruled that blanket lending agreements such as these, absent a specific agreement, are not enforceable. Any lawyers here know the skinny?
But there was a case before the court when labels were trying to get people to stop selling promo material. They lost under the first sale doctrine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Music_Group_v._Augusto
Good link.
As the link shows, from time to time over the decades the music industry has tried to enforce the no resale.
Record stores that buy new from the majors generally try to avoid selling promo copies.
In the 80s promos were a big part of payola. All the promo only colored vinyl and special packaging on Prince and Springsteen and other superstars were meant to be sold by the recipients in exchange for air play.
thanks for the link!
thanks for that.
Good to see you post. Haven't seen you since NYC. Hope all is well...
Would have been interesting to have a convo with you on this back in the day ha.
With Garth Brooks as the spokesman.
I guess having hundreds of millions wasn't enough for him (he's the best selling solo artist of the 20th century).
In '87-'88 I discovered the dumpster at the local WEA warehouse. All the promos that they sent out that were returned went into the dumpster and my brother and I would hit it twice a week and literally hauled off tens of thousands of promo CD's, LP's and 12" over a 2 year period. We sold them to all the local stores and word got back to us that WEA suspected that an employee was stealing this stuff because there were more promos showing up in Dallas than they sent to the entire state of Texas. At the end of '88 they moved the warehouse to a new location and when they did they filled the dumpster to the brim every day for 2 weeks with posters, promo items, etc., etc. We hauled out stuff like Metallica glow in the dark vinly 12", REM interview discs and 200 copies of a Prince poster that had been recalled due to Prince not liking it. My brother put himself through college with what we found in those dumpsters.
At the new location they wised up and put the dumpster in a locked, enclosed fence.
Side note. One of the main problems with going digital. Losing rights of what you can do with the music you buy and at the end of the day and more importantly loss of the first sale doctrine.
yeah, i remember way back when i did my first few sales i had a few items pulled due to using the word "promo" in the title line.