Off: CD Promo

[Paul Mather]

On Fri, 2005-08-26 at 19:13 -0400, Stephe wrote:
> Hi Mike, My copy says, Promotion use only, not for sale. Thats a slap in the
> face to me. The band could have sold these, but they gave them to us for
> nothing. How do you know the band won't reconsider doing this again in the
> future? I would love to get free gifts from the band. Someone paid to put
> this together. They aren't making any money either. I realize some fans may
> not want theres, but why not just pass it on to someone who doesn't have
> one. Selling these is almost as bad as selling bootlegs. The few fans doing
> this are making money off of the band. I think its called RIP OFF. Cheers
> Stephe

It may be sage to observe that, whatever you decide to call
these---"gifts from the band," "manna from heaven," or whatever---you
should note what is printed on them: promotional use.  They are promos,
designed to promote the upcoming release, and no different to all the
promos that have been issued during the history of the band.  (The only
difference might be in a wider distribution, including directly to fans
or passport holders.)

Lots of fans, including some Kollectors on this list, have bought
Hawkwind promos in their time.  All those promos also say "for
promotional use only, not for sale," and all of them were also
ultimately paid for by the band.  In the case of vinyl, fans may have
bought more than one of the same item over time, when a better copy
turned up.  They likely will have *GASP* sold their old one when that
happened.  Are those fans committing a "RIP OFF" of Hawkwind?  (I've
never heard anyone complain about it in the past.)  When I've seen
people announce their Hawkwind collection for sale, I've never seen the
caveat, "oh, except the promos, because that would be a doubleplus
ungood RIP OFF of the band." :-)

This is all getting a bit strange.

Cheers,

Paul.
--
e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa