« Weekly Softball Update: Week 3 | Main | At Long Last!: "A Handful of On The Other Hand" DVD Postproduction Underway »
April 25, 2006
Dear Record Labels, Relax
Like most media outlets, we at the The Pulse receive CDs to review on a regular basis -- reviews that give FREE publicity to record labels and artists and which, in turn, help sales. Most CDs that are sent to us are accompanied by a cover letter, press kit, copies of other reviews, etc. The following letter from Warner Bros. Records was enclosed with a copy of an advanced CD by a fairly popular indie rock band:
As we're undoubtedly aware, illegal file trading and piracy are two of the most daunting issues facing the music industry today, and we at Warner Bros. Records are working very hard to deal with these problems. One of our efforts to thwart unauthorized copying of CDs is to watermark the CDs we distribute.Watermarking enables us to track the CD back to the original authorized recipient. As part of this effort, the enclosed advance (album name witheld) has been individually watermarked with a unique identification number embedded in the music. This watermark is not changed or destroyed by extracting clips of the music, or by using any compression technology such as MP3.
This watermark has been assigned to you as the authorized recipient of this CD. By accepting this CD, you agree to not make any copies of this CD, to not play the CD in your computer and to not upload the CD or any part of it to the Internet or otherwise allow, or make, the CD or any part of it available on the Internet. You agree that you will not lend this CD to anyone, and that you alone will listen to this CD for promotional purposes. Accordingly, you will not play this CD for anyone.
It is our responsibility to protect our music and we take that very seriously.
Some quick thoughts:
1. Most record reviewers - myself included - listen to the CDs they're reviewing ON THEIR COMPUTERS. We do this because it's easy to pause, review and skip tracks while we are writing and because our computers are often the only thing we CAN listen to CDs on while in our offices. Furthermore, I'm not going to make "special arrangements" to listen to ANY (often lame, derivative and annoying) band's CD.
2. Rules or threats of impending doom from record labels to reviewers are likely to make reviewers skip the CDs sent by those making the rules or threatening the doom. These record labels are competing with each other for my ear and not all labels are as stringent in their policies. Some are actually quite pleasant.
3. As I briefly alluded to above, the VAST majority of new music is pure and utter CRAP these days, and when a label is a) pushing their crappy release upon us AND b) bullying us on how, when and where it can be safely reviewed and by whom, it's just not worth the effort. The above letter states that the CD is to be used for "promotional purposes." It should be noted that those are YOUR promotional purposes, not mine.
We'll see what we can do about reviewing your CD. I've got a stack of others sitting here that weren't sent with insulting letters. Have a swell day.
Music | By colrus | 01:12 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://chattablogs.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/31470
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Dear Record Labels, Relax:
