pouët.net

Weird $600/~485€ crowdfunding effort from distance/Lackluster

category: music [glöplog]
Well, here's something you don't see everyday:

Indiegogo project to purchase backstock from a defunct label.

Anyone who pitches in a reasonable amount (>5€)- if it reaches the total $600 so I can get back the 7 copies of Esa Ruoho: Spaces and 138 copies of Lackluster: Slice, will receive a FLAC/MP3 download of one or the other.

What say you?
It's already 1% funded, and only 51 days left. Probably will fail.

Yours, Esa
added on the 2015-01-12 16:00:24 by distance distance
I already own Spaces, so definitely interested in the FLAC/hard copy of Slice.

@2% :)
added on the 2015-01-12 18:25:40 by raina raina
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I already own Spaces, so definitely interested in the FLAC/hard copy of Slice.

@2% :)


Thank you muchly! I'll see if life-indiegogo provide me with an email address i can send a download code to at the end of the project - if successful..
added on the 2015-01-12 18:38:28 by distance distance
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If I don't get the moneys together in the next 60 days, the label-boss has no choice but to throw the records in the bin.


So he would much rather have € 0,- and throw them away than say € 100,- and not polute the environment? Typical.
added on the 2015-01-12 21:55:01 by trc_wm trc_wm
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So he would much rather have € 0,- and throw them away than say € 100,- and not polute the environment? Typical.
My thoughts exactly.
added on the 2015-01-12 22:17:42 by numtek numtek
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Quote:
If I don't get the moneys together in the next 60 days, the label-boss has no choice but to throw the records in the bin.


So he would much rather have € 0,- and throw them away than say € 100,- and not polute the environment? Typical.


i agree. it's weird. one would think that some money is better than no money.

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So he would much rather have € 0,- and throw them away than say € 100,- and not polute the environment? Typical.
My thoughts exactly.


yep.
added on the 2015-01-12 22:23:36 by distance distance
I like the way the recoding industry works. These cds would be worthless without the content the artist made. Now the person who put value into this product has this one unqiue chance to buy it back within a short time period, otherwise it will be gone forever. Using Fear of Loss to lure an artist into buying back his own work. Gotta love it.
added on the 2015-01-13 00:25:39 by numtek numtek
numtek: yeah. another recordlabel actually threw away 50 vinyls of my music, and told me about it later on, and it was a horrific revelation. to find out your own tunes are going to the landfill because you couldn't get it together enough to travel to the US to pick it up.
added on the 2015-01-13 01:53:28 by distance distance
id offer to pay shipping costs any day... not more not less
added on the 2015-01-13 02:25:50 by wysiwtf wysiwtf
Are any of those bazillion copies of Slice you're trying to reclaim vinyl? I might go for a helping out with a good chunk if I could acquire one. :) Otherwise, just the same as everyone else with a little bit toward the goal. (Incidentally, I don't actually own a record player but a place I visit often enough does. I've got three now, one being Esem/Stereoman's Envelooped.)
Ah sorry, I just re-read the Indiegogo title to see it says "CDs". Apparently I don't pay attention well enough.
Forgive me if I'm being totally dense here... maybe I'm just missing something crucial about how record label deals work. Is there anything stopping you from just printing a new batch of CDs? (Clearly you still have the copyright on the music - otherwise you wouldn't be giving away digital copies as rewards - and if the label has gone out of business, then presumably any exclusivity deal they had is now expired.)

I know it's a shitty waste of resources, and kind of insulting to you as an artist, to see perfectly good CDs going to landfill. But unless there's more to this story that I don't know about, the only thing that's actually being *lost* here is the sunk cost of physically producing 150 CDs. And surely it's not worth spending $600 to recover that...?
added on the 2015-01-13 03:11:12 by gasman gasman
I dunno, given the minimum order requirements of some places and that they likely have jewel cases etc. it's possible the $600 is cheaper than doing it all over again for that amount of CDs, especially if he didn't pay for it up front because they label hoped to sell them all. (Comes out to about $4 each?)

As to the vinyl mentioned trapped at other locations, though I'm sure there's better deals than I found on the web when I looked once, getting a run of a single vinyl has really expensive start-up costs. It is definitely cheaper there to buy the remainders than it is to get more made if you want them.

Not that I'm trying to speak for distance here. He knows the real details better than we do.

Maybe they could be convinced offer some sort of compromise since they're not going to sell anyway that's < $600. I can't imagine it'd be $600 just to mail them. Their effective value is $0 if they're going to the landfill without being purchased back by distance, not whatever they wanted for them, so I would think they could be less gouge-y to the person who provided the creative material to generate them in the first place.
pretty much persuade them to make art out of dem data carriers.
added on the 2015-01-13 06:15:32 by gentleman gentleman
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Ah sorry, I just re-read the Indiegogo title to see it says "CDs". Apparently I don't pay attention well enough.


i do have some vinyls waiting for me in london, of another release, and some, maybe 50 to 100-150 vinyls waiting for me in the u.s. of yet another release. but i decided to start with this project first (the u-cover cds). i have vinyls of my own stuff, like

MerckRU "R U Oho?" 12" complete with two remixes by one Brothomstates
MerckSC "Showcase Sampler" 12"

unfortunately shipping costs for vinyl are intense. hence i don't really do a lot of work trying to sell 'em to people, since sending out a vinyl at 8-14€ the cost is just not too nice to the person purchasing it.

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Is there anything stopping you from just printing a new batch of CDs? (Clearly you still have the copyright on the music - otherwise you wouldn't be giving away digital copies as rewards - and if the label has gone out of business, then presumably any exclusivity deal they had is now expired.)

I know it's a shitty waste of resources, and kind of insulting to you as an artist, to see perfectly good CDs going to landfill. But unless there's more to this story that I don't know about, the only thing that's actually being *lost* here is the sunk cost of physically producing 150 CDs. And surely it's not worth spending $600 to recover that...?


life.indiegogo does not allow for giving perks, so i will instead track down the people who donate and send them download codes. I have all rights to all the musics, except for some IODA weirdness which I'm attempting to sort out with my mate soon -- I'm hoping to list all my music up for sale digitally + physically directly via cdbaby instead of going through a friend, who goes through a 3rd party aggregator/distributor service, who then pushes it to spotify/iTunes etc. that way it's easier to do accounting and easier to have control over things.

yes, it's the shitty waste of resources that really gets to me, i can't stomach it. i'm thinking i could probably sell the cds at gigs or via discogs / bandcamp / cdbaby at about 5-9€ so in essence, in the end, i'll make back the moneys. i know people on reddit really tried to convince me to just press the cds again or just release new music, and i know it's thick to do it like the way i'm doing it right now.. but maybe i'm too thick for me own good :)
added on the 2015-01-13 07:15:41 by distance distance
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As to the vinyl mentioned trapped at other locations, though I'm sure there's better deals than I found on the web when I looked once, getting a run of a single vinyl has really expensive start-up costs. It is definitely cheaper there to buy the remainders than it is to get more made if you want them.


Well, the deFocus vinyls (i'm guessing there's about 5 to 15 of them) in High Wycombe, London, I would already get for free, minus the travel. That's because I already picked them up for free back in 2004. Yep, they've been at a family friend's place for 11 years now, which is frankly amazing.

I think the Merck CDs in the u.s. I would get for free - but that would only be feasible were there to be gigs in the u.s. where I could offload them, taking 50 to a hundred vinyls back with me from the u.s. is going to be quite a costly feat.

To be honest, I never expected to have these kinds of fun things - let's call them logistical nightmares - to mess around with - when I started releasing stuff! :D
added on the 2015-01-13 07:25:28 by distance distance
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Maybe they could be convinced offer some sort of compromise since they're not going to sell anyway that's < $600. I can't imagine it'd be $600 just to mail them. Their effective value is $0 if they're going to the landfill without being purchased back by distance, not whatever they wanted for them, so I would think they could be less gouge-y to the person who provided the creative material to generate them in the first place.


The 50€ is for the postage, the rest is what they consider the records to be worth - at 3€ each. What's missing from the data is that I might've gotten something like a hundred of the records for free, originally, it's been 9,5 years now.

I, too, wouldn't mind getting the whole lot for, oh, 150€ or so, 200€ tops.
added on the 2015-01-13 07:29:28 by distance distance
distance, you do realize what you're doing is actually illegal in finland ?
added on the 2015-01-13 08:04:06 by sol_hsa sol_hsa
Sol: tl;dsf?
added on the 2015-01-13 08:44:59 by Gargaj Gargaj
Better save the money and make CDrs in an unique and nice packaging instead of stuffing money into their throats :)
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by distance:
I think the Merck CDs in the u.s. I would get for free - but that would only be feasible were there to be gigs in the u.s. where I could offload them, taking 50 to a hundred vinyls back with me from the u.s. is going to be quite a costly feat.
Where in the US are the vinyls?

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by distance:
unfortunately shipping costs for vinyl are intense. hence i don't really do a lot of work trying to sell 'em to people, since sending out a vinyl at 8-14€ the cost is just not too nice to the person purchasing it.
Some people would be willing to do it. I got the Envelooped vinyl from a guy in Japan through discogs.com and only paid ~$13 for shipping on top of what they wanted for the record itself. It was decently packed, though not bullet proof or anything. Certainly less than I spend on most of the boxes I send out to people that aren't small padded envelopes with key fobs. From Europe or so people seem to charge the same. I don't know what service they use, but it wouldn't be that bad for international stuff to be honest.
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distance, you do realize what you're doing is actually illegal in finland ?


Even better reason to do it!
added on the 2015-01-13 09:30:34 by Serpent Serpent
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by distance:
I think the Merck CDs in the u.s. I would get for free - but that would only be feasible were there to be gigs in the u.s. where I could offload them, taking 50 to a hundred vinyls back with me from the u.s. is going to be quite a costly feat.
Where in the US are the vinyls?


(label#3 vinyls + cds) Miami or NYC, I believe. (label#4) CDs are in SF.

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Some people would be willing to do it. I got the Envelooped vinyl from a guy in Japan through discogs.com and only paid ~$13 for shipping on top of what they wanted for the record itself. It was decently packed, though not bullet proof or anything. Certainly less than I spend on most of the boxes I send out to people that aren't small padded envelopes with key fobs. From Europe or so people seem to charge the same. I don't know what service they use, but it wouldn't be that bad for international stuff to be honest.


Definitely, that's true. I'll list them up on Bandcamp soon, I think.
added on the 2015-01-13 09:36:43 by distance distance
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distance, you do realize what you're doing is actually illegal in finland ?


vastikkeeton rahankeräys vs. vastikkeellinen rahankeräys. so far it's vastikkeellinen.
added on the 2015-01-13 09:37:43 by distance distance
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Sol: tl;dsf?

"Illegal money gathering". Basically asking for donations, doing kickstarters, and such are illegal in Finland. If you're an organization, you can apply for a license to collect money. Individuals never get a permission.

There are some signs of them wanting to change the law, but as it stands, donations are illegal, and kickstarter can only be used for preorders (and you can't ask people to pay more than the markup).

Yes, it sucks.
added on the 2015-01-13 09:38:53 by sol_hsa sol_hsa

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