I just bought a new CD at a local record store of some local no-name band.
Attached to the back of the CD is a sticker which states:
“This CD is the property of (recording company name). Upon request, this CD has to be returned to (label)”
What???
Would i seriously need to give the record company their CD back if they wanted it? And in what situation would the company ever request that?
Rip it to your computer fast! Before the RIAA comes demanding it back!
Sounds like it’s a review copy which wasn’t meant to be sold.
You have been sold a review copy of the disc provided to the store by the label for free so that the salespeople can give it a listen or play it for the customers on the in-house PA, etc.
My music store work experience is from back when you had the choice of cassette or CD, and CDs came exclusively in full-thickness plastic jewel boxes. Back then the demo copy jewel cases would have a small, neat hole drilled into their spines in addition to some type of prominent “NOT FOR SALE” sticker. The music store used to let employees take the demo copies home after their hype period had expired but there were always lots and lots of demos left over for albums nobody wanted even for free. I’m guessing that the labels probably won’t ever actually call the demos copies back in, but the sticker is there as a legal threat to be used if the store makes it a habit of selling merchandise they got for free.
Exactly. Keep it and don’t open it if you haven’t already. Might be worth some coin later on down the road.
I have a Nirvana misprint CD in wich they negleted to list the songs on the back of the CD. I have no idea what it’s worth but a dealer offered me $75 for it 12 or so years ago.
Copies like that don’t pay royalties to the artists and aren’t accounted for in regular sales figures.
One of the perks of my job is that we get to take home the promo CDs that are sent in for review in the newspaper. Often these days they are CD-Rs in plastic slipcases, but sometimes they are normal versions with a sticker on the back. (They don’t seem to do the drilling thing these days.)
To discourage them from being sold, or used to create pre-release leaks on the internet, the CD-R versions are usually printed with the name of the specific journalist it was sent to, and the warning that the recording contains a digital watermark meaning that any MP3s made from it can be traced back to the journalist, meaning big trouble…
The classic source of these are college radio, where students sell off the review copies to get beer money.
You probably have a promotional recording. Note the end of the intro section of the article. The legalese baloney is just that, baloney.
Well I don’t think the intention of the warning is to keep you from re-selling it. I think the warning is there so that retailers don’t pass it off as a “geunine” version.
Having worked in college radio, I can say that if the albums are any good, they end up in the private collection of the program director or the DJ who got to it first. Screw beer money. 