new BMG promotion - buy 1 get 3 free

[shopper94519]

This is for people who use BMG Music Service. This just came in my email:

To take advantage of this offer, buy 1 CD at regular club price and get 3 free CDs, just click the "Have a promotion code?" link on the left side of our website's homepage. Enter promotion code "[code deleted]" in the box on the new page and click "apply." You'll be charged the regular Club price for the highest-priced selection you choose. (Regular Club prices are $14.98 and up.) Shipping and handling charges, plus any local taxes, will be added to each selection. Discount applies to music purchases only. Promotion code discounts do not apply to previously placed orders, nor can they be applied to Featured Selections, non-audio merchandise and other specially priced items. Your discount will be reflected in the shopping cart.

Wish it came with free shipping and handling (those can be steep charges), but it's pretty good anyway.

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Thank you,

AnandTech Moderator

 

[RDMustang1]

You can do the buy 1 get 11 free promotions that are posted everywhere multiple times.. After you cancel your account just sign up again... Over the years I've received thousands of CDs, average price is like $2.97 per cd after shipping costs and the price of the 1 cd you have to buy. It's really a good deal and I find it hard to believe they do so well with those promotions... There must be a lot of people who just stay with the plan and take the CD they get in the mail every month..

Oh yea, if you forget to send in the little post card that says you don't want the CD of the month, when the CD arrives just write in big black letters "RETURN TO SENDER" and put it back in your mailbox. It will get returned, you will not get charged, but after doing it a few times you will start getting letters saying to make sure you send back the reply card saying you don't want the CD before they send you the CD... One I sent back so many CDs they cancelled my account before I bought the one I had to buy.. It was nice, CDs that time were SUPER cheap!

Moral of this is I wouldn't settle for the buy 1 get 3 free, I'd do the buy 1 get 11 free (or sometimes more)...

 

[jandaman]

I think he's already on the buy 1, get 11 one
What he's probably referring to is the offers that will fulfill his obligation.

I was a member years ago and signed up for the 13 for the price of 1. I didn't make a purchase until I recieved an offer for buy 1, get 2 free.
So, I just had to buy 1 at regular price ($15?) and got in total 13 "free" [S&H was like $2/cd]

 

[TNTrulez]

Originally posted by: RDMustang1
You can do the buy 1 get 11 free promotions that are posted everywhere multiple times.. After you cancel your account just sign up again... Over the years I've received thousands of CDs, average price is like $2.97 per cd after shipping costs and the price of the 1 cd you have to buy. It's really a good deal and I find it hard to believe they do so well with those promotions... There must be a lot of people who just stay with the plan and take the CD they get in the mail every month..

Oh yea, if you forget to send in the little post card that says you don't want the CD of the month, when the CD arrives just write in big black letters "RETURN TO SENDER" and put it back in your mailbox. It will get returned, you will not get charged, but after doing it a few times you will start getting letters saying to make sure you send back the reply card saying you don't want the CD before they send you the CD... One I sent back so many CDs they cancelled my account before I bought the one I had to buy.. It was nice, CDs that time were SUPER cheap!

Moral of this is I wouldn't settle for the buy 1 get 3 free, I'd do the buy 1 get 11 free (or sometimes more)...

nice

 

[dew042]

remember - if you use bmg to get cds that the artists get NOTHING. these are special contacts outside of what artists get compensated for.

bmg is evil. this is as low as the music industry gets..... that's why its so cheap....

dew.

 

[aldamon]

Anyone else see the humor in these clubs? If the RIAA cares about the artists, then why do these clubs exist? LOL. The music industry is such a farce.

 

[kansai999]

Man.... ppl still buy CDs

 

[Kwad Guy]

A few months ago, BMG had an incredible $2 per CD deal, free shipping. I bought every
CD in the catalogue I had any interest in. Sorry, but my time is worth something, and I
can't track down someone with the CD I want, sit around burning it, scan the cover and inlay
cards, and print the cover and inlay cards for less than $2 of my time.

As for MP3: Don't waste my time. Sorry, but unless you encode at high bitrates with
VBR, Lame, etc. MP3s don't come close to the fidelity of the original track. And very few
of the MP3s you find on the Web are so-encoded. Typical MP3s sound fine in your car, on
your computer or as background music. But they are unquestionably inferior for critical
listening on a decent stereo.

Kwad

 

[DeafeningSilence]

Originally posted by: dew042
remember - if you use bmg to get cds that the artists get NOTHING. these are special contacts outside of what artists get compensated for.

bmg is evil. this is as low as the music industry gets..... that's why its so cheap....

dew.

Can you give documentation for this? I've heard various rumors explaining the low prices, but I'm skeptical of everything I've heard.

Thanks.

 

[Kwad Guy]

It is absolute UNTRUE that artists do not receive royalties on any club CDs.
What is true is that artists contracts explicitly address record club sales, and
club sales generate royalties at a REDUCED RATE to sales through other
retail channels.

This is why major artists sometimes refuse to allow their albums into the record
clubs.

What is also true is that the record clubs account for a HUGE percentage of total
music sales--around 20%. That makes them the 10 ton gorilla you HAVE to
negotiate with. And the fraction of record sales coming from the record clubs is
much larger than 20% for some artists. This is why, despite the reduced royalty
rates, artists and labels are usually willing to have their product appear in the clubs.

Kwad

 

[dew042]

Originally posted by: DeafeningSilence

Originally posted by: dew042
remember - if you use bmg to get cds that the artists get NOTHING. these are special contacts outside of what artists get compensated for.

bmg is evil. this is as low as the music industry gets..... that's why its so cheap....

dew.

Can you give documentation for this? I've heard various rumors explaining the low prices, but I'm skeptical of everything I've heard.

Thanks.

i worked in college radio. it was a longtime understood fact that bmg was part of under the table contracts that were outside the realm of artists contacts. they may get some royalities, but rarely anywhere near what they should get based on the rest of their contracts....

sales are linked to barcodes. bmg has no barcodes. its therefore 'new' product and is defined differently under most recording contracts. less royalities and GREATER profits for the recording companies (i do not feel pity for the recording industry):

"6. In almost all record contracts, the standard royalty is drastically reduced for all sorts of inappropriate and arbitrary reasons. For example, a recording artist will receive a reduced royalty if a record is sold in a foreign territory, if the record is sold in a PX or a military base, if the record is released in a "new format or technology," and if the record is sold through a record club. The major labels cross-license their catalogs to record clubs, such as Columbia House and BMG Direct. The labels take enormous advances that they do not share with recording artists and pay artists based upon a 50% royalty rate. RAC is also concerned that this long-contended practice is extending to the online marketplace. With Mp3.com, for example, each of the major labels took $20 million advances on blanket licenses ? advances they have not offered to share with artists. A certain amount of records will be distributed as "free goods" when in many instances the recording agreement provides that the record company may include these records in special merchandising programs. In these instances, the record company would still get paid for these records while the artist would not. Some contracts actually charge a packaging deduction against the recording artist for sales of records via the Internet. In other words, the record company does not create any packaging, but nevertheless charges the recording artist for the non-existent packaging. Sometimes these packaging charges amount to 25% of the standard list price of a record. RAC member Tom Waits sums up the situation very nicely with this prophetic line in his song "Step Right Up": when it comes to recording contracts, "the big print giveth, and the small print taketh away." All in all, the practices of the record industry relating to calculation of royalties warrant serious attention. "


http://www.recordingartistscoalition.com/contracts.html

 

[dew042]

Originally posted by: Kwad Guy
It is absolute UNTRUE that artists do not receive royalties on any club CDs.
What is true is that artists contracts explicitly address record club sales, and
club sales generate royalties at a REDUCED RATE to sales through other
retail channels.

This is why major artists sometimes refuse to allow their albums into the record
clubs.

What is also true is that the record clubs account for a HUGE percentage of total
music sales--around 20%. That makes them the 10 ton gorilla you HAVE to
negotiate with. And the fraction of record sales coming from the record clubs is
much larger than 20% for some artists. This is why, despite the reduced royalty
rates, artists and labels are usually willing to have their product appear in the clubs.

Kwad

i contest the fact that most artists recieve any money from club sales. when negotiations are going on between a 500lbs gorilla (the Record industry) and the small band who has never had a hit , ie. 90% of artists, who do you think takes the advantage???? i haven't recently been encouraged to trust large money making corporations to be fair and ethical.

regardless - is it right to have a loophole that allows the recording industry to cheat artists out of money? give me a break.

buying from bmg is supporting the riaa, not the artists - don't fool yourself.

dew.

 

[Kwad Guy]

Dew:

Have you been party to negotiations between a major label and an artist? I have.
Have you seen the contracts? I have. The generic "let me take this blank 900 page
contract out of my desk drawer and fill your name in" contracts that most young bands
wind up signing have the record club clause in them. They also have hundreds of
other clauses in them. The reason most bands don't see any money from the
record club sales is NOT because of the reduced royalty rate, and it's certainly not
because of the untrue assertion that they don't receive royalties from record clubs.
It's because the contract and the accounting used to evaluate various portions of the
contract are so lopsidedly in favor of the record company that the artist won't see a dime
of profit until/unless their album is a big hit. From the second they sign the contract,
costs are being accrued against their royalties, including studio time, promotion, any
advances, any tour monies, any video shoots, etc. For a typical album in today's market,
these costs usually run several hundred thousand dollars or more (and can run into
the millions in some cases). It doesn't take a genius to see that a modest selling album
(say, 300,000 copies, which is definitely NOT a flop for a first album) won't even recoup
the costs at a typical new band royalty rate of under a buck per unit.

So yes, things are stacked against a new band in terms of getting rich (or even making
a living off royalties). But there's no reason to single out the reduced royalty rate from
the record clubs as the major reason for this...

Kwad

 

[Floydian]

Well, lets see here, I pay 100 bucks for 10 cds, 75% (I just made this up, its not a real figure) goes to RIAA, or 75 dollars.

OR

I pay 40 bucks (i made this up too) for this BMG/Columbia House contract, 95% going to RIAA, or 38 dollars.
Send extra money saved to the artist if you want to support the artist directly (60 dollars)
--- you could use the extra money to buy a tshirt/concert ticket (they make good money off of that don't they?) for the artist/s in question--

Amount going to artist from first method: 25 dollars
Second method: 60 dollars + 5% of 40 = 62 dollars
Second method with tshirt/concert tickets: 30 dollars (I'm just throwin out numbers, 50% of the 60 dollars of a ticket goes to artist maybe?) + 5% of 40 dollars = 32 dollars

If I REALLY wanted to support the artist the second method would work out best.