CD
REPLICATOR SCAMS: DON'T GET DUPED BY THE DUPER SERIES PARTS I-V
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INTRODUCTION
I cannot think of a more vulnerable time for an emerging artist than when he has just finished his CD and is contemplating making thousands of copies. Suddenly he is besieged with competitive offers by CD manufacturers -- some of them sound too good to be true.
•
One Thousand CDs for $400
• Free Barcodes
• Guarantees of Distribution
• Fingerprinting protection
• Better quality than their competitors through "special
process."
You know my reputation. I like to filter out BS from deals offered to artists. So, starting in the September 2004 issue of Keyboard magazine I began a five-part series on this important issue: How to NOT get duped by the CD duplicator.
I know some of you don't get Keyboard, so after each monthly publication I posted the article (expanded from the magazine version) right here on the Moses Supposes archives. I'm going to turn over many rocks and watch companies squirm as they justify their ads to me. It's gonna be fun.
If you haven't read this series in Keyboard already, here's what you missed:
• On-the-record admissions by major replicators copping to misleading items in their ads.
• Large companies, like Sony, admitting things about their duplication equipment (the industry standard) that they might not want the public to know.
Why am I picking on CD Replicators? I received an email from one of my readers some time back who wrote that I’m an "elitist" because I only write stories that are relevant to top artists and their "people." "What about the average musician?" he cried, "Write something that we can use."
I took this to heart and did a survey. It seems that almost all of you, who read this letter and use my website, have one thing in common: you will all use CD Duplicators within the next three years. So I wrote this series of articles that exposes the exaggerated advertising claims in CD duplicator ads.
I've really enjoyed speaking to the people/companies who helped make this series beneficial to my readers. Specifically:
These are all fine companies who seem to really care about their customers. I urge you to check out their websites.
(Note: If you are an affiliate who likes to repost my articles, you may NOT repost this one without alerting the copyright police. But, you may link to it at www.mosesavalon.com)
If there is another issue you think I need to investigate, write me. If you've had an experience with any of the companies mentioned in these articles (or any others for that matter) post your experience here on The Good Guys (and Bad Guys) Data Base. It's anonymous, it helps others, and it will keep our industry safe.
Part 1 - "Guaranteed Distribution"
Part 2 - The Truth About Bar Codes And SoundScan
Part 3: When A CD Isn’t a REAL CD
Part
4: The 1x Vs. 4x Debate Or Jitter, Dither, And Blither-Blather
Part 5: When Replicators Help Others Bootleg Your Music
CD
REPLICATOR SCAMS: PART 1 - "GUARANTEED DISTRIBUTION"
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To begin this series I'm going to focus on one of the newer methods in attracting your business: "Free with every order you get your own show on satellite radio, guaranteed distribution including the iTunes Music Store."
Wow! Get your CDs duplicated and distributed all at the same time adding the hot-button, "guaranteed"; sounds as close to an actual major label deal as this arena can provide. But is it true, and is it "distribution" that you couldn't get on your own?
Let's begin with a vocabulary lesson: distribution, as defined by the standards of commerce refers to:
"The marketing, apportioning and placement of a volume of physical product owned or controlled by a distributor into a retail environment rather than directly to the customers."
Most of the dupe houses who offer "guaranteed distribution," are giving away "distribution" through e-tailers, like CD Baby and Amazon. But read the definition above. Shipment from a manufacturer to an e-tailer is NOT really "distribution." These companies offer mere fulfillment services. In other words, they only ship units and do no marketing or promotion for their individual artists, like the big distributors, Sony, WEA, UND, BMG, and EMD.
I asked Tony van Veen, VP of sales and marketing for Disc Makers, one of the country's largest CD manufactures, if he would confirm this discrepancy, "I would say yes," he stated, hesitant, but forthcoming about his own ad, "that word [distribution] could be somewhat misconstrued."
YOUR OWN SATELLITE RADIO SHOW?
The satellite radio thing sure sounds cool, but satellite is still in its infancy. Additionally, the company that totes this feature the most, Oasis, a mid-sized CD manufacturer in Virginia, told me that the "radio show" is actually composed from several samples of clients they hand-pick. Ordering CDs is not a guarantee of meeting their standards for the radio show, and it's definitely NOT "your own show."
GOT ITUNES?
And then there is this part: "digital distribution through iTunes." If this feature is attracting you, you'll probably find they have NO direct relationship with iTunes themselves, but rather have subcontracted with another company that can only submit songs for iTunes' approval. Plus, you can do this yourself without two middle-men and your chances of getting on iTunes will probably be about the same. In addition, most of the iTunes "aggregators" partnered with CD Replicators require the transfer of exclusive copyrights. That's hardly "free" and this is a point often overlooked by replicators pitching this feature. For more on this see the analysis I did of the CD Baby Digital Distribution deal I did back in August of 2003.
Also, when questioned, some replicators admitted that the companies they are referring to who are "like iTunes" are actually Napster, Rhapsody and Net Music. These are legit companies. They take chances on music iTunes won’t go near and deserve the credit, so why not mention them in their ads? We can guess why.
All things totaled, it seems to me that the "guaranteed distribution" promise should probably be renamed:
"Guaranteed shipment to e-tailers and licensing with digital rights aggregators."
Not as sexy, but more accurate. Micha Solomon, owner of Oasis comments, "You have an excellent point." But also agrees with his chief competitor, Tony van Veen, that these promotional features are still legitimate value added for the client. Solomon: "...if you're saying that the average musician has the energy and resources to discover the equivalent of these [promotion features] on their own... I say, it's a lot easier and cheaper just to get the whole package through [us]. And we make pretty nice discs to boot."
He's probably right. Bottom line on this point--there is no free lunch, especially when it's at the best restaurant in town. Quality distribution is still the toughest ticket in the biz. To think that you could get it for "free" by ordering CDs may be too optimistic. On the other hand, I believe all of the people interviewed have the best intentions when it comes to their clients. Sure, they're trying to compete in a tough market, and that inspires creative advertising, but they also want their clients to succeed. That's good business for everyone.
References on definitions of "distribution" See:
-- http://www.globalcompetitionforum.org/regions/asia/
Taipei/Distribution%20Businesses.pdf
--http://www.investorwords.com/cgi-bin/getword.cgi?1495
--http://www.thefreedictionary.com/distributor
--http://www.wordiq.com/dictionary/distributor.html
CD REPLICATOR SCAMS PART 2 - THE TRUTH ABOUT BAR CODES AND SOUNDSCAN
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It started with Disc Makers, [http://www.discmakers.com. Then, like a gold rush, it spread to many CD replicators: a barcode for as little as $30. An item for which one must normally pay $750, and buy from the UPC (United Product Code). Some replicators will even throw it in for "free." Artists have been "educated" to believe that a barcode is required to track sales on SoundScan. But does this $30 barcode really do the same job as the $750 version?
There are many misconceptions about how SoundScan and barcodes work. Let’s debunk two common myths.
1) Retail stores require a barcode to be on a CD in order to stock it.
Not so. Even major chains such as Tower Records don't require them. Major record labels need bar codes on their products because they sell so many different titles. But an indie artist with only a handful of titles in audio CD format is another matter. Many Mom-and-Pop stores, e-tailers, and even major chains will gladly take stock without UPC bar codes. However, iTunes is an exception.
2) SoundScan tracks sales of all CDs.
Also not true. Stores that have barcode scanning systems and that also report to SoundScan make up less than half of the record stores in the country. And, regardless, the SoundScan system is targeted toward major labels and large Indies.
SOUNDSCAN CONFESSES
A SoundScan representative, who would not allow me to use his name, confessed that he would probably ignore a surge in sales from an indie, until the indie label (or act) could prove that the sales were legitimate.
This, of course, would take several days to weeks to tabulate; and SoundScan revising a chart once they publish is about as rare as George Bush pronouncing "nuclear" correctly. (This occurred only twice in the company's entire 13 year history, including a recent example where a chart, absent one of the country’s biggest CD retail outlets, K-Mart, was pulled and revised.)
Clearly the SoundScan system manifests a biased toward majors. So this factor should have no bearing on your decision of who should do your replication.
NOT ALL BARCODES ARE CREATED EQUAL
Let's say you're thinking of producing 10,000 to 15,000 units. You're more likely to benefit from having a bar code, but there may be a catch: The barcode given to you by the duper for $30 is not an entire, unique UPC. It gives your CD only the middle five of the complete ten-digit code. The front digits which, identify the distributor, remain the same. This practice is called "subbing," and is against UCC policy. Many replicators I spoke with know it's a no-no, but do it anyway, stating that the UPC can't do anything to stop them. Is there a sacrifice on your part?
Yes. Each title that gets a UPC needs to have a form filed at SoundScan in order to track sales. Jer Olsen of MusicBootCamp.com, a replication agent that services the US and Canada, says that if you let the replicator send in that form to SoundScan for you, you could get "tangled credit information," and the credit for the sale might go to the distributor and not to you as the label or artist. Tony van Veen, VP of sales and marketing for Disc Makers, confirms this: "If [the client] forgets to do it, then their stock is NOT going to be trackable."
Replicators usually won't send in the forms for you, and most all of them may neglect to inform you to do it yourself.
The bottom line on this issue is that unless your CD really needs the prestige of a barcode, and unless you're going to anticipate putting at least 10,000 units in the pipeline, or are trying to get the product onto iTunes, don’t let the offer of a "free" barcode sway your decision-making process regarding who will eventually get your replication or e-tailing business.
On the other hand, if it's free, what have you got to lose? Just make sure to fill out and send in the SoundScan forms YOURSELF.
CD REPLICATOR SCAMS PART 3: WHEN A CD ISN'T A REAL CD
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I can think of no greater horror than finally hooking up with a person who can make a difference in your career, getting them to sit down for ten minutes to listen to your CD, and then putting it in the CD player only to find out . . . it doesn't work. What gives? You made it on your own computer with a high-quality CD burner; yet, it's stuttering.
It's one thing to blame yourself for cutting corners and making a CD on your PC, but it's another thing entirely when a professional manufacturing plant took your money and did the exact same thing. This is called "duplication" and it's different from "replication," which is the technical term for professional mass-production of CDs.
Bryan Kelly of Groove House Records, [http://www.groovehouse.com/] a replication plant in California, first educated me about this distinction. "Duplicated" CDs are made from a digital file that can be transferred from any computer onto a consumer CD burner. "Replicated" CDs are made from a glass master with a much more sophisticated transfer process, one that is a less prone to glitch. Also, the "replicated" CDs are made through individual injection molding of polycarbonate.
Kelly takes the time to educate his customers, but some CD manufacturers don't. One process costs about ten percent more than the other, yet many houses will charge the same amount for both, and won't specify which process is being employed (at least in their advertising). They rely on your assumption that a CD is a CD with claims such as "1,000 CDs for 90 cents each." Is there a difference in reliability and sound quality? It's open to debate, sometimes even within replication companies themselves.
Tony
van Veen, VP of sales and marketing for Disc
,
[http://www.discmakers.com/]
a company that advertises both replication and duplication processes,
was surprised when I asked him about the perception of disparity. "I've
been in the business since 1987 and I've heard many claims about
CD-Rs," he said, "but the one that audio quality is inferior
[with duplication] is news to me."
But Disc Makers Chief Mastering Engineer, Paul Elliot, disagrees with his co-worker. "I've heard differences, absolutely," he said, "if the brand of consumer burner is not compatible with the brand of CD-Rs you’re using, you could end up with errors, such as if you use a Maxell burner with TDK CD-Rs." "And regardless of brand compatibility," Elliot adds, "if you start making [high-speed] 40X or 50X [real time] burns, you're going to hear a difference" compared to burns made at slower speeds.
John Vestman, a mastering engineer in California, [http://www.johnvestman.com/] explains the nature of the potential errors with a "duplicated" disk as timing errors that could create jitter, giving the music an "unnatural and brittle" quality. He indicated that stereo imaging could also suffer, saying, "Imagine that you normally hear music coming out of speakers that are about five feet apart. [With a bad transfer] it will sound more like four and a half." In some cases, duplicated CDs will flat-out not work at all in particular CD players, and in many DVD players, as well.
So how can you tell what you're getting? Does a higher price quote imply the use of a replication process, rather than duplication? Most of my interview subjects said that this assumption is not necessarily accurate, since a company could be padding the price elsewhere. According to Groove House, this can happen with the artwork, where the customer doesn't usually ask too many questions.
But Tony van Veen gives us hope: "Quantity is more likely to be a giveaway. If someone is [advertising] 250 or fewer copies, it's very unlikely that you're getting replicated disks." -- Good tip.
The bottom line: when paying for the professional manufacturing of CDs, always ask if you're getting replication or duplication. If the answer is vague, run! If they give you a choice, always choose replication with a glass master, and make sure the price doesn't suddenly shift from what was originally advertised.
CD REPLICATOR SCAMS PART 4: THE 1X VS. 4X DEBATE or JITTER, DITHER,
AND BLITHER-BLATHER
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I have a headache. It began when Micah Solomon of Oasis
Manufacturing [http://www.oasiscd.com/]
made this radical comment:
"Single speed [1x] glass [mastering] is no longer recommended by most top glass-mastering engineers so we have stopped encouraging people [to buy it]."
1x refers to the process of making a glass master CD in real time, where every one second of music takes one second to transfer from your source files to the master disc. 4x speeds process up to four times that speed, so every four seconds of music gets transferred in one second. Or thereabouts. The question is: Is data corruption likely to occur at the faster speed?
Seems simple enough. But have you ever tried to get a straight answer about the advantages of 1x over 4x from a replication plant? Don't bother unless you have a degree from MIT. Most houses use 4x and charge between $100–$300 extra if you want 1x. Some, such as Oasis, try to discourage you completely from going the 1x route.
So, I asked Micah if he could turn me on to any "top mastering people" to back up his statement. He referred me to Joe Bradley, regional sales manager for Sony Manufacturing, who corroborated Mica by saying, "At higher speeds the jitter is actually REDUCED. The higher the speed, the less jitter." Joe says it's really an "emotional issue" and likens the debate to the one in which silly old music files argue that analog, vinyl LPs sound "more natural" than CDs. (I'm one of those silly old music files, by the way.) But Joe also admitted to me that he's not a technical person and has "never tried to hear the difference." Sigh. Yes, it turns out that Joe is really just another sales person for Sony.
With some insistence on my part Joe begrudged tried turn me on to a technical expert a Sony who COULD hear the difference. But none existed. Yes, that's right no one from Sony would confirm, on the record, that 1x would create more errors than 4x. I would interview them and then they would say that they could not be quoted. More than one said that they would check the spec and get back to me. My follow-up calls to them went unanswered.
I was starting to feel like I was investigating Watergate. What is Sony hiding about their equipment that they would want to try and sell this to the pubic and all the replicators who use their equipment? Is there something about Sony's method that would create this counter-intuitive logic that faster is better?
From the mastering engineer’s side of the debate, we get a different viewpoint and one that jibs with my common sense on the subject. John Vestman, [http://johnvestman.com/] whose opinion is representative of most of the pre-mastering engineers with whom I've dealt, insists that all his jobs be transferred to glass at 1x. In fact, he gives his clients a booklet that underscores this point IN RED.
So who's telling the truth? Obviously it takes more time to transfer 50 minutes of music in real time than it does at high speeds. When you're doing about 200 glass masters a day, time literally is money. So it stands to reason that manufacturers like Sony are going to favor an opinion that says 1x is unnecessary. And you can bet that they will try to sell this concept to replicators as well. Conversely, those on the mastering side have a vested interest in hanging their work on an esoteric process that only someone with trained ears can appreciate.
Tony Van Veen, VP of sales and marketing for Disc Makers [http://www.discmakers.com] and always the moderate said, "While there is some audible advantage to 1x mastering, it is usually reserved for recordings with huge major-label budgets."
Joe Bradley stated to me that 1x requests come from only 1% of his jobs at Sony. And even these are merely the label giving in to a specific request by a very particular act, usually a rock act, and not a Jazz or classical artist as one might assume.
For the tie-breaker, I spoke to Frank Farance, who has owned a top computer consulting firm in New York since 1981. After all, this is really a conversation about data, not music, right? Wrong, according to Frank. The nature of the data in music files -- as opposed to data in an MS Word file -- requires extra care in the transfer. He disagrees that, as a general rule, a 1x process could introduce more errors than at 4x. "Unless," he adds, "there is something unique about the machinery used at Sony. Since they invented the process, they might know better."
So, should this matter to you? I've mixed and mastered more records than I care to remember, and I believe that if producers and labels spent as much time obsessing over audio quality as they did about talent we wouldn't even have this debate. Heed this advice:
A 1x transfer is not going to help sell more records. Fact.
Good music will. If you’re really an audiophile with bucks to burn, spend it in the mastering lab tweaking your product, not the transfer itself. That's where I believe your money will translate into a perceptible difference.
CD
REPLICATOR SCAMS PART 5: WHEN REPICATORS HELP OTHERS BOOTLEG YOUR MUSIC
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In a time when there is huge focus on intellectual property rights and "piracy," one never stops to think that your CD replicator might be pirating in order to provide them with cheaper service. Or worse yet, helping others pirate your music.
To run a legitimate replication house you have to license the machinery from either Philips or Sony (the inventors of the CD). Each time you make a copy you are required to pay about an 8 cent royalty to these companies. When you consider that a Replicator only charges about 80 cents per copy to the end user, that royalty cuts into about 10% of their profits. A huge chunk. To be competitive, many opt to simply not license the technology and fly under the radar.
While some artists may not care if their CD replicator is paying his dues, there are those who like to come to market with "clean hands." How can a shopper KNOW if the replicator they're using is "authorized" and what could making disks on black-market equipment mean to the quality of the end product?
One concept that immediately leaps to mind is this: if the replication house I'm using doesn't care about bootlegging the technology, how much will they care about making copies for someone who is bootlegging MY MUSIC?
In other words, let's say that another band wants to do a cover of your song. The law says they DON'T have to ask your permission, but they do have to pay you a royalty for each copy they make. But the system of copyright is useless if those on the front line--the replication plant--don't make sure that the person dropping off the master has the rights to make copies of those songs.
I asked Jer Olsen of MusicBootCamp.com, a replication agent that services the US and Canada the following question: Do the companies you work with make the client sign something that states they have the right to make copies of the songs on their record? "Everybody," he claims. "In the last couple of years it’s gone from a small disclaimer to a very imposing form."
But several agents I interviewed admitted that they never take the time to ensure that the replicators they are recommending (or using) take such precautions. Many are not even properly licensed.
Micah Solomon of Oasis [http://www.oasiscd.com/] insists that he pays all his patent royalties and takes an extra step to protect his clients against bootlegging. "We now offer the opportunity to have their releases entered into the Replicheck database. [A fingerprinting system] which, in effect, protects [their master] from ever being pirated by other reputable replication companies."
Sounds good, but what about the disreputable ones who don't use this system or pay their royalties to Sony and Philips? How can you spot them? Here are a few clues. Grill your replicator on these questions before you give him your business.
1)
Do they use a fingerprinting system to ensure that only you are making
copies of your music?
2) Do they carefully check intellectual Property Rights forms that are
submitted with each order?
3) Do they encourage their clients to make sure that songwriters and
publishers are paid for any "cover tunes" on their CDs. Songwriters
are the forgotten victims in the brave new world of digital media, and
I feel its the replicator's responsibility to help keep
everybody's ethics in check.
If the answer to any of the above is "no," you're probably dealing with a company that will be attractive to bootleggers and song thieves. Walk away.
Remember that it's a competitive world we operate within and sometimes the "nice guy" who makes you feel good about yourself could also be the one cutting corners that could hurt you.
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