From: Anonymous

hey tom sorry i been busy my girl friend is 4 weeks prgeanat we just found out yesterday i will be getting the rest of the stuff done asap im still going to that gwar show the 19 th i will have a camra with me well take a easy rock on

Hope you teach your new crotchdropping how to spell, capitalize, and punctuate. Maybe he or she will learn to use a condom.

From: Stijn Dijkers

dead Roadrunner,

"Roadrunner Is Giving You A Free Album", was the title of the e-mail I just got from you. Turns out it wasn't so free at all. To download it, I would have to install some browser extension piece of software, because that is "necessary". Undoubtedly, this worthless software is part of a hefty money transaction between that software company and you. You don't give a shit about your fans: just trying to force stuff onto them just because it gets you enough money to finance this 'free album'. Hell, you might even got some profit out of it: good for you.

This is NOT the way Roadrunner. Please take your fans seriously. Don't try to make a fool out of them. This is not metal. This bullshit is one reason why record companies are having a hard time these days.

And for the record; I did not install the browser extension. It will make my PC mad. I'll download that album from my P2P networks instead.

Buying CD's is not dead.

kind regards,

Stijn

Frankly Stijn, I'm offended by your knee-jerk, unthoughtful appraisal of the Annual Assault compilation.

Maybe you're a free-software advocate and that's fine. Or maybe you're an experienced web-developer with a perceived high sense of standards, which is also fine. Maybe you wanted a CD in a cardboard sleeve mailed to your home. Well, you got us on that one.

However, to examine this with such an ignorant eye is beneath you, at least as far as the tone and ability of expression you've shown. You call it not free because you need some added software to download it and then you go on to assume there's some kind of kickback going either way because of this. You base this on nothing other than your own bias Stijn. Maybe that's years of record industry bullshit you may feel you've endured and I can accept that. But don't assume someone is always trying to fuck you over.

We put together what we think is a great offering. 13 current tracks
from a wide range of our bands for free complete with album artwork and an easy way to download it to wherever you want. Yes, I consider that free as would most people. Let's take a look at your accusations.

1. "[not] so free at all"
Well, yes it is. You didn't pay for it and unless someone went around
and changed the definition of free, having to download an extra piece of software to get it doesn't count as a cost. It doesn't even take much time to do. Yours is in essence a fallacious argument borne from where I don't know. The only people who paid for it are Roadrunner who worked to put out something that would be smoothest for our fans. Which brings me to your second point.

2. Your idea that there's some kickback going on.
This is the most galling. Yes, we're paying a company a rather small sum of money to help us facilitate the download. Heaven forbid people who do a job get paid for it. They, on the other hand, are paying us nothing.

Why did we do this? Because we realized that we may not be able to offer the download of an entire album in-house as effectively as we could if we brought someone with that experience on board to help out. Why else did we do it this way? Because in our experience there are a lot of customer service headaches with providing downloads of this nature. Some people don't understand where the files go, people have time out errors, and a whole host of other problems. We didn't want to leave them out in the dust because computer platforms are all over the place and we don't have the staff to handle customer service for tens of thousands of people.

We wanted this to be as easy as possible for everyone, so we chose a company (Echospin) who would let the end-user put the files wherever they wanted them easily, who had the customer service to handle the job, and who had proven themselves to be able to offer this with high standards of excellence.

In the end I completely disagree with you. This IS the way and has
nothing to do with any trouble the music industry is in. Lots of fans
want our music, they want it relatively easily, and they love our bands.

Thousands of people have downloaded this sampler with nary a complaint and are enjoying it now. Most people, unlike you, seem to love free and easy. Giving them that in the best way possible is something I see as above reproach.

It has zero to do with kickbacks, zero to do with the CD format (where did that come from?), and everything to do with exposing our artists to the people who want to hear them.

I would appreciate an apology for the rudeness of your email at your
earliest convenience.

All the best,

Jeremy Rosen
Director of New Media

From: Stijn Dijkers

Jeremy Rosen,

You know those days when you've had a hard day of work, come home, eat dinner and grab a beer, and then check your e-mail? Well, that was yesterday. I would like to apologize for the over-emotional tone with which I wrote. And for the record, the 'dead Roadrunner,' was not part of the emotional tone, that was a typo.

First of all, thank you for taking time to take my e-mail seriously. I sincerely appreciate it, because you give me the opportunity to give nuance to my opinion, and learn because of that.

Let me illustrate my feelings about the subject by describing my thoughts when receiving the e-mail:

I made assumptions, and that was wrong of me. It's strange how one's mind can wander, only based on prejudice. Years of record industry bullshit indeed take a very big part in this.

As a student of Digital Communication on the university of Arnhem here in Holland, I have the opinion one should never let people have to take various actions they did not intend to take, because they are trying to get to another goal. In other words, I feel it is wrong to force fans to install Echospin software just to download the album.
In your reaction, your explanation of why you choose for Echospin is very reasonable though. I bet indeed a lot of fans indeed prefer to get the album this way, instead of have to dealing with overloaded servers, etc.
Though still, I think I'm not the only one that feels uncomfortable with this method. Transparency is not very high, and there is no 'why do I have to install this?' information. I for one, see using BitTorrent for this matter as a more fitting solution.

My last statement from my previous e-mail, that you don't take your fans seriously, is negated by your explanation. Roadrunner try to make things easy and comfortably for the fans alright.

I feel that being a part of the record industry, Roadrunner has a relatively bad name. Giving loyal mailing list subscribers an album is a great way of showing appreciation. And don't get me wrong: your efforts are appreciated. Unfortunately, it's not easy to redeem a bad name. And I do feel it is the record industry's duty to try to positionate theirselves better it's customers opinion. My e-mail is an example of the quite big skepticism there is towards you, at least by me.

In the last sentence, I wrote 'Buying CD's is not dead.'. That was because I said I would download the album from P2P networks. I figured you would think I would be 'one of those' people who only illegaly download music. I simply wanted to make clear that there are still people that have faith in the fysical CD format, me included. But ofcourse, you probably have no doubt about that, since Slipknot sold a shitload copy's of their new CD, for example.

Now that I know the situation, and the good intentions from Roadrunner's side, I'm going to download the album. Thanks for the free music.

Again, I would like to apoligize for the tone of my e-mail, and the assumptions I made towards Roadrunner regarding this subject.

kind regards,

Stijn

From: Gary Bykov

Hi there.

I write mostly workout plans.  And few from about six months ago Copyrighted but not under Contracts with Record Label/Producer that's on a great levels I can use a Record Deal.

I am emailing though as I became aware some music producers don't deal with Workout Plan CD AudioBooks so please get back to me if you can assist me with becoming a Distributor and developing the Cover for my workout CD granted I have 41 CDs covering numerous topics.  

Actually for that matter I can add though my Copyrights are from the USA and I am a USA citizen from the Caribbean to Texas to Canadian border to extreme parts of East Coast USA due to recent flooding and Hurricanes there are virtually no local Record Label or Record Deal offer places in my area as they all fled...


Assistance greatly appreciated,


Gary

http://www.geocities.com/garybykov/BasketBall.html

Gary,

We are a metal record label.  The only working out our average fan does involves a circle pit.  So my advice to you would be to either create some sort of "mosh pit aerobics" tape, or take your business to the schmucks who produced those highly disturbing Richard Simmons videos.

From: kp

Jeremy Rosen's note: this was in response to an earlier exchange about releasing standard and special editions.

Eh, I've got a few thousand cds in the bank, so nothing is urgent at this point.  I don't believe anything I've ever heard from sales people or 'marketers' because they're selling as much to business as they are to the consumer.

http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/0060005688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220668811&sr=8-1

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-tyranny-of-choice-2004-04

Thanks for the response though, and the chance to sound off, I'll admit, hell of a lot better than some other websites I've been to.


kp

Unfortunately I think your two examples don't fit the DragonForce example. For instance, the Scientific American article citing choice indicates that "some choice" is good. Two or three different options for an album certainly qualifies as "some choice."

I've also read "The Paradox of Choice" and Schwartz again is arguing a vast amount of choice. Again, a recent study by Bain research showed that offering tiered releases was good for both ends of the sale. And, while I can't release the actual numbers to you, our sales of these more varied releases have been better.

But you're already operating from the assumption that I'm lying to you, so I should save my breath. At any rate, take care!