AntiShowbiz
Here's what happens when you sign a contract with a label which is not interested in sales. As probably many of you know, the Minsker Kapelye's 3rd album, "Tutejsi / The Locals / די אָרטיקע" was released by the Wroclaw based humanities foundation College of Eastern Europe (Kolegium Europy Wschodniej, or KEW) earlier this year. Since KEW receives its funds mainly from charities, public institutions or private sponsors, the staff members get paid regardless of their production sales. In other words, they don't give a shit at whether they sell 1 or 1,000 items. They are selling the album at about a hundred Polish online stores and their own web-site, all of them are in Polish only. They do not care about making a single page available in any other language. Neither do they sell the album at any of the international mp3 stores. Yes, you can purchase Minsker Kapelye's first album, A Fayerl Far Dem Hartsn (2002), on Amazon and iTunes; you might also wanna buy a double CD album recorded together with Paul Brody's Sadawi band, "Great Klezmers of East and West", at CDbaby. But don't waste your time looking for "The Locals" at these popular places. It's simply not there.
I would not have given a shit about the KEW's loosy-goosy business either, but I am concerned about near-to-null level of my customers' satisfaction. People who really want to purchase a well-recorded CD with 70 minutes of musical rarities and a 45-page hardcover booklet, have little chance to do so, unless they read Polish.
Here's a sample email which I've gotten literally today:
I live in the UK, and have been trying to purchase “The Locals / Di Ortike / Tutejsi” without any success for the last few months. I have tried the various Polish on-line stores and don’t seem to be able to get beyond viewing the product details on the Ksiegarnia Wysylkowa website, and I can’t use the KEW on-line store as I don’t understand Polish.
Well, kudos to such customers. I guess, I have lost at least a hundred, if not more, of less insistent ones.
I have sent out 5 or 6 emails to the KEW so far, with no reaction whatsoever. It seems like they're just ignoring my emails. (I don't think that the messages have not been delivered. I've tried sending them from different email accounts and even a Polish social network.)
So, as long as I have a modest amount of copies of The Locals CDs, I am sending them to those who express their interest via email or otherwise. After I run out of these, which inevitably is going to happen at certain point, the game's over. The contract says, the College has the exclusive rights to sell the album for an infinite period of time, which, according to the Polish Law, means 5 years. I guess, it's 5 years after the CD was produced, not the contract had been signed. Spring of 2014 is not quite soon yet, eh?
I don't know as of yet, what will come out of this story, but it should definitely be a good lesson for artists, namely, not to sign up with a non-profit company like that, if this is what they get in reality after their work is published. Go commercial, even produce yourself. It will undoubtedly pay off if you have some performances, exhibitions or other public events on your schedule. If you invest years of work in whatever you create, you definitely don't wanna just give it away like this.
UPD.: Despite their initial intention, the KEW officers have done nothing to properly advertise the CD at least in Poland. The album has not gotten much attention anywhere else, including Belarus, the band members' home country, which, again, has to do more with bad marketing rather than the artistic level and value of the recording. But that's a different story.
I would not have given a shit about the KEW's loosy-goosy business either, but I am concerned about near-to-null level of my customers' satisfaction. People who really want to purchase a well-recorded CD with 70 minutes of musical rarities and a 45-page hardcover booklet, have little chance to do so, unless they read Polish.
Here's a sample email which I've gotten literally today:
I live in the UK, and have been trying to purchase “The Locals / Di Ortike / Tutejsi” without any success for the last few months. I have tried the various Polish on-line stores and don’t seem to be able to get beyond viewing the product details on the Ksiegarnia Wysylkowa website, and I can’t use the KEW on-line store as I don’t understand Polish.
Well, kudos to such customers. I guess, I have lost at least a hundred, if not more, of less insistent ones.
I have sent out 5 or 6 emails to the KEW so far, with no reaction whatsoever. It seems like they're just ignoring my emails. (I don't think that the messages have not been delivered. I've tried sending them from different email accounts and even a Polish social network.)
So, as long as I have a modest amount of copies of The Locals CDs, I am sending them to those who express their interest via email or otherwise. After I run out of these, which inevitably is going to happen at certain point, the game's over. The contract says, the College has the exclusive rights to sell the album for an infinite period of time, which, according to the Polish Law, means 5 years. I guess, it's 5 years after the CD was produced, not the contract had been signed. Spring of 2014 is not quite soon yet, eh?
I don't know as of yet, what will come out of this story, but it should definitely be a good lesson for artists, namely, not to sign up with a non-profit company like that, if this is what they get in reality after their work is published. Go commercial, even produce yourself. It will undoubtedly pay off if you have some performances, exhibitions or other public events on your schedule. If you invest years of work in whatever you create, you definitely don't wanna just give it away like this.
UPD.: Despite their initial intention, the KEW officers have done nothing to properly advertise the CD at least in Poland. The album has not gotten much attention anywhere else, including Belarus, the band members' home country, which, again, has to do more with bad marketing rather than the artistic level and value of the recording. But that's a different story.