Question for Ars Magna (or anyone with Label knowledge)

[AsModEe]

Hey, my brother has his own band based in Sherbrooke, and they're putting some of their stuff on myspace. A label (Quickstar Productions) asked them if they wanted to be on a metal compilation, and if so, they had to give Quickstar 200$ so they can buy CDs, masterize the stuff and make the compilation. The band then sells the album the price they want, and they cut fifty-fifty.

This all sounds a bit fishy to me, and since I don't want my bro to get scammed, I'd like to know what you guys think about this.

 

[Ars Magna]

I just checked out their site, read their agreement, etc. Everything seemed ok, I suppose. The one thing I wondered about right off the bat was ownership of the track(s) submitted. There are some companies that will have fine print stating that the track becomes property of the company; these guys aren't doing that, so that's cool.

In my admittedly minor experience with comp appearances, it usually runs along the lines of "you give us $xx and we give you xx copies for yourself". From that standpoint, this seems fairly standard. Normally the band gets to keep all proceeds from their copies. It also didn't say anything about how many copies the band would receive. If they are printing 3000 copies, I would expect that the band would get 30-50 copies for a $200 investment.

Not sure if this was any help or not but, aside from being a little too schmoozy, they seem ok (famous last words).

 

[AsModEe]

thx man, I'll link your post to my brother

 

[Ars Magna]

Sure. The one thing I found to be somewhat interesting (questionable?) is how they make a big deal of the fact that they are musicians, have been around, touring bands, etc, yet they name none of them. I guess it might not matter but, for me, that would at least let me know where these guys were coming from. Touring with The Schneiderman Revival Quartet is a little different than riding in the back of a van with Watain for a week. It would be nice to have at least a little background.

 

[Hell Mike]

Deals like that are complete crap in my opinion.

 

[M.Lehto]

Deals like that are complete crap in my opinion.

Same here, if you have to pay to be in something, it's not a good thing. Unless the record-label pays for those and that usually happens when the compilation is included to some magazine. Every band should use that money to self-financed releases instead of some shitty compilation including 20 bands that 90% suck bad and a one track from youe band.

 

[Ars Magna]

I agree completely. If you're going to invest $200, why not wait a couple of months, save some more $, and release your own demo, ep, cd, whatever. If you have any kind of a following or play live shows at all, that will usually end up being more beneficial in the end.

In most cases, people aren't interested in comps, anyway. They usually end up being freebies that no one pays attention to...unless, of ocurse, we're talking Tormenting Legends II and the like.