What Exactly Are Promos?
 

This is a dumb question I know, especially considering I have a fair few expanded / promo scores in my own collection. I was just wondering what exactly promos are. I mean I know they are not official releases - some are given out at special events etc, right?

The reason I ask is that I am seeing a fair few game soundtrack promos going on Ebay.com at the moment, Assassin's Creed in particular sparks my interest -

ASSASSIN'S CREED Game Soundtrack CD by Jesper Kyd - eBay (item 290257790416 end time Sep-09-08 15:30:37 PDT) ,

I don't want to go ahead and bid on such an item though if all it is a soundtrack he's made by burning downloaded tracks from his PC onto a disk, and printing the artwork. The main reason I would buy it is to rip the CD in my own quality, but if this is what he has done, I obviously may as well just download the tracks myself.

Promo's are copies of cds sent out to reviewers or advertisers or DJs or given out generally for publicity. They generally contain just a single track or certainly a cut down version of whatever the full release will contain. You'll probably have the standard artwork and depending on who the promo was aimed at, maybe a bit of PR spiel about the artist stuck over the top. My brother works for the BBC so I have a shit load he's sent me, all stuff that record labels have forwarded to DJs and they've chucked straight in the random freebies box.

Given that they're always free, I'd be loathe to pay someone for one over eBay, unless it was something particularly rare and even then you'd have to be a bit of an obsessive collector to bother. There are also some questions over the legality of re-selling promo cds, especially as most have "Not for resale" plastered over them in massive letters but I imagine worries about legality are the last thing on your mind.

Essentially, for something like the Assasins Creed soundtrack you might as well download it and burn it onto a cd yourself. It's not something that's ever going to become a classic album and the promo is essentially worthless as a result.

Wow, thanks Shin :D

Well as I said, the main reason i'd buy that particular album is to rip it in my own quality, but if it's not in normal CD quality anyway, there's no point. Particularly if all they are are burned 128kb/s tracks.

And yes, it's the last thing on my mind.

Well it'll (probably) be CD quality but you won't get all the inlay card or anything and as you said, it could just be someone burning their own copy.

I don't know of anyone self-printing a CD with a barcode.

BigBlah why do most of your posts contain a hint of sarcasm?

Because this forum has turned him into a cynic. I think it does that to most everyone though.

Apart from people wishing to pass off home made cds as promo copies that might be worth something on eBay of course and most of the promos I own don't have barcodes. The barcode font ain't exactly hard to get hold of is it? Anyway, that's still no reason to pay for a cd someone else got free.

Currently I'm playing a stupid Werewolf game in the Laughs & Games forum, where points are awarded for props you receive on your posts. The only way you can receive props is to act like an obnoxious snark and lash out at people for no good reason, telling them to "crawl back to My Stuff" or "limp back to Concert Hall" or "gb/2 Animespot" whichever is appropriate. Come join a game sometime, it'll turn you into a cynic soon enough!

I can think of two CDs that have them - Gabriel Yared's Troy and the weirdo 20th Anniversary boot for Beauty And The Beast.

All bootleggs are "promos" but not all promos are bootlegs.

Haha, they sound like such words of wisdom.

Additional Spam:
Sounds like fun. But i'd rather not make any enemies here.

It's starting to really bug me now. This guy is selling these 'promos' by the bucketload, i'm seeing a few every week. This one has now reached 100$

MEDAL OF HONOR EUROPEAN ASSAULT Game Score Ch. Lennertz - eBay (item 290269298015 end time Oct-27-08 15:36:22 PDT)

If these are indeed simply downloads from the net burned onto the CD, I wish the buyers actually knew that!

I've checked with the guys on VGMdb. This guy is indeed selling bootlegs, and putting fake barcodes on them to look legit. So yeah, Shin was on to something there.

I just wish the buyers knew this. Yes, it says it's not official in the description, but if they knew they were simply 128kbps tracks downloaded from somewhere like Kingdom Hearts Insider then I doubt they'd be bidding up to 100$. That's just ridiculous!
I did email him with this question a while ago and never got a reply.

The only MOH score by Lennertz that made it to CD was Rising Sun, which you can find circulating as a promo.

MEDAL OF HONOR: RISING SUN - Original Game Soundtrack by Christopher Lennertz

It's interesting to see how some prominent collectors like c1_midnight are being suckered into buying these. I liked this comment from someone else:

"Great overall transaction and fast shipping for this bootleg release."

Some of these things are going to end up listed on VGMdb, so we just need to take care and mark them as bootlegs. Actually, I should take the whole lot and put up bootleg entries.

Regarding the barcodes -- is there some kind of database where you can look up a barcode number and find out if it's legitimate?

Google and a little cynicism goes a long way in this.

Also - bootleggers are stupid-yet-clever when it comes to the barcode stuff. More often than not, the numbers are a joke or a reference to the album. The Beauty and The Beast boot has a barcode saying "CD19871990" (which was the years the show was running on ABC)

Ended at $103. Ridiculous.