Cleaning Out the Cassettes

[billroper]

We're gradually clearing out our inventory of manufactured cassettes. shsilver was good enough to take markviii's cassettes up to him at Minicon last weekend. Today, I dumped several hundred copies of the cassette of Myths and Urban Legends into the trash, having confirmed with the UT folks that they also have no good use for them.

It's progress. In more ways than one, I suppose.

Comments

waitaminit!

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

Several hundred copies?

Re: waitaminit!

[billroper]

Yeah. The CD sold much better than the tape and they came out at the same time.

Re: waitaminit!

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

Ah, didn't realize that! I wasn't a dealer at the time, so I wouldn't have known.

Dare I ask what else you might have thrown out? (cringe)

Re: waitaminit!

[billroper]

Nothing yet. Nate wanted his tapes, so I returned them to him.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Yow.

Why not make them promotional freebies, or cheapies?

And we definitely have to talk about my cassettes....

Tom,

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

I've still got some of your cassettes for sale.

[billroper]

I'd still owe the royalties on them. :)

Your cassettes are the only ones that have actually moved any copies in historic times...

[hms42]

I know I would have taken some if you had offered them. I wish I knew they were available. (If still locateable, I have a use for about 100 them that would not get them all trashed an and NO, its not Ebaying the tapes. It would be for a con.)

Please drop me a note before you toss more tapes.

Harold

[billroper]

See, I can't actually give the tapes away, as I'd still be responsible for paying royalties on them. If I return them to the artist and they want to give them away, that's their choice.

[hms42]

If the tapes are not already taken to the street, I would like to chat with you (and the artist) about getting them. (Working something out for the royalties would be part of the conversation.)

Harold

[billroper]

Sadly, those tapes have already left the building.

[hms42]

I sent an email to the filker.com address from your web page to continue this privately.

[poltr1]

Eep. I know Myths and Urban Legends is available on CD. It's just sad that the cassettes had to be trashed.

[min0taur.livejournal.com]

I'm getting the same feeling I got when we lost my dad's turntable that could play my wife's 78-rpm records (saved from a library's housecleaning long ago): sad that time has moved on, but understanding that time is short and backs (mine, for instance) may be decreasingly up to the task of supporting big boxes of otherwise-unsupported media.

[tesral.livejournal.com]

I've worn some of those old casettes out playing them. I can't say I really miss the suckers.

[egoldberg.livejournal.com]

That's where I've found putting a "no royalties on promotional freebies" clause in contracts to be helpful.

Personally I wonder when we will be collectively pitching thousands of CDs.

[billroper]

Yup, that's a useful thing, but not too easy via Harry Fox, if I recall correctly. :)

I don't think CDs are going away for a while. Even for people who listen to most of their collection as MP3s, the CD makes a useful backup copy.

And I think that higher-fidelity formats are pretty much a non-starter.

[egoldberg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I stopped licensing Harry Fox songs for a variety of reasons (that just being one of them.)

I certainly hope you are right. It would suck to be tossing thousands of dollars worth of inventory.