IDM Mailing Archive

X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Message-ID: <31D9F11B.6EDF@mb.sympatico.ca> Date: Tue, 02 Jul 1996 21:03:39 -0700 From: David Ross <daveross@mb.sympatico.ca> Organization: Bank of Montreal X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01E-SYMPA (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Intelligent Dance Music <idm@hyperreal.com> Subject: Limited Edition vs. Intelligent Planning Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here's my take on the Limited Edition thing: As with all businesses that must produce something, a planning schedule must be created. They must estimate how much demand there is for a product over a certain length of time and then invest the needed capital in order to produce the inventory. Could it be that this is what Rephlex has done?? Perhaps they truly believe that only 1500 (or 5000) people will want the new LP. Maybe it was just poor phrasing. Perhaps if they (or whoever originally posted) had said "Caustic Window Ep - initial pressing 1500 (or 5000, Andrew.)" noone would be upset. There might be posts along the lines of "Damn! They're nuts! Its gonna be bigger than Thriller! They should print more..." but I think that the level or intensity of criticism contained in recent posts would decline. So why call something a "Limited Edition" in the first place: 1. Economic Ploy - it will decrease supply, therefore demand (and price) increases. 2. Marketing Ploy - it will decrease supply, therefore all collectors will do anything in their power to get it 3. To Preserve Artistic Integrity - This is an underground scene and by releasing only a few albums (on vinyl not cd) only the hardcore, trainspotter DJs will pick it up and maintain the genre's relative obscurity. 4. To Mask Embarassment - Perhaps a label doesn't have enough money to release 10,000 pressings of an LP right off the bat, is embarrassed by this fact, and decides to call it a "limited edition" in order to eliminate any speculation of how well the company is performing financially. 5. Running a label takes so much damn time, the subtle nuances of the phrase "limited edition" haven't been taken into consideration by management and in the grander scheme of things don't matter too much anyway. I really don't think that anyone is questioning a label's/artist's right to do with their work what they please. But is there a legitimate/rational explanationation for printing less than the expected sales level of any product even if it is art? In this age of easy reproduction of almost all media (especially audio and video!) does the artist really think that limiting the number of copies officially produced will restrict people from finding copies and taping them? Dave Ross Winnipeg.MB.CA.