Yes as I understand it, the likes of FSM are paying for a license that allows them to press only 3000 copies, no more. More is either impossible or would cost much more money to license. I think the 3000 is the magic limit number, not sure if the lower pressing (1000) do cost less on the license, or if it's only a matter of lower predicted sale numbers and/or cheaper manufacturing fee.

42zaphod, January 26, 2006; 7:57 PM

All mentioned are to an extent decisive factors. Bottom line is profit. The copyright owners have the final say and the upper hand.

conjuctionjuction, January 26, 2006; 8:47 PM

Is the incident with Perseverance and Loch Ness legit? How is that justified?

serifiot, January 26, 2006; 10:29 PM

What's was the incident with Loch Ness?

Is the copy I bought for my girlfriend not as limited as I told her? :P

his_dudeness2002, January 27, 2006; 5:13 PM

I think you will find that they have the rights to print up to 3000, same as FSM etc.
The higher than expected sales enabled them to put into pressing the 2nd 1000 of their 3000 licence.
From past knowledge & speaking to those who actually try to do this for a buisness, often a company will only press cds in 1000 runs to save costs, although they will print the full 3000 liners & covers/booklets as to print those in smaller numbers would certainly increase the costs.

All Perseverance did was option their agreement to print a 1000, found it sold well & then printed the next 1000 & if that goes well will print thier last 1000 then will be it for their copyright agreement, unless they go and renegotiate with the studio/orginal copy right holder. But that would mean higher costs as once a studio knows what the value of something is the price normally goes up & then the project becomes pointless in such a small market as soundtracks.
Perseverance have done nothing wrong or unlawful, the only thing they could of done on the very first press release was state as Film Score Monthly, Intrada or Verese Sarabande & others do in their releases is give an indication of the actual pressing number.

But of course then that can lead to more complaints in the collector market if a title sells out so fast, due to mass buyers who will then re-sell at much higher rates on places such as Ebay.

Lets face it how many of the LIMITED 1000 Editions that Verese put out would really sell as fast if they did not state 1000 edition?
It causes a little panic spree from those who really want it & the profiteers.

The Loch Ness incident is nothing underhanded or even wrong, it's just a matter of a poor press release.

1 last thing, I don't work for any of the above companies, but I have knocked about the film & music industry for many years & have come to learn just some of the back ground happenings that go on.

happy 2006
andy

ajbjmdb, January 27, 2006; 7:31 PM

Hi Coma

I think if you follow some of Lukas Kendalls coments over at FSM, which I'm sure you do, he has optioned many titles with the knowledge that they are not going to 'flood out the door'. But as he has stated often, some of the projects have been for personal reasons & I have come across this many times in the past where the owners of a label have sanctioned something for a pure personal reason of just enjoying the music & hey lets hope it sells!
Bizzare I know, but these people enjoy the music as much as we do & they can act a little crazy as we do.

The whole Loch Ness escapade is down to a press release that states 'limited edition' but no actual stated quantity, if it had stated 'limited edition of 3000' then this would all be a pointless thread, it has just sanctioned it option to press it's 2nd 1000 earlier than they even expected!

Which for them is great as the faster these editions sell out the more capital they have to look into other projects, which benefits us all.

I'm sure that if we were privy to stocks of some of these labels, they do not sit on entire batches of 3000 cds, considering the space this would take up. Along with the fact that the capital tied up just sitting on the shelf going nowhere would be soul destroying.

Only recently Percepto announced some deleted titles & by some it stated that due to slow sales they were not taking their option to repress the remaining quantity they could due to the poor sales & of coures the bottom line of tied up captital.

Anyways all this is by the by, Perseverance can repress & be in the bounds of the copyright agreement & I really hope they sell out as fast as they can as that way there will be more funds for other projects for us all the enjoy. I think they have Remo Williams on the horizon & that is great news & this may be due to the speed of the Loch Ness sales.

1 thing sound track collectors can take comfort in, is that in this market a limited edition is just that, I can recall many so called editions in the main market from my time with several major labels & these so called limited runs were in the tens or even hundreds of thousands. But they to caught colds with stock just sitting in ware houses, waiting to be sold off at a tenth of the price it went out for on its first run. At least we will never see score releases in the bargin bins.

Andy

ajbjmdb, January 27, 2006; 8:57 PM