Compilation Offers

My band received the following from a small "label" to be on a compilation. I think I've seen this scam before, but could use your advice on whether this is a scam or not. Personally, I think paying to be on a compilation is crap...

"You should know these spots go very fast. there's only 20 in your city and sometimes a couple days is too long. That being said, I'm sending you a lot of information, that way if the other band members can make or influence decisions then you can read it over. You could also email it to your drummer/manager if you think it'd give him a head start on it.

First you should know that we never get any of the rights to your song that you choose to put on the compilation. However the song must be around four minutes in length and contain no profanity! As soon as the album is done we send you 50 copies. Next we send out your song as an electronic press kit to all the local radio stations, college and university radio stations, every club, newspaper, and magazine in your area locally. Nationally we send it to 100 record labels. These are both major and independent labels. All the music goes as solicited to our connections at these labels. So the music will most definitely be heard meaning you will want to give us your best written and recorded song.

Here is a link to check out what our EPK looks like:

http://illuminarecords.com/epk/boston

This first link below has all the information you should need. It is a 25 page pdf file that states our mission, philosophy, and exactly what bands receive. Check out the detailed MySpace page example that shows you exactly what you get on the page we build and send out to one million people on MySpace. Check out the band testimonials around the 20th page of the pdf file. If you should have any questions the additional links below should help, but always feel free to call me at (781) 307.2543.

http://preventdrunkdriving.org/rockers_info/rockers_2007.pdf

This link below is an example of the MySpace page that gets sent out to one million people on MySpace. You would receive two custom designed posters that link directly to your MySpace page when someone clicks on one of them. That is how we generate an overflow of traffic to your MySpace.

www.myspace.com/orlando_rockers

Your band gets a cover story on CUSP magazine! Click the link below to see the official website. We send it out to 10,000 people on MySpace when you are on the cover. Fans can also find your cover story at the magazine’s website! The best benefit is once you upload those files you get to put it on your MySpace, Purevolume, website, or all of the above. You get to keep it there as a marketing tool forever. Keep in mind it takes the average person 8-12 minutes to read the interview with your band that is inside the magazine. The whole time they are reading that interview your music is playing from your page. 8-12 minutes could be 3 or 4 songs.

http://www.cuspmag.com

This next link is the cd agreement.

http://preventdrunkdriving.org/rockers_info/agreements/kansascity.pdf

Obviously we are not in this to make millions of dollars. We do however have to stay in business. We need to re-coup our labor costs in order to stay in business, keep saving lives, and keep helping bands. Obviously, there is a lot of work, time and resources that goes into all this publicity. As soon as we sign on a band we go to work on building websites, writing code, getting pictures, logos, quotes, interviews. Not to mention the cost of mastering, printing, duplicating and distributing a CD all over the country…..You get the picture….It’s a huge project.

The way we recoup our labor costs is simple. The 50 compilation albums we send you retail for twelve (12) dollars each. So when you sell those albums it generates $600. That is what each band has to pay upfront so that we know they are serious. When the CD is finished we mail you the 50 copies and you can sell them to get back every penny you put upfront. So literally you get about $10,000 worth of publicity for free. Needless to say the first time a band hears about this project most of them jump at the opportunity so there is not much time when we are this late in the game. If this is publicity you are looking for and a charity you want to help please call me a.s.a.p. (781) 307.2543.

I appreciate your interest in the Rockers For Life project. I only

have a few empty slots on the CD. I would love to put your band in one of them.

To see where we are registered with the government, go to www.sec.state.ma.us "

What do you guys think?

click on corporations division, then search the corporations database for Illumina Media.

Hey Dave,

My band (actually, any of my MySpace pages that has music) has received the same offer from Illumina Records and their drunk driving campaign. I've placed two follow up calls with no response, and the fact that 2 of the e-mails I received were for songs with no lyrics, I call shenanigans on it!

I think it's BS.

Our ex-singer wanted us to do, but the rest of the band decided against it (whew).

Thanks Guys! I'm with you....I think its BS.

Not because it's a scam - I just think that its a bad deal for the participating band.

I'd be VERY interested in hearing from anyone who actually did one of these "deals"

I got one saying they loved my hip hop music.

I don't make hip hop music.

I actually posted a thread similar to this before making fun of the scam.

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1590005

My band has participated in three compilations. Whether or not the distribution was all that the various "labels" promised or not, I really don't know, but two of the comps were very well done and one was not. We also submitted songs (and unfortunately, money) for two other comps that never saw the light of day. One was being put together by a South American print fanzine, and we were only out $30 as I recall. The other was being done by a local guy who claimed to have connections at Sony. A lot of bands put up money ($150 per song, per band) and the guy used it to fund his own CD before skipping town.

It's been a mixed bag, but under the right circumstances, we'd probably try a compilation again.

Anytime someone wants you to pony up money beforehand, be it for a gig, a CD compilation, whatever...JUST SAY NO!

Think about it: They take your $600, give you 50 CDs with one of your songs and god knows what else on it, and the only way you recoup you investment is to sell it? And they claim they are hawking this to radio stations and labels? Yeah, huh...SCAM-OLA!

these form letters crack me up. it's usually obvious when they are junk. the best way to tell though is to add something else to your bandname. for example say there are 5 different bands on myspace or purevolume or something called 'burned spam.' often the site will make you change the name if someone else has it already, so maybe you'll call yourselves 'burned spam (oh)' to denote that you are the 'burned spam' from ohio.

needless to say, you'll get a message saying 'hey there burned spam (oh) we listend to your stuff and really dig your sound!' obviously they just pulled your name out of that field on the form and inserted it into their crappy form letter.

as a rule, i'm skeptical of completely unprovoked praise from an 'organization' online.

Unfortunately my band got dragged into this. The "show" the put on the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, MA was hardly a show at all. They told us industry people would be there and besides the Illumina people and the bands waiting to play, there was hardly anyone there. Take a picture, play for fifteen minutes to less than 15 people, see you later. Waste of money. They constantly email us to keep us updated on all the awesome things they are doing for us, which is in reality, nothing. Think about it, they couldn't get anybody to show up for a show in the area the company is based, you can't expect them to do anything for somebody outside of the area. It's sad that they take advantage of bands and the campaign against drunk driving. It's a good cause, sure, but really nobody is being helped here. It seemed more official when we did it because it was the first. I actually talked to a few of the people on the phone and we were doing pretty well when this happened. We figured we'd be able to recoup the costs or the exposure would be good enough to balance things out. Neither happened. Stay away from Illumina anything.

I followed up on the illumina thing. As others have stated: They charge a pretty hefty sum of $$ to be on the disc. They do give you copies of the disc to sell to recoup the cost. Most of what they do outside of that is electronic media campaigns. What we decided was the cost wasn't worth it. There was no real way to assure they were going to do the media things they were claiming were part of the package.

illumina = BS

You did a wise thing asking first, always check and check again to see if they are real.

Label/magazine/whatever: Hey, we love your music, we want to have one of your songs on our compilation cd.

Artist: Oh, great. Please e-mail me the details and I will let you know how much it will cost you.

Send me your money, I will put you on a CD

I think the key here is whether it feels justified... chances are, if it makes you nervous or you think you smell something, it probably is a scam

These guys seem to get the bands with more ego than sense. When I get e-mails from people I've never met, from labels or organizations I've never heard of, I automatically think "great, how much are they wanting now?!" but it seems like other people get them and think "Awesome! finally we are getting our break! Recognition sure feels nice!"

Luckily (and unluckily) for me, we have a pretty weird sound, so when I check out these e-mails and their examples of past releases I can tell whether or not they've ever had experience with our genre. I remember one time we received some "Label Interest" which didn't even actually require any money down, you just had to pay a small fee to get what they were making into your own hands... it was something like 6.25 a cd, which was reasonable, and not necessary since they claimed to try to sell it themselves, but when we went to the website it featured almost entirely spanish speaking music... None of which was remotely heavy.

I dunno, just follow your nose, if you smell bull{censored}, you'll probably find it if you look.

What if they pay for recording costs of that song, too? One of my old projects was once offered to be recorded, and put on this compilation that would be sent on tour with some major acts. Obviously nothing came out of that, but we did get decent recording, for free.

Ask many questions and actualy talk to a live person, and people that have worked with them, then think about it and give it time. Then make a good informed decision.

That situation you were in is totally different...they didn't want you to pay them...they essentialy were paying you...

If they want to pay for you to record, as long as you get control of the master, don't sign off the publishing rights, etc., then fine...free recording time is free recording time...and getting a demo made for free is a good deal.

did any of you actually looked into it, to see what it is about?

the reason why all of you will fail, is because you're so full of yourselves, that you guys forget to believe in yourselves.

love,

v.

A little brutal don't you think, especialy for a newb.

gee...how stupid of us!! What were we thinking...of course, we should look into every offer that comes into our e-mail...

So, um, Vitor the (not so) mute... how successful have you been with these types of offers?

Oh yeah... I get it now. You are right. I fail because I don't shell out 5 grand a year to every compilation run out of a basement that doesn't actually do what they promise.

Silly me, if I had been going deeper and deeper in debt this whole time while making myself seem utterly desperate for attention, I would be famous and rich, because I can only go SO deep into debt before the "failure meter" resets at millions!

I'm such an ass. I hate me.

Yea I've recently recieved one of these from Illumina. Been around long enough to know that they are trying to make money......off of ME!

But... I did check it out. The email was pretty personable and didn't stand out as a copy paste. They mentioned a particular song they liked and asked me to call them. I checked over all the material they sent. I was looking for the "catch" as I knew it was there somewhere. There is nothing in the info they provided that mentioned the $600. I called and left a couple of msg's. A day later I got a call back. I asked him flat out...."What's the catch?"

That's when the $600 comes up. I told him I was very interested in the drunk driving prevention campaign and could offer my talents and services to further that agenda but I would not pay them $600. He thanked me and said he would send me even more info but I haven't seen it yet. (cut and run)

It's a bummer cause I really was hoping it was on the level. It would be cool for local musicians to be involved in something like this. Forget all the promo they say they'll do. I just wanted to be a part of something that might make a difference. But I guess that's why they do that. In the hopes that they will get you with something....the cause.....the publicity.....Your picture on a poster that says "Hey guys, keep rockin' and don't drink and drive!"

Part of what made me look into it was the song they said they liked kinda fit with the whole drunk driving problem. The name of the song is "Trouble"

If you'd like to hear it go to www.emilystill.com

(just redirects to myspace)

Anyway....glad I ran across this thread. Sounds like they've hit everyone up with this....lol

TJ

Did a couple of these with my former blues band. Worked out fine. The thing to be certain of is the reputation and good name of the producer. HE is the guy who makes or breaks these things (provided the talent is there!). So, all the best... post it on line after it's done!