Is Universals promo provider selling discs on the side?

An interesting eBay auction exists for quite a number of recent Vanessa Amorosi promo discs. A 1 track promo disc for ‘Kiss Your Mama’. A copy of the ‘Perfect’ single but in promo form. A CD with ‘Perfect Remixes’, including the unreleased Bexta Remix. And a 2-track ‘The Simple Things’ promo including the unreleased ‘T-Funk Remix’. But what I find so interesting about this auction is where these discs are coming from, Chatswood NSW.

A company called FATS Digital has contracts with both Universal Music and Sony BMG to create and package promo discs for either radio, press, or retailers - depending on which label and the particular job. They are based in Chatswood and managed by brothers Geoff and Rob Angell.

Going back to the auction, if you look at the feedback for the user selling the discs you notice that all they ever sell are promo discs, and secondly they all appear to be for artists from the above mentioned labels. I don’t see any Veronica’s (Warner Music) stuff there? Could a member of staff at this company be selling these discs for profit? Over the past three months alone, this eBay user has managed to make over $1,500 in sales, not bad for discs that cost them absolutely nothing. They have had nearly 300 auctions in the last 12 months, many of these containing multiple discs per auction.

During the production process, about 5 extra copies are legitimately made for every 100 units ordered by the labels. These are incase any discs are damaged during the disc printing or packaging processes, or incase there is any errors in printing. The labels certainly don’t get any free extras, so they end up in either their dumpster (located at rear, go around the right past ‘The Good Guys’, for those playing along at home), or on eBay it seems.

So why do I care? I should be happy at any opportunity to get my hands on rare Vanessa stuff right? Well while kinda true, the fact that this person is selling two unreleased mixes - ‘Perfect (Bexta Radio Edit)’ and ‘The Simple Things (T-Funk Mix)’ - is upsetting. The label has chosen not to release these to us on any of the releases so far, so our only option to get them is to try and outbid each other, leading to more money for this persons side ebay business. Wouldn’t it be just great if Universal adopted some modern thinking and released the remixes for free on Vanessa’s website. This is becoming more common overseas as a means of engaging the blogging communities as part of viral marketing.