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Old Dec 22, 2008, 07:46 AM
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Secret Squirrel Secret Squirrel is offline
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Location: Cleveland, OH
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So every time a composer gives some music to an associate or a friend, that qualifies as a release? That seems too loose to me. I don't know any composers personally, but it wouldn't surprise me if they gave music out all the time. On top of that, every time a composer sends some sample tracks to a game producer to evaluate (or whatever the process is, Carl probably knows about this), there's an implicit release of music. This could add up to dozens of album entries per game. Also, every crossfade demo on an h-game website could be a release with its own album page.

I'm not saying that I don't want any composer 'promo' releases in the database; clearly some belong. When a composer zips up some mp3s and gives it to a fansite to distribute, that's a release. Similarly, if the release is a pressed CD with artwork, that belongs in the database. If someone takes a composer CDR and tries to sell it on Ebay, it probably becomes a release, though I'd be more likely to classify it as a bootleg if there wasn't clear proof it came from the artist. That's the thing though. If all of the release information is unknown, except the word of some guy who says it came from the artist, then it's not clear that we've reached the level of confirmation needed to enter it here.

By the way, the fact that this promo is only mentioned on film-soundtrack websites pretty much confirms my fears. Film soundtrack traders are well known for networking with composers so that they can obtain music directly from them. This gives them leverage to trade for other such rare music from other collectors. I doubt anyone outside of a small circle will ever see any of these.
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