Trojan releases no longer at EB's

[j j]

I've noticed that most/all the recentish Trojan releases are not being sold through Ernie B's.

Disco Devil being the latest.

Come to think of it i haven't seen any recent Trojan CD's listed at any other reggae mail order stores either....strange?

j j

[gbougard]

maybe trojan want to sell their stuff themselves...

[Greylad]

Can't speak to the Trojan situation in general, but it looks like the release of Scratch's "Disco Devil" has stalled.

[Funky Punk]

Could just be that the reggae web-stores think that they won't sell many of them to the sort of punter who buys from them (i.e. long time reggae collectors)?

AFAIK, a lot of recent Trojan releases have been compilations of stuff that's (mostly) been released numerous times over the years.

[gbougard]

cant see it anymore on Trojan's website

[Mick Sleeper]

Trojan has become rather mysterious over the past couple of years. No listing of their huge catalogue on their website, their releases are getting hard to find. Also, now that they are another brick in the giant Universal Music wall, who knows what kind of distribution they are getting outside of the UK?

[blakbeltjonez]

it could also be that since being absorbed by Universal, the lawyer types there are more aware of the limits of their distribution and the minefields of licensing - since Trojan primarily just licensed songs from JA producers and did not actually own the material, maybe the sale of Trojan product is not valid outside of the UK.... just a guess. or, the original agreements with various producers have lapsed and they are not legally allowed to put out a particular record without a current contract.

there's a lot of "devil in the details" stuff with licensing, typically they are re-upped/renegotiated every 3 years or so.... and who is the real owner, are they still alive, ect..... all that stuff could also cause problems with many Trojan releases.

maybe the way Trojan was run before, they didn't sweat those details but with new corporate lawyers, CYA is the order of the day.

as i said, a guess.... but certainly plausible.

[j j]

True true blakbelt, never thought of that....

j j