As the old adage goes, “it’s lonely at the top,” and as the 800-pound go-rilla sitting on top of the American music biz, the isolation of U Music’s Doug Morris must rank second only to the Maytag repair man.

As the industry’s largest conglomeration of record labels, with over a billion $$$ served for two years in a row, Universal has been guided through some rocky straits by the firm hand and clear vision of Mr. Morris. The people beneath him must be freakin’ idiots, however, since they seem to keep making the same old stupid mistakes. Either Morris is aware of these corporate missteps on his behalf and he approves, or else he’s another clueless corporate CEO collecting a seven-to-eight-figure paycheck without really trying all that hard.

First comes the news, courtesy of Billboard magazine, that Universal’s Republic label sent out “cease and desist” letters to independent retailers selling copies of Amy Winehouse’s 2003 album Frank as an import disc. Evidently the domestic imprint has plans on releasing the album in November to capitalize on the modest success of Winehouse’s U.S. debut, Back To Black, which has moved nearly a million copies – a success by any standard in the modern age – and they want to keep from losing any sales to the import version.

Many of the retailers, who the major labels have done little to support lately, took offense at the letter’s bullying tone. According to Billboard, one portion of the label’s July 24th letter said “Republic hereby demands that you cease and desist with any and all distribution and/or exploitation of the album in the U.S.,” claiming that sales of Frank constitutes an infringement of Republic's exclusive right to exploit and distribute the artist's recording in the States.

Billboard also states that “the letter, signed by Universal Republic director of business and legal affairs Jeffrey Koenig, furthermore asks that all accounts respond within two days of receiving the letter with a written acknowledgement that they have ceased selling the import version of the album.” Retailers, not wanting to get hung up in a lawsuit with U Music, have pretty much all thrown in the towel, halting sales of Frank rather than fight the monster.

Import albums have not been much of an issue with the labels since the late-70s/early-80s when the collector’s market was flooded with British, German, French and Japanese import versions of albums. I don’t know the specifics, but it seems to me that I remember the labels forcing through legislation that made it illegal to import an album for which a legitimate U.S. version was available. If this is, indeed the case, it’s a stupid law and one designed only to benefit the domestic music biz. As a collector, I often preferred import versions of albums, which typically were pressed on heavier, better quality vinyl and had better graphics and sometimes bonus songs.

Unfortunately, the label’s position back in those days made some sense considering that a lot of European punk and “new wave” artists were signed to indie labels back in their home countries and the U.S. labels that signed them wanted to make some bank. These days, however, it’s just an absurd position considering that the “Four Families” of the recording industry control over 90% of the music released in the United States and Europe.

What is Universal losing by retailers selling a few thousand copies of Winehouse’s Frank, which was released in England by Island, another U Music imprint? Nothing! They’re simply taking the money out of one pocket and putting it into another and it’s the beleaguered music stores that are getting screwed. Personally, if I had a record store I’d go ahead and keep selling Winehouse’s over-hyped crap and let Universal come after me. If they sued, I’d counter-sue for interfering with my business. After all, you’re not infringing on Republic or Universal or Island or whoever’s right to exploit the album if they haven’t even released it yet!!!

All of which leads us to our second Universal clusterfuck. The label has filed suit against a one Troy Augusto, owner of Roast Beast Music, an eBay seller that trades in used CDs. Evidently, from time to time, Augusto has been known to sell CDs marked “For Promotional Use Only,” which has raised the ire of the world’s largest crime family…er, record label. Rightfully ignoring the label’s “cease and desist” letters, Doug’s legal goons dropped the hammer on poor Troy, filing suit and claiming that his sale of promo CDs constitutes “copyright infringement.”

Let’s set aside for a moment the nifty little legal fiction that selling promo CDs infringes upon Universal’s copyrights in any way, shape or form. To the best of my knowledge, this battle over promo sales has been going on at least since the late-70s. I worked at a used record store in Nashville back in the day and had to threaten a local Arista Records rep with arrest for shoplifting for her attempts to “reclaim” promotional albums that were the “property” of Arista from our store.

The doctrine of “first sale” aside, many states have trade laws that negate the industry’s long-standing claim that promotional items are merely “licensed” to writers, radio stations, etc. In Tennessee, for instance, the mere act of physically transferring the record album or CD to an individual also transferred ownership. None of this “we might want it back” licensing bullshit. In my experience, the record labels have never asked for a promo album back and if they ever did, I’d laugh in their face. They may never send me another promo, ever (hey Cosloy!), but then again, I’d write nasty stuff about them to the end of time, too.

I’ve sold many a promotional album…thousands of them, probably, especially back in the late-80s when even a two-bit muletown rockcrit hack like the Reverend would receive dozens of packages in his P.O. box each week. My personal record was 17 promo albums in one day, until the CD age when I bested that with a 40-disc day. Even though the labels have cut way back in their promo mailings to ‘C’ and ‘D’ and even ‘Z’ level media like yours truly, it’s a well-known industry secret that promos have always been used as a sort of underground currency.

I’ve known major label publicists that kept a secret stash of unstamped promo albums to sell to local used record stores for weekend pocket change, and I’ve known radio programmers that received hundreds of free promo discs as a subtle form of payola. When I was a restaurant manager, I used to trade pizza for promo CDs with a chain retailer down the street, and I’ve seen promo CDs bartered for drugs, sex and other tangible goods. The promotional budgets of the record labels, once upon a time, were absolutely obscene, and paid for from the artist’s recoupable fund. I remember sitting in the office of a Music Row label VP in Nashville and being told to “help myself” to the swag in his large walk-in promo closet. Record albums, t-shirts, even liquor were all used to promote the “artist.”

As for Troy Augusto, he’s got the EFF defending him in this matter, and I wish him the best of luck. I’ve sold more than a few promo discs on eBay myself, and had quite a few auctions pulled by the “copyright owners.” I’d usually wait a few days and repost the item with a different description…true fans always found the item and I typically sold most of what I auctioned. I did once get into an email pissing match with noted electronic musician Wendy/Walter Carlos, who had my auctions for promo copies of his/her movie soundtracks pulled from eBay as copyright infringement. I finally just gave up and carted the damn things down to a local store and got a couple bucks each in trade that I probably used to buy something with more bite, musically.

As for Doug Morris and his loneliness problem…Doug, if you’d stop pissing off everyone around you, you might not feel so isolated in this world. As long as the labels continue to sue the people that buy their products, bully and threaten their retail partners, and drag anybody that might even consider taking a dime out of their corporate pockets into lengthy and costly litigation…well, really, what’s the different between Universal and the Soprano family?