About promos: I worked in record stores for over twelve years as a buyer. The last few years I was buyer for the biggest record store in the Gulf South USA. Very prestigious. I got promo copies of EVERYTHING. The corporate owners and management were colluding to destroy it (with the help of the major record labels) and I bailed out before I went postal. Anyway, I've sold hundreds of promos. I have thousands in my collection. I've bought and sold other used cds. I've collected a shitload of mp3s from the internet. As a kid I taped hundreds if not thousands of records.

If you're really good, there won't be many promos out there for sale. And each one that is bought is someone who might buy your next album at retail. Somewhere down the line of copying stuff, someone will go out and buy it for their collection. No one's figured a way to send complete copies of the liner notes and album covers with every mp3 file and that shit is important to collectors. Collectors are the record industry's base sales source. We spend a higher percentage of our income on music than anyone else. Kids that buy singles don't buy albums. People that buy hits rarely but lots of albums. They get most of their music from the radio. The people that frequent record stores and buy lots of music are the same people that have tons of mp3s, tapes, hi-fi vhs audio, DATA and other "illegal" stuff in their house. The whole "free crap costs the industry money" argument is lame. Record sales are up despite the lack of true hit material out there.