Fish Records, Dirt Cheap CDs and about a dozen other record stores have been implicated in the sale of counterfeit CDs this mornings papers tell us. Yet ARIA would prefer to go after the bigger "pirates" who are shifting MP3s on file sharing networks than these people themselves. Given ARIA's position to go and prosecute people, it's almost somewhat of an irony that they're not pursuing active pirates. It's like the Copyright Act is only there if and when people choose to a) obey it and b) enforce it.
Now I don't know about you but something seems distinctly malaise here. ARIA was set up by the record companies to protect the rights of artists and copyright holders to gain royalties from the sale of their music. Or perhaps this really is a case of mistaken identity. ARIA has already accused file sharing networks of stealing away sales and yet actually actively ignores the fact that singles are now only sold on 8 week cycles. The manufacturer will only press the number of CDs it wants to push, market that as agressively as it can and then stand back if it bombs.
What I also find somewhat worrying is ARIA's resistance to admit that record stores on the whole are actually shifting more stock as a result of the sale of DVDs than the corresponding fall in CD sales. In fact the only real barometer of sales may be the album charts themselves. The back catalouge will usually account for about 40% of all record store sales. Because these are a bigger range, they will never appear in the Top 40's lists and therefore not affect stats.
My last question is to do with the value of a gold record itself. Casey Donovan, the winner of Australian Idol, went gold before the record had even gone to stores. Because the album itself was received so poorly, I honestly doubt whether it actually acheived gold through the stores.
In the case of Mistaken Identity by Delta Goodrem, if they've shifted sufficient units does that mean that it earnt a Fool's Gold Record or are ARIA just really a bunch of fools?
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