RIAA Loss Report Contradicts Nielsen Sales Record

[gitreel]

Apparently they are going by units shipped than actual sales.

[Nilfennasion]

When the record label ships discs, the store has already paid the cost, and the label has recouped their money. The problem is not that the labels are not making money, but that the stores can't move their product. They can cry piracy until they're blue in the face, but it's really because the product is lousy. I doubt, somehow, that the labels give a damn about the stores. They just want to maintain their ability to sell people crap.

[hech54]

It's always been that way....but it's a bit worse than you think. The "sales" are based on distribution which happens before the units are even shipped. Everything that leaves the factory where the CD's are made is a SALE to these morons. From there they actually go to warehouses where the orders are placed either at a store or regional/district level.

How does something dumb like "The Thong Song" become number one when nobody you know actually bought the CD or CD Single....simple...make 100,000 of them and ship them to the warehouses immediately. Post the incredible sales in some magazine, website or whatever....start the publicity machine and hope stores actually DO order the stuff.
If you and I can buy CD-R's at less than 10 cents each....how much do you think it costs "The Big Guys" to make them at 5000 per shot? We're talking pennies per dozen perhaps.

Stores like Best Buy and even the little "mom and pop" stores cannot and do not track every sale just to notify the record labels of a sale. They do it for themselves.

I used to be the Inventory Manager for a large home improvement chain. Every Christmas companies like Black and Decker would "distribute" huge quantities of say...battery powered screwdrivers to every store(a deal that OUR company struck with B&D) in those dumb cardboard stackout displays. Well needless to say ALOT of them got stolen and never recorded at the registers as a sale.
Guess what...to B&D a theft is a sale. As soon as another stackout full is ordered...to B&D....that is a sale. Remember the Doritos commercial..."Crunch all you want...we'll make more". That was our Black and Decker slogan...especially around Christmas time.

Every time a CD is stolen is a sale as well.

[Nilfennasion]

The words if I ran my business this way, I'd be out of business spring to mind.

[gitreel]

To think this bunch of lies has congress eating out of their hands. They are very gifted liars.

[Nilfennasion]

I think congress knows these statements are lies, honestly. It's a case of "We know you're full of crap, just give us the money".