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alterboy
07/15/09

In reply to No One Really Knows How Many Albums Michael Jackson Sold
I was in charge of getting a startup music company chart eligible. Even with Nielson and soundscan ratings there is plenty of room to fudge numbers, so even those can't be trusted. Until recently Nielson was even handing out gold and platinum records based on units shipped...Not sold. All record companies would over-ship, get their artists their gold record then half of those records could be returned 3 months later. It was done for publicity. "So and so sold a million records, so it must be good" Even today there are tons of loopholes to exploit. There are ways to submit multiple scans for just one sale. And digital sales aren't submitted in real time and are prone to human error as well, but the record companies want it this way so I don't see it stopping anytime soon.

And one last thing...Almost all royalty audits come show that the record companies owe money to the artist. Yes the record industry is run like it was still the 70's and 80's.
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Edited by alterboy at 07/15/09 2:11 PM alterboy was starred alterboy was unstarred

dirtybacon
07/15/09

In reply to No One Really Knows How Many Albums Michael Jackson Sold
But there is no way to quantify how much an artist has immersed themselves in the collective conscious. In that way, Michael Jackson does equal 750 Million records.

Just because an album goes platinum doesn't mean that people will know or remember it 10 years from now. But play the first few phrases of Billie Jean, and there aren't many alive that won't start singing the song in their head.

So maybe the old system was archaic, but maybe this "guesswork" had some validity?
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admoseremic
07/15/09

In reply to No One Really Knows How Many Albums Michael Jackson Sold
Shouldn't there be a way to find out how many albums were produced? Manufacturers should have a better idea how many were made at least. Maybe from that number you could get a better estimate for how many were sold.
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nachobel
07/15/09

In reply to No One Really Knows How Many Albums Michael Jackson Sold
Can't they reverse engineer the stats from royalties?

LOL okay, that was just a joke.
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UnderLoK
07/15/09

@nachobel: I was thinking the same thing... I mean how in the hell were these guys paid if no one actually knew how many were sold?
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tande04
07/15/09

In reply to No One Really Knows How Many Albums Michael Jackson Sold
I don't know. I imagine with 40 years of album sales the beetles could of hit a billion.

Interesting all around though.

Doesn't iTunes/apple not release numbers either, just rank?
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admoseremic
07/15/09

@tande04: I doubt that. That would mean that one in six people in the world own a Beetles album if everyone had one.
edit: I know more than 6 people that don't have a Beetle's album, so it can't be true. . .
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Edited by admoseremic at 07/15/09 1:19 PM admoseremic was starred admoseremic was unstarred

OCEntertainment
07/15/09

@tande04: 1 in every 6.7 people in the entire world has bought A Beatles album? Even including die hard fans who buy every album twice, replacement copies for people who lose/break theirs, and completely ignoring the possibility for piracy and bootlegging....that still seems a little off.
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
07/15/09

@tande04: I'd believe this simply based on how many times people have re-purchased the white album.
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