It remains to be seen how many will abide by this decision but for those that dislike other countries releasing albums before the US you may get your wishes. Say hello to "New Music Fridays".
"New York (AFP) - Music vendors around the world will start on July 10 to release albums globally on Fridays, ending most but not all regional variations, an industry group announced." Read more...
http://news.yahoo.com/global-album-r...QDBHNlYwNzcg--
I see this as a non-event. Formal 'Release Dates' were only ever relevant to big box stores and shopping mall chain stores anyway. Most independent record stores have always ignored them (except for 'Record Store Day' of course); I've been routinely buying 'Tuesday new releases' on the preceding Saturday for years.
Of course if they were ever caught doing so they could be prosecuted. Just sayin'. It has nothing to do with big box stores or shopping mall chains. It's an admittedly inexplicable inconsistency that's become less relevant with international wen shopping, since the web stores honour the dates of their respective countries, so sometimes I get the music before my country's date.Originally Posted by Brad to the Bone
That's why making a global release date makes sense. Of course it generally applies to the majors as labels like ECM will still sometimes have lengthy gaps between Europe and Noeth American dates.
Uh, no they couldn't. There are no criminal or civil laws governing record industry release dates.
Correct. But there might possibly be other agreements in place that could be in jeopardy. (obviously, none of the following would apply to a big fish like Amazon)
I worked for an all CD shop in the mid 80s - early 90s and the record companies used to punish stores breaking the selling agreement. Back then it was difficult to get a direct deal from the record companies. Back then you actually had a rep that would take your orders. Sometimes he would even drop by the store unannounced to check out product placement. You had to prove to them that could actually move units before they granted you access to a direct relationship. In fact, it took us FOREVER to deal direct with CBS and we took a major hit on pricing for all CBS related titles (CBS/Columbia/Epic/A&M/Portrait/etc).
Now, I'm not so sure about the contracts these days but back then you had to agree NOT to sell before the assigned release date or you would lose your direct account with that particular record company. You were then forced to purchase all of that companies product from a DISTRIBUTOR if you wanted to carry it in your store. This really sucked because a new 'frontline' CD release purchased direct from the record company at $10.39 or $11.xx with no shipping charges (suggested price of $16.99) would wind up costing you $12 or more PLUS shipping from the distributor. Consider that you aren't selling millions of CDs like Amazon does these days, remember these were just neighborhood shops, and it starts to hurt. Also, consider that you could purchase box lot of a new release (25 copies) and get a discount dropping the price from $10.39 to as low as $8.xx when purchasing multiple box lots. You could now put the new release out on the shelf for your customers for $11.99 or $12.99 to compete with the other local stores. Big chains would normally put the new releases out for the suggested prices of $15.99 and $16.99. Box lot from the DISTRIBUTORS rarely carried any discounts. You might be lucky to get $.50 knocked off per CD.
On the opposite side of the street from our store, there was a long-time family owned record store that routinely exercised shady business practices, 'anything for a buck' type operation. Well, as you may already suspect, the store across the street got caught by the WEA rep (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic) and they got dropped. They began to carry much fewer copies of new WEA releases and we got their spillover when they ran out. I still remember the customers coming into the store remarking "Man, ______ ran out of the new Guns and Roses Use Your Illusion CDs. Do you guys have any?" "Why, yes, we do. We have 5 box lots of each version. Help yourself right over here."
Again, none of this may apply any longer in the internet greed-for-all, sorry, free-for-all present day. This was a snapshot of business back in the late 80s - early 90s.
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