Billboard changes rules

[Teletubby 141,632]

[Billboard rule change, effective immediately]
• Any D2C store with three submissions of illegitimate data within a 12-month period may receive a minimum 90-day reporting suspension.
• Physical D2C shipments which fall outside of "established sales trends" will require the reporting store to provide enhanced tracking status along with other info such as geo-location data and if a VPN was used to make the purchase.

[Billboard rule change, effective February 28]
• Digital albums sold via an artist, label, or other official web store must now be redeemed in order to be chart eligible. In addition, verification using hCaptcha is now required to prevent bots.

[Billboard rule change, effective April 4:]
• Only four (4) "digital exclusive versions" will be allowed for the life of an album. Includes deluxe versions.

• "Digital D2C exclusive versions" cannot be put up for sale during the middle of the first week. Either need to be available for pre-order or held for a later week of release.

• Minimum price for all exclusive digital albums has been raised to $7.99.
Minimum price of albums increasing at all retailers:
$7.99 - CD
$7.99 - Cassette
$15.99 - Vinyl

source

Edited 7 hours ago by Teletubby

[andy232000 10,552]

Oh my god no wonder the Record Labels were furious at the changes, it’s horrible. And it also kinda doesn’t make sense? If someone goes to an artists official store to buy something, that is already an act of pure agency in itself. If they pay and later don’t listen to it (which seems unlikely), thats on the consumer, not the artist or record label. 

What was this supposed to accomplish? Less bots buying and artist fueling their own sales? I mean that part does make sense, but how about the fraud that comes from radio airplay? They should’ve addressed that first. I feel this hurts more artista across the board than it actually helps. Everyone gets punished because rappers and kpop fans use bots??

And isn’t it also an extra step for the consumer to redeem an album? Those sales should then weight more in the formula, because you are making the fan jumo through hoops to get their sale to count. I dont know If I’m understanding all this correctly lol, but album sales will plummet because now a part of digital sales will fall

 

it also seems some of these rules were made effective as early as february 28. They were quietly introduced. So Mayhem probably lost a few copies too

Edited 7 hours ago by andy232000

[andy232000 10,552]

There are other changes! This one I actually support:

1.) "Digital D2C exclusive versions" cannot be put up for sale during the middle of the first week.

Either need to be available for pre-order or held for a later week of release.

2.) Only four (4) "digital D2C exclusive versions" will be allowed for the life of an album. Includes deluxe versions.

This is honestly a direct effect thanks to the abuse of variants.

Edited 7 hours ago by andy232000

[Teletubby 141,632]

2 minutes ago, andy232000 said:

This is honestly a direct effect thanks to the abuse of variants.

#thankyoutaylor

[Ronnie 5,750]

Oh they really came for Taylor Swift, huh?

[clownery 5,238]

Taylor's impact  no but really, I don't care about variants, I think is absolutely terrible for our ecosystems, unnecessary and greedy pollution.

Edited 7 hours ago by clownery
typo

[andy232000 10,552]

1 minute ago, clownery said:

Taylor's impact  no but really, I don't care about variants, I think is absolutely terrible for our ecosystems, innecesary and greedy pollution.

It really IS her impact tho. She may have not invented variants, but she definitely popularized the tactic and everyone and their mother followed. Its everyone’a fault, but she pushed further

[Lextyr97 19,455]

Was anything actually changed for variants? It says digital variants. Wouldn’t that not include physical variants 

[weed 72,379]

Everything else is fine but raising the price, especially for digital albums, stupid and anti-consumer. 

[andy232000 10,552]

5 minutes ago, Lextyr97 said:

Was anything actually changed for variants? It says digital variants. Wouldn’t that not include physical variants 

This is what I found for physicals

“Physical D2C shipments which fall outside of "established sales trends" will require the reporting store to provide enhanced tracking status along with other info such as geo-location data and if a VPN was used to make the purchase.”

I guess if a variant starts to sale in un natural ways they will have to present a justification for it

[Teletubby 141,632]

12 minutes ago, clownery said:

Taylor's impact  no but really, I don't care about variants, I think is absolutely terrible for our ecosystems, innecesary and greedy pollution.

there will be more plastic. Only 4 "digital exclusive versions" will be allowed for the life of an album — she will now have 1328542 versions of CD

[andy232000 10,552]

1 minute ago, Teletubby said:

there will be more plastic. Only 4 "digital exclusive versions" will be allowed for the life of an album — she will now have 1328542 versions of CD

This sucks to be honest because that is exactly what will happen. Although if you look at my comment above, I think that is a particular CD or physical sale starts to sell outside of a normal trend, the store will have to justify its sale. That does add a new level of complexity for third party sellers so maybe not all sales will be counted. Maybe this will encourage artist NOT to go wild with physical variants. 

[River 110,105]

Of course they does it now after the tortured pooper era, will they have the balls to adjust her sales (and others) accordingly?

[LG2008 4,332]

Wait... They changed some things weeks before and they're just announcing them?  Gaga did pretty good even with that sh*tty move. I wonder what some artists will do after these changes 

[LG2008 4,332]

30 minutes ago, andy232000 said:

There are other changes! This one I actually support:

1.) "Digital D2C exclusive versions" cannot be put up for sale during the middle of the first week.

Either need to be available for pre-order or held for a later week of release.

2.) Only four (4) "digital D2C exclusive versions" will be allowed for the life of an album. Includes deluxe versions.

This is honestly a direct effect thanks to the abuse of variants.

Those 2 bring one specific artist to my mind  It really was too much