Quote:
Originally posted by Saintlor
Do you think some labels (or even artists) purchase an artist's album to make a particular album go #1 or buy a tonne (maybe even millions) of copies to make the aritst look huger than what they are?
Discuss
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No. Labels make money from selling albums. If they bought the albums they would lose money. They will have access to promo copies to give to radio stations etc but they are not going to spend their money to secure bragging rights.
An artist and their families will likely buy a dozen or more, to give to friends, but that is not going to make a difference really. Same thing with authors who will buy some copies of their books, indeed they will almost certainly own a copy of each version with alternate covers for different reprintings. This doesn't really have any impact on sales totals though. If your sales are only numbering in the hundreds then you have bigger problems than falsely inflating your sales totals tbh.
The only examples of artists having significant numbers of their albums numbers falsely inflated is in the recent practice by the likes of Jay-Z who get a sponsorship deal with a major corporation and this includes the corporation effectively buying 1m copies of the album. Rihanna seemingly is attempting to do something similar with Samsung for her forthcoming album. The artist ends up getting paid more for the corporation 'buying' a copy than they would from an actual sale, so it is good for them, however I dislike the practice. It seems like an attempt to game the system and get unearned certifications.
