I do not live in America and hence am not clear about the system of sales figures and charts.
There have been conflicting reports on various threads of the org regarding the fact whether the Musicology CDs which have been provided to concert goers would be counted as sales or not. While on some threads I have read that there have been past precedents in this regard and CDs which were given away on road shows were counted for the purposes of sales and charts, but on one thread someone from ‘Billboard’ was quoted to be saying that these would not be counted as sales for the purposes of charts. Someone had gone further to say that since there were bar codes on the CDs it would definitely mean that the CDs would be considered as ‘sold’ more so because the price of the CD is included in the ticket price of the concert. Would someone please offer more clarity ? perhaps someone from the record industry would be able to throw more light on the issue.

No, the free CDs don't count as albums sold.

I've been debating this too, and I've come to the conclusion that NO, it doesn't count . . .

But, I think the official version will be different, making a lot of us buy it again . . .

Actually... it's possible that the true answer could be 'yes', and they may actually count as CD sales. This being the reason...

I work in the music industry and what Prince is doing is very brilliant and smart in a business sense. If tour tickets are $150 he may have actually set up an agreement with the promoter to be selling the tickets themselves for $140 and the CD for $10 but rolling the price all into one. We wouldn't know about this but in the end every CD given away would actually be counted as a 'sale'. If you consider that he is playing approximately 60 shows in total and averaging 12,000 people a show, that works itself up to about 720,000 units sold. Brilliant move ! People may not know that they are buying the CD but it reality, they are. It doesn't matter though because if people are going to his concerts, they obviously want to be there... getting a 'free' CD is a bonus that most artists wouldn't think of. I can promise you this though, I'll bet you anything that what Prince has done for this tour with the 'free' CD's, once other bands and artists catch on to what a brilliant move this actually is, there will be a lot more people jumping on the bandwagon. Moving approximately 720,000 units during a tour (the end figure will probably be closer to just over million total) and still getting regular CD sales on top of it is a very ingenius move. Prince is still the originator and innovator...

tracychristopher said:

but the answer is actually no. in one of the articles posted here in the last few days, the author brought up the issue and checked with Soundscan, and no, they won't count.

however, they may well count as units shipped by the RIAA, which is the figure that goes toward tallying gold and platinum albums. who knows.

yeah, wasn't there something in Billboard about it, specifically stating the giveaways wouldn't count toward sales?

And let's face it: why should they?

please reply fully stating the reasons therein.
WHY or WHY NOT

Hey people, come on give us some insight. You think if teh CDs are counted, it would go No 1

All I can say, is better give it away, than finding thousands of copies on bargain bins someday....

The fact that they have Promotional copy written on the back would make me think there is no way they can be counted as sold copies.

exodus said:

co-sign...I can't imagine that a promo cd would count towards the sales tally.

tracychristopher said:

If this were true, wouldn't I be entitled to say no to one of the free CDs I'll be getting at the concerts I'm attending, and instead get a partial refund on my tickets?

I don't think anything that reads "4 Promotional Use Only" can be counted as a genuine album sale, can it?

Even if it's not counted as actual sales, the move is a brilliant gamble. If they are.....wow! Think about it..... He turns a Grammy appearance (that only us fans was looking forward to), into a sold out "last time I'm playing the hits again" stadium tour that he estimated 420,000 tix sold (2 years ago he had trouble filling 2000 seaters). Obviously now, that number is going to be a low figure with sell-outs occuring frequently. Say 500k people go to his shows, thats 400k who haven't paid attention to him in years walking away with his best advertisement in years.....a good album. Even if the release sells 100K (Overseas alone he could do that with this buzz), he walks away with plenty of loot from the tour and even better.....him back in the spotlight for his next project, and the hatchet buried with the music biz in the process (may be the most important thing to come of all this in the long run).

At a time where MJ and Janet get criticism for their actions, and Madonna needing to kiss Britney for pub, here comes re-formed Prince, blowing the crowd away with sheer talent on stage, then blowing their mind in the car on the way home.

Simply brilliant.....a huge gamble, but brilliant nonetheless.

For everyone who has dissed the possibility that Prince's brilliant move will actually count as CD sales, look at what he says in his newest interview...

"Prince even stopped his crusade against the record biz long enough to sign with Columbia for his new album, though members of his subscription-only Web site have already downloaded "Musicology." (And everyone who buys a ticket to his show receives a copy at the door.) "See, if I sell 400,000 tickets to my shows, that would make me No. 1 on the charts before I even release a CD into record stores," he says. "You feel me? Then Norah Jones is gonna have something to worry about." "

I've worked this biz for a long long time and I know what Prince is doin'. TogDog, I appreciate your reply to my comment but I wouldn't lie to fellow orger's. Prince is brilliant 100% and he knows what he is doing... !

tracychristopher said:

I noticed that and have been wondering what he means. Does he mean that by giving away the CD's, even if it doesn't chart, that 400,000 people have his CD and it's the equivilant of having a number 1 hit? Or does he mean it literally?

tracychristopher said:

Yea, he seems to think these count - maybe they do. I hope so, that would be SWEET!

now with Prince's comments on teh newsweek interview, this question becomes more complicated since he has clearly stated that he would be No 1 on the charts even before the CD hits the market (or something to this effect).

I don't know which charts Prince thinks he's going to chart on by giving away CDs free (even if they are not genuinely free because each CD's price is incorporated into the concert ticket). May make lots of $ but they're simply not sales which will be incorporated into the universally recognised charts.
[This message was edited Mon Apr 5 10:23:59 2004 by 3bogs]

armybrat said:

This topic has been discussed before so if you need further clarification you can do a search, but the answer is NO.

Reason:
1) CDs given away; they have NO barcode...they are promotional
2) They aren't scanned through Sound Scan, which keeps tracks on how many copies are sold. Many small Mom And Pop stores don't have them so, its NOT a very good and reliable system anyways.
3) He isn't SELLING the CD, just the ticket so no profit is being made from the CD per say. Just the ticket being sold. So the CDs aren't being "sold" if you get what I mean.

Well, my CD was scanned before it was handed to me in Dallas and it had a barcode on the back...

I dunno though...why go through the trouble of scanning it if it doens't count toward something???

hey come on now with Prince's statement in newsweek and the reports that the CDs have been swiped on bar code readers, this means the CDs would be counted ?