I hope it fades away quickly Leonard it would make things so much easier all round. I'm with you in that this should remain an Australian release because that is the only place it was made. Surely that's enough.
Oh, Phil welcome home and back to 45Worlds. I hope you had a good time away.
I sure didn't want to make this International. Avoiding this category like the plague.... when the first of the bootleg series was released we had a big Dylan action in the shop. Gave away hundreds of promos, had a subscription with a free T shirt etc. The Materpieces cd was one we had also on offer, I even think it was a cheapie. For me this release is in it's rightful place. I clicked I Own and changed the thumbnail for my list. If I wanted I could also make a note. SLowly but surely the International category will fade out I hope. Next thing to attack is the Sony and Universal label avalanche.
Where am I, you asked, Lee? Out of my brain with jetlag, I only arrived back from OS last night. Anyway, original Australian release date of this collection was 22nd August 1988, on the CBS label. As this one is on Columbia, 1991 would be the earliest possible year, but Platterlog didn't relist Columbia pressings of existing CBS release with new dates.
No mention of this in the few UK Music Master/R.E.D. catalogues that I have from the early 90s, so if this was available in the UK, it must have been imported by individual shops and not distributed by CBS/Sony. If it had been distributed by that company, then I think it would qualify as a UK as well as Australian release, and thus international. I can't speak for Netherlands or anywhere else. I'm inclined to think that this was an Australia-only release unless anyone has information to the contrary.
Why the Netherlands? The only European territory this would have sold in any numbers would be the UK. But that's a no-brainer.
This was sold for full retail price and generally available upon release from Tower Records, which is where I bought it. It may very well have had an Import sticker on the cellophane wrap.
But who would keep that for evidence 26 years later?
This International stuff is a load of nonsense. Who cares where a disc is sold outwith its intended market.
By the logic being applied here - If it was a UK release, but got sold in Australia, it's somehow deemed as International.
However, if it was an Australian release, but also sold in UK - and to be deemed as International requires to have an Import sticker - otherwise remains as Australian - how does that figure?
Does the presence of a sticker make that decision? Surely not!
This Australian nonsense is completely screwing the whole thing up.
What about all the USA manufactured discs that are sold in Canada - why aren't they being labelled as International?
The sooner this International and for that matter European category nonsense gets lost the better.
The only thing that matters is the original heritage of the disc.
PhilMH we need your help where are you???
Leonard, if these were exported, obviously they were, it depends on how they were sold whether they're international or not. Sold as imports then they stay Australian. Sold as a regular release then they are international but this is much harder to prove. I'm sure you know all this already but it does expose the intricacies your problem.
We Australians are lucky on the site to have PhilMH who is very good at tracking down actual release dates, chart positions, contemporary advertising and the like that prove a CD was released here as a regular release. Unfortunately, you are now in that position now and need to prove that this was released as regular release in the Netherlands or Europe in order to change this to international. This where the international category becomes a very difficult customer and tracking down evidence can be hard not to mention very time consuming.
All I know about this one is that it was released three times with the same details but different covers. Whether Sony shipped them to other markets and sold them as local stock I don't know. I'm off to work now but I'll have a think about it and see if I can come up with anything that may be able to help you out.
Oh, the only other thing I know is that this was always sold as a discount CD in Australia at about 2/3 regular price.
@leewrecker Lee, I need your help! I've got this set with the same cat# and barcode. But a different front and booklet layout. Also the cd's have a different layout and carry a labelcode LC 0199, but are also made in Australia. On the front are two stickers 1. Specially remastered 2. Dylan Originals - 30 Years On Columbia. I remember selling these cd's in my shop. I think these were exported for use on the European market, but wouldn't make this release "International". Do you (or anybody else) know more about this release? Will add images here.