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| Inconsistencies In The International Category |
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| 11th Dec 2015, 10:00 AM | #1 REPORT | |
 | Lee Wrecker If you can't dig me, you can't dig nothin' Member since Nov 2013 2283 Points | Hello All, Having been a long term user of the site last week I finally completed my cataloging my LP's and moved over to my CD collection. I read the instructions on the site and started to enter my CD's however this did not prepare me for the problems that followed. Like many of us collector types I started in "A" and one the first CD's I entered was Air's "Moon Safari" which I listed as Australian - bought in Australia, made in Australia - but I was wrong. Being unaware of the fact that if the same CD exists in another country with the same cat# and barcode the International criteria for that CD should apply. Moderators Bodston and Leonard both indicated to me that this was correct process. So armed with this knowledge I pressed on but only to get get a number of personal messages telling me I'm not entering International CD's correctly. Moderator The Vinyl Junkie and Greg78 both advised me the the point of sale is more important and that if a CD is bought in a country through a retail outlet at usual price that is the defining factor and that country should be used as a reference above all other criteria. Well lo and behold it turns out that everyone is right! Here is a link to a CD I entered as Australian http://www.45worlds.com/cdalbum/cd/724357085427 which has now been recategorised as International according Bodston's and Leonard's criteria. Now here is a link to a CD I entered using that criteria as International that has been changed to Australian http://www.45worlds.com/cdalbum/cd/724385702624 in line with the views of greg78's and The Vinyl Junkie. This has all happened in the past two days and the inconsistency of the site on this issue is very frustrating for those of us who are just collectors cataloging their stuff and don't necessarily have extensive back catalogue or distribution knowledge. I can be quite accommodating but in this situation it is currently impossible. Kind regards, Lee |
| 11th Dec 2015, 10:33 AM | #2 REPORT | |
 | Dr Doom SUBS ● I wanna eat an artichoke once in a while Member since Feb 2008 25474 Points Administrator | Yes, Sorry about this. The moderators are currently debating the very issues you've raised as it is a bit of a muddle at the moment. |
| 11th Dec 2015, 10:48 AM | #3 REPORT | |
 | RogerFoster To ignore is human, to follow is divine. Member since Jul 2014 3084 Points | Well everything is supposed to be upside down in Australia isn't it  Seriously though, we on the "top" side of the world have a similar issue (i.e. mass confusion) with the "European" category. Like you I am cataloguing my CD collection and, as the site is quite new, most CDs in my collection are not already listed here. As an example I've just entered this CD issued by "Not Now Music". I've entered the label as "Not Now Music UK", which currently has 27 CDs listed on this site (including my contribution). This seems fine to me as looking at the packaging it looks like something intended for the UK market, however it does have those confusing words "Made In The EU" written on it somewhere and if I look at the site I can see that under "Europe" there are currently 4 CDs entered as "Not Now Music Europe" with a further one as "Not Now Europe" and another as "Not Now Music Limited Europe". The 6 "Europe" Not Now CDs follow the same numbering system as the 27 "UK" Not Now CDs so I would have thought that they should all be lumped together. "Not Now" looks to be one of those "Out Of Copyright" organisations that specialises in issuing 50+ years old material, based in West Hampstead, London, and they don't look to be some International conglomerate to me (which I would have thought would be one of the criteria for determining "European" and/or "International" releases). Maybe someone here should come up with definitive rules for this and assign one or two of the Mods to keep an eye out for this and shift around Territorial Assignations accordingly. I'm not particularly concerned whether any particular CD I own is listed as "UK", "European" or "International", but there were a couple of occasions when I was cataloguing my vinyl LPs earlier this year when I entered something from scratch as "UK" without realising that it was already on the site as "European" which was a bit bewildering. Hope you don't think I'm hi-jacking your thread with this Lee, but it does seem to be part of a wider issue. |
| 11th Dec 2015, 11:18 AM | #4 REPORT | |
| Dr Doom SUBS ● I wanna eat an artichoke once in a while Member since Feb 2008 25474 Points Administrator | Yup things are a mess at the moment. We're going to have a re-think over this and see if we can improve things. If anyone has any other suggestions please contribute to this thread. Part of me wonders whether we need the 'country' field at all for CDs.  |
| 11th Dec 2015, 11:46 AM | #5 REPORT | |
 | Magic Marmalade If you're not lost... It's not an adventure! Member since Jun 2014 3774 Points Moderator | CDs are a bloomin' nightmare! Even when we finally agree on the "country", it often doesn't feel satisfactory to me, for the reason that many will be searching for their copy of a given album, and see it listed as European, or international, and think: "Well mine has all these details, but is UK etc., and so think that a particular issue is not the issue they have...even though it is  What I think we've discovered is that rather than actually being us making a mess of it, the story of the manufacture and distribution of the CDs is actually a mess at point of origin. A few factors being responsible: As the European Union has been established, and progressively included more countries, the markets, and regulations on product markings has changed. and incremental globalisation has occurred. |
| 11th Dec 2015, 1:27 PM | #6 REPORT | |
 | PhilMH SUBS Member since Jan 2012 1058 Points | Globalisation is certainly the main thing, and I've mentioned many times before how Australian record companies (and no doubt many other countries) received discs pressed in other countries before factories were established, and this still goes on to some extent, mostly with back catalogue and more "marginal" forms of music (jazz, blues, etc). It is also possible that a company's reorder of a particular item may come from a different country than its initial order, I have heard of, say, EMI receiving an initial batch of discs from Germany, but the reorder being filled from Belgium, as EMI's central ordering/warehousing/whatever department just filled the order from wherever there was stock available. As well as that, it can be hard to tell whether an item retailed in Australia is actually "released" here by a licensee, or just imported by an import distributor - I think Lee had this issue with something distributed in Australia by Shock, who have fulfilled both of the roles that I have just mentioned for different US labels. So, I am beginning to think that Dr. Doom might be on the right track in wondering whether we should have the country field at all, and just stick to catalogue number and barcode. The alternative use of the country field would be country of manufacture, which would be potentially more misleading, especially for earlier CD issues (think of discs made in Japan for US release) or particular labels (UK Decca's classical issues made in Germany with the London label for the Americas, because of the then-split ownership of the Decca name). I also think that we should use the barcode as the primary match, as formatting of catalogue numbers has varied between regions and pressing dates, for example, US PolyGram in the 90s tended to use most of the barcode as the catalogue number, whereas Europe and elsewhere used a shorter version, like Marvin Gaye's WHAT'S GOING ON was 31453-0022-2 in the US and 530 022-2 in Europe. WEA/Warner Music in Europe also tended to format the numbers differently from the US. Those catalogue number differences can be reflected in the additional catalogue number fields, along with any additional catalogue number that may only have applied for a certain country (a lot of EMI CDs carried a shorter UK number as well as the CDP xxxxx one). Any information (or strong belief) about where a particular disc was or might have been released can be entered in the comments, along with release date information, which could vary significantly from one country to another. Are there any instances of CDs having the same barcode but different track listings and/or album titles? It sometimes happened with LPs that a track listing was reconfigured or album title changed because of a hit single, and it is entirely possible that happens/happened with CDs too. So, we need to think about how to handle those if they occur - I'm undecided at the moment! |
| 11th Dec 2015, 1:40 PM | #7 REPORT | |
| PhilMH SUBS Member since Jan 2012 1058 Points | One other thing I'll mention is that sometimes CDs are stickered with a new barcode and catalogue number, either because of a change of distributor (e.g. US PolyGram buying MCA's unsold Motown stock) or to fit an overseas licensee's system (Festival in Australia applying their own barcode and catalogue number to imports on their licensed labels). These would need to have a separate entry for each barcode/number combination, with notes/comments as appropriate. |
| 11th Dec 2015, 2:06 PM | #8 REPORT | |
 | Bodston SUBS ● Member since May 2012 3163 Points Moderator |
PhilMH wrote:
Are there any instances of CDs having the same barcode but different track listings and/or album titles? It sometimes happened with LPs that a track listing was reconfigured or album title changed because of a hit single, and it is entirely possible that happens/happened with CDs too. So, we need to think about how to handle those if they occur - I'm undecided at the moment! I have found one instance of a Barcode appearing on two completely different albums over at discogs. Both part of the Cherry Red stable of labels. |
| 11th Dec 2015, 2:07 PM | #9 REPORT | |
| Magic Marmalade If you're not lost... It's not an adventure! Member since Jun 2014 3774 Points Moderator | <Sorry for that unfinished thought above... I had to leave the computer> I was also going to point to the common occurrence of having covers printed in one country, and discs made in another (others), assembled somewhere else, and for distribution in yet another or others....not a s a mis-pressing or mistake on the part of the label, but as a matter of course when they exploit the various benefits of an increasingly open market and attendant regulations. One other phenomenon has appeared a couple of times for me, and that is when a "locally made" CD is pressed for a small or emerging artist for local (national) distribution (an indigenous copy?), but as that artist or even that particular work becomes successful, production of that self same CD gets shunted to a larger European plant (or other equivalent), with only a subtle difference either on additional label, publisher or digit in the cat. (Ocean Colour Scene: Mosley Shoals, Ray Lamontagne: Trouble and others). All in all, CDs are a moveable feast, or shifting picture compared to traditional formats like vinyl in their heyday. When in doubt... ask Greg!  |
| 11th Dec 2015, 5:56 PM | #10 REPORT | |
 | gregs45s SUBS Member since Apr 2012 7614 Points | I'd love to say i have an answer MM,but,at the moment i can't think of a possible overall solution either.I feel that CD's will always be complicated,and that perhaps we are too eager in seeking an "easy fix".It's important i think,not to just have some kind of "knee jerk" reaction to the problem.A lot of time/effort has been spent by both Moderators and members identifying CD's, and to throw all that knowledge away in one fell swoop would surely be foolhardy to say the least.Indeed,there may not be one easy solution out there,but surely,just because it's difficult,it doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to try to identify the country of release.Calling everything "International"is,surely,not an option?,after all,i expect there are thousands,if not hundreds of thousands of CD's that were only ever released in one country.I'm also not so sure that the grouping together of CD's that share a common barcode may not be of help either.Very often,i have found that although a CD may share the same barcode,it is the Cat.No. which identifies the country,so,in the case of a popular CD that was released in say 5 different countries,you will quite often have 5 different Cat.No's,surely,grouping that lot together with all the potential images just because they share a common barcode would be a bit of a nightmare?.And so,personally,i think it's not too bad as it is (given the complexity of the media),and that maybe there is no one "fix all" solution,but perhaps the Mods may find one yet.;) |
| 11th Dec 2015, 7:03 PM | #11 REPORT | |
| plocky45 Member since Aug 2012 2813 Points | Lots of valid comments here. I suppose the beauty of this site is that there is a desire to gradually get things right; hopefully accuracy will increase over time as a result of the accumulated contributions of site members. From a personal point of view, I have become less ready to take the European option without some thought. With CD singles, I found that there were often, for example, European equivalent versions of UK issues. To some extent this applies with CD albums. Perhaps, there is need for sight members to not simply accept the country information on sight, but add a note/comment if they have purchased a CD in a particularly country as a standard issue, and this affects the designated country. If I see a CD with a German country of issue, but I've bought the same in HMV UK as a standard release, then I feel obliged to add a comment with a view to changing it to 'Europe'. Import sticker is also worth noting. In general, I would decide the country of issue on the basis of place of purchase, wording on the CD, fan sites, country chart information and even ebay. The latter might confirm whether a particular CD was widely distributed, whether there were other issues, even show up sticker information. There are some anomalies of course, Asia (a Sony Music Distribution Asia release is likely to be 'International'), Australasia, and the Gulf States, to name few. Overall, I am happy enough with matters, acknowledging the difficulties involved; the system perhaps just needs tweaking with some tidying up. |
| 12th Dec 2015, 12:44 AM | #12 REPORT | |
| Jasper Just keep on rolling with the flow Member since Jan 2015 594 Points | I don’t have an answer but I do believe that there should be some “easy” option for adding CDs. It really should not be necessary to have to do so much detective work just to choose a country. To me this site is still in its infancy in regard to the amount of content entered – I would have probably 600 or so CDs and only a handful are currently on this site. We should really be encouraging the adding of content rather than wasting time having to check other sites before we can tick one box. One of the first I entered was purchased in Australia had made in Australia printed on the disc and back insert – no brainer Australia of course after all nothing is made in Australia for release overseas except may be to New Zealand just to be advised no this is International – same cat. no. same barcode sold in UK. I’m sure we all have similar experiences. I can see that since Lee Wrecker has starting adding his CDs and doing a great job I may add that he is spending an inordinate amount of time just trying to get the country right rather than getting the Cd entered and moving on to the next. May be either “country” should not be a mandatory field i.e. we can come back to it at a later stage or the moderator can add as he/she feels fit or there is some other selection – “later”, “to be determined” or something more appropriate. Personally I have temporarily given up and it’s a pity if others have also done so. |
| 12th Dec 2015, 3:42 AM | #13 REPORT | |
| PhilMH SUBS Member since Jan 2012 1058 Points | A couple of other ideas: I think I once suggested the possibility of having multiple country options, and was told that it didn't work when it was tried, but maybe that could be re-investigated, as Rate Your Music have been able to do it, with some of their entries showing multiple country flags. I appreciate that it might not necessarily be easy, and could take a lot of programming work, but it might be possible. If it is done, a CD that is entered as, say, Australia, could be added to by another user to select UK or whatever as an additional country flag. Other than that, it might be helpful to think in terms of who the label/company is and who the artist is. A non-domestic artist, or a domestic artist with significant international success, and released by one of the international majors, is more likely to be an International release, whereas a domestic artist with no international profile would be a domestic release only. Examples from an Australian perspective (but the same logic could be applied to any country, using different artists as appropriate): Beatles on Parlophone/Apple/EMI - International INXS - on Mercury via PolyGram or Universal, most likely International Slim Dusty - on EMI, Australia and (probably) New Zealand only The latest X-FACTOR or VOICE winner - domestic only! (Though having said that, I notice that last year's X-Factor UK runner-up Fleur East has scored an Aussie release for her debut album!). Releases on large domestic majors, or on independents, are more likely to be for the domestic market only, e.g Distributed by Festival in Australia or New Zealand (either pressed with Festival numbers, or imported from licensors and stickered with new catalogue numbers and barcodes) - Australia and/or New Zealand only. (I have to mention here that in their last few years of operation, Festival abandoned their practice of renumbering their imports, and retained the originating companies numbers. This means that discs made by, say, ZYX in Germany, and having no mention of Australia on the packaging, might also be Australian releases. Conversely, some of ZYX's releases which do mention Australia actually weren't released in Australia, as they were already in catalogue here under Festival's numbers!). I am aware of a couple of exceptions for independents - Shock Australia used to have the rights to Anti-/Epitaph, and distributed both local and imported pressings for them. Those two labels now seem to be with Warner Music for Australia, who, for the most recent Mavis Staples EP at least, just imported the US pressing. I believe that Shock also have the local rights to the US Fat Possum labels (which includes the Hi Records catalogue of Al Green, Ann Peebles, etc). There are bound to be other exceptions, of course - the Ace group of labels in the UK would normally be UK only (due to where the company is based - ignore the fact that the discs mostly say "Manufactured in the EU"), but back in the early 2000's, they licensed a few compilations of Aussie beat groups from Festival in Australia, who then imported those compilations for domestic Australian release, therefore those can be made International. I think I mentioned before that Japanese record companies tend to do their own thing and not follow their overseas parents numbering conventions, so most of their pressings would be Japan only. (If a disc is pressed in Japan, but the package doesn't contain any Japanese text, and there is no logo for the Japanese performing rights society JASRAC, then assume that it is not a Japanese release). Also, for the benefit of Jasper, Lee, and any other Aussies who might need help, here is a link to the ARIA news page, which is updated each Friday with a list of that week's new releases (though unfortunately not listing catalogue numbers or barcodes, and they are inconsistent with their use of labels and distributors). You can continually click "Next" further down the page to access previous weeks' details, though I haven't yet tested it to find out how far back they go! Hopefully this helps to unmuddy the waters a little bit, and allows Jasper and Lee to feel more confident about continuing. However, as Lee pointed out before, it would help a great deal if all the admins and mods were on the same page! |
| 12th Dec 2015, 11:42 AM | #14 REPORT | |
| gregs45s SUBS Member since Apr 2012 7614 Points | A possible quick tweak may be just to re-brand an already existing option.Very few people seem comfortable in using the "Unknown Country" option when adding a CD,and perhaps,that may be simply because it contains the word "Unknown",and that perhaps,some sense of pride has prevented people from using it.There is absolutely no shame at all in admitting you don't know,or are unsure (especially when it comes to CD's).What about re-naming it?(CD Albums only?),perhaps something like "Awaiting Identification" or "Awaiting ID" or maybe just "Pending" or something similar,just without the "Unknown" bit;),i feel that then more people would feel more comfortable in using it when adding a CD that they are perhaps unsure of. Edited by gregs78s on 12th Dec 2015, 12:29 PM |
| 12th Dec 2015, 1:27 PM | #15 REPORT | |
| Magic Marmalade If you're not lost... It's not an adventure! Member since Jun 2014 3774 Points Moderator | I think Jasper's post probably is along the right lines. The country option is the front end, and if you are uncertain, you just won't enter the CD, being unable to get past this to the other info entry without making a mistake that some may feel unwilling to make... One of the quirks of the format I suppose, that unlike vinyl, the country (as seems to be the general feeling) should be an "Enter it if you know it" deal, and somebody at some other time can enter such info when the info becomes available or certain (to a degree). Maybe it is more helpful then to have the lead entry page as cat# or barcode (although early CDs exist without barcodes). Or just have as greg says, a little blue text on the country page saying that if you are not certain, hit unknown first. Ultimately though, I think the picture will emerge that CD entries as a whole will describe the process of conglomeration of the music industry as all it's parts gradually got sucked into the Sony/Universal Vortex... and you'd be able to chart this progress by looking at the CDs of a given time entered. |
| 12th Dec 2015, 6:09 PM | #16 REPORT | |
| plocky45 Member since Aug 2012 2813 Points | I can identify with magic marmalade's comment! Having an 'uncertain' CD to enter is akin to having a tricky piece of homework that you keep putting off. I have to make a special effort to sort one out, and in the meantime there are others waiting in a box for similar treatment. Just in case anyone's wondering, I am well passed the homework stage...although these tasks seems to have become a replacement. |
| 14th Dec 2015, 11:35 AM | #17 REPORT | |
| Jasper Just keep on rolling with the flow Member since Jan 2015 594 Points | In addition to my previous comments - just a random thought - may be there should be an "easy entry" option for country = county of purchase (mandatory field) - easy for me 600 odd CDs all purchased in Australia then a secondary category (not mandatory) = distribution zone - here we can add "International, Europe etc. who knows in the future APAC, India/Pakistan, Middle East whatever. After all International, Europe is not a country. With this all "detective work" starts with country of purchase anyway so at least we have a starting point. Of course there should be a prompt to begin with i.e. first check that there is not already a CD entry with the same bar code and cat.no. ... |
| 14th Dec 2015, 1:03 PM | #18 REPORT | |
| Magic Marmalade If you're not lost... It's not an adventure! Member since Jun 2014 3774 Points Moderator | There may be a problem with country of purchase too, as a few CDs bought within the last few years from the likes of Amazon and Play.com will be sourced from all over, as I've found a few bought from these places have been Canadian, U.S, etc. And even before these, CDs bought from the local high street store may have been subject to similar practices of commercial logistics, as if HMV, for instance, ran low on stock of a particular title, due to demand say, you could well see the store manager getting on the blower (Telephone, not Trumpet), and calling HQ to get the Bat-signal up and have a few boxes of that title ordered in from a surplus in some other country's stock, even if that stock is of the issue for that other country in particular (not European, International etc.). I suspect a few CDs bought in good faith in HMV in this way may turn out to be other country's issues.... it's only when examining a little more closely for this site that you begin to notice these things. (And they would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for us pesky kids!) |
| 16th Dec 2015, 9:51 AM | #19 REPORT | |
| RogerFoster To ignore is human, to follow is divine. Member since Jul 2014 3084 Points | I think that considering "Country of Purchase" is a very red herring!! Here in Merrie Olde England most big cities (and some quite small towns) had record shops that stocked US imports way back before CDs were even dreamt about. The practice seems to have started around the late '60s due to demand from fans of "specialist" music styles for recordings that the UK record companies had either not yet issued or that were now out of print in the UK. This was done by the individual record shops ordering direct from US distributors, having set up some sort of deal. The imports tended to be on sale at about 30-50% more than UK releases. For a few years the UK recording industry tried to curb the practice, but then there was a period around 1974 when a boom in sales of 45s coincided with a shortage of vinyl (probably due to the "oil-crisis" of 1973/4) and some UK subsidiaries of the US record companies solved this by importing copies of their hot new releases direct from the US. As an example I recall that my copy of "Rock The Boat" by Hues Corporation, bought in a "normal" UK record shop at the "normal" price was actually a US pressing. This continued into the 1980s and the CD era, and as this coincided with the international spread of retailers like HMV, Virgin, Tower and Borders the boundaries got even more blurred as they would have had their own internal distribution networks. I don't, as an example, recall there being much difference between what was on sale in the Virgin Megastore in Milan and the ones in London, or between the HMV in New York and the London ones. |
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