Techdirt: Band Banned From Charts For Being Too Well Liked

Techdirt: Band Banned From Charts For Being Too Well Liked:

"Band Banned From Charts For Being Too Well Liked
from the smash-hit dept

The popularity of downloading music is affecting an industry institution: the hit chart. In the past, it was easy enough to to tabulate sales, but file-trading, ringtone sales, and other means by which people listen to music render these lists less informative. Recently, a UK band was disqualified from the charts when it was discovered that overzealous fans were buying multiple copies of the same song. In one case a fan bought a single song 100 times. It's true that these repeat sales distort the breadth of the band's popularity, but they do indicate the intensity of the band's fans (it should be noted that the band is now imploring the fans to just purchase two copies of the album when it comes out, sort of a funny concept in the age of downloads). At a time when the industry must find new ways to monetize a band's popularity, intensity is something worthwhile to measure. Of course, if the chart keepers don't adapt they may soon be entirely meaningless. "