25% of CDs ‘Fulfilled by Amazon’ Are Counterfeit, Major Labels Say
Paul Resnikoff August 14, 2019
Amazon is riddled with counterfeit CDs, says the RIAA.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents major labels Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music, has made a stunning discovery. Per RIAA findings, 25 percent of CDs ‘Fulfilled by Amazon’ are knock-offs.

“Alarmingly, 25% of the purchased CDs that were ‘Fulfilled by Amazon’ were counterfeit,” the group flatly relayed.

Amazon’s ‘Fulfilled’ program allows third-party sellers to reach Amazon customers, with Amazon handling the shipping chores. “With Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you store your products in Amazon’s fulfillment centers, and we pick, pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products,” Amazon explains on its site. “FBA can help you scale your business and reach more customers.”

The 25% claim, which was made after RIAA placed a number of orders on Amazon, eBay, and additional online marketplaces, is accentuated by other alarming statistics.
16 percent of the CDs bought from eBay were found to be counterfeit, as were 11 percent of those bought from Amazon proper. The latter figure is especially shocking, as it indicates that more than 1 out of 10 items shipped by Amazon itself are fake. “A recent sample purchase program found 11% of new CDs offered for sale on Amazon were counterfeit, and 16% of new CDs sold on eBay were counterfeit,” the group relayed.

Also, 100 percent of the CD box sets bought by the RIAA — 40 boxsets on eBay, 32 on AliExpress — were found to be counterfeit.
Naturally, these items’ generally higher sales prices attracted more counterfeiters; however, that means record labels and artists lost substantial sums on would-be sales. Because of the value of these items, one would assume that the RIAA prioritizes their removal from e-commerce sites.
The mentioned elements of the report represent a small portion of its total text, as the final five (of seven) pages highlight the various steps, measures, and procedures that the RIAA believes will reduce and eventually eliminate counterfeit CD sales.

Each of these suggestions depends heavily on the cooperation of eBay, Amazon, and other online marketplaces, though these companies haven’t yet issued a public statement on the matter. In all likelihood, each marketplace will only clean things up if presented with serious threats, legally or otherwise. A voluntary crackdown could substantially reduce profits at each seller, especially if heavy sellers close their accounts.

While the growth of music-streaming platforms has fundamentally changed the ways that artists and record companies earn money, CD sales are still significant. In 2017, for instance, CD sales accounted for $1.5 billion in revenue.

With this figure and the high counterfeit rates in mind, it isn’t difficult to understand the RIAA’s concern. It’ll be interesting to see how eBay, Amazon, AliExpress, and other online-shopping brands ultimately respond to the issue.

Yikes

I'm not surprised by this at all as I've been hearing lots of stories and reading reviews of Amazon orders on CDs as being of questionable origin.

One thing I loved about this article all the doomsayers about the end of physical product should read:

CD sales are still significant. In 2017, for instance, CD sales accounted for $1.5 billion in revenue.

Digital Music News reports claims by the RIAA. Two entities that would love to scare people away from buying physical discs and go all-streaming instead.

But let's assume for a moment that there's any truth in this. What did they buy on Amazon and eBay to test their theory? I'd wager it was all chart hits. Pop, hip-hop, rap and maybe some very big current rock releases. "Fulfilled by Amazon" products are sent to Amazon by third party sellers in quantity, after all, they're not one-offs or collectables. Each "fulfilled by Amazon" listing also clearly shows the seller who provided the merchandise, so if you buy from third parties and already have a purchase history with sellers that you trust, you should continue to favour those sellers.

My buying habits won't be changing at all.

Good points, Linda. Fakes are most likely going to be "mass quantity" CD's, not that one out-of print 60's obscurity you're thinking about buying. Actually, while I've done tons of mail-order purchases in the past, it's never been with Amazon or Ebay.

I live in China and there are a lot of fake box sets. I saw a fake Black Sabbath box set that looked so amazing but after close inspection on the internet it actually has never been released in this format.

I almost got suckered into buying a cheap Bowie box from a Facebook ad. But it just didn't feel right, and I decided it must have been a fake.

Can anybody say "Willful Blindness"?

Personally, as long as they keep those radio broadcasts coming from the UK I am a happy camper.

I don't find this at all credible. I buy a ton of CDs from amazon, and I can't think of one I received that the CD and packaging itself did not look like the real thing. I can recognize a CDR when I see one, and I can tell a photocopy from legitimately printed artwork. If these are counterfeits, they must be spending a ton to pass them off as legit. And, given that amazon presumably buys its product from the labels, how in the world could 11% of CDs you buy from the company itself be fakes?

Color me skeptical. This is an industry, after all, that once claimed to be losing more per year to home taping than they had sold in a year.

The record industry itself has always treated its customers with such dignity and respect.

I don't doubt that the RIAA's claims are inflated, to the extent that many Amazon listings contain little indicators that the product is probably counterfeit (it ships from China; it being offered at 60% off less than a year after release, etc.) making it very possible to cherry-pick certain items, order them, receive them, and accurately announce that 100% of those items are fake.

(As for AliExpress, I would be shocked if anybody has ever purchased any boxed set from them--or practically anything at all--that turned out not to be counterfeit.)

I just don't know that asking Ebay or Amazon to crack down on this would accomplish anything. We're not talking about some schmo slapping together phony Miley Cyrus CD's in his basement with a CD burner and a desktop printer and selling them online for nine bucks a pop--we're talking about criminal racketeering on an international level. I don't know what role organized crime plays in the music industry these days, but previous connections between the industry and organized crime are well-documented (payola, counterfeiting, etc.)

I'm not prone to conspiracy theories, and I'm not going to say that the RIAA (or Amazon or Ebay, for that matter) is run by gangsters, but I do think that these organizations (particularly the RIAA) only take an interest in preventing these activities when it affects their bottom line. (If the artists are the only ones getting ripped off? Not so much.)

I am much more dubious of Amazon's "Manufactured-on-demand" practices.

If the major labels only sampled top selling artists, doesn't matter if that would be Justin Bieber or The Beatles or Guns n' Roses, I wouldn't be all that surprised if the number did get up to 25%. There are a ton of high-quality counterfeit CDs floating around out there, and there is probably little doubt that fakes end up getting cycled in with legitimate stock with pretty much all the retailers. I would pay $100 for a legitimate copy of something rather than paying $10 for a quality fake, and I do everything to avoid buying a counterfeit, but in a collection of several thousand CDs, I'd be pretty surprised if there aren't at least 10-20 counterfeits mixed in there somewhere.

I just can't wait for the industry to flat out tell consumers to buy the higher priced vinyl because the consumer risks buying a counterfeit when they purchase a CD. Because as all of us who collected vinyl in the 70's and 80's...we all realize that it's impossible to bootleg a vinyl LP, LOL.

Just had another Amazon 3rd party seller send me a CD single with a different tracklist than the one I was trying to buy.

Part of me wonders if the recurring problem with 3rd party Amazon sellers sending out the wrong version of these singles might boil down to Amazon's use of the ASIN number, rather than the barcode actually printed on the label of the disc.

The ASIN number is relevant only on Amazon; the barcode on the label is relevant to, oh, the entire rest of the internet, including but not limited to the entire universe, known or unknown.

In other words, I can go on Discogs, type in the barcode of the CD that I am holding in my hand, and a listing for that CD pops up.

How are Amazon 3rd party sellers finding the correct ASIN number to list a disc they have in stock--do they have access to some resource that matched barcodes to ASIN numbers? Or are they just typing in the title and seeing what matches the cover art like the rest of us poor schlubs?