Ah the good old days when they used to dump boxes of sealed albums. A vinyl junkie/record traders paradise. Then they started punching holes through them. Last year I did a job for Universal . They were throwing out about 500+ CD's. I saved the CDs till last, before I could take them to the truck a big wig comes along and says"Don't take them, I don't want them on the aftermarket" Next time guess what I load first?
That's how my wife used to arrange my record collection!! I bet there must be some ebay sellers out there figuring out where they can rent some tractors...
I seriously doubt that the picture is real. Someone needs to prove that that isn't just some computer graphic trick.
When the license expires and the sell through is over, what can you do? The product must be destroyed. Or maybe slip some to a half.com seller.
PhotoShop Trick or Reality? Whether or not this particular image is genuine, trust me, these things happen. Guess where all the books that don't sell at your local Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc., end up? Even if the publisher maintains stock on a title, due to the expense of reshelving and inventory taxes, it's often cheaper for them to sell returned books to remainder warehouses, or just dump them into a shredder. One of my used textbook vendors actually got into legal trouble for buying books intended for the shredder -- they were purchasing stock from a contractor that was supposed to destroy the books -- and reselling them on the used book market. I imagine it's much the same for the music industry.