Well, I guess now I can return the One-Steps that I don't particularly care for, which is about all of them except for the Mingus and Bridge Over Troubled Water. So long, Eagles S/T and Desperado, Tapestry, Still Crazy...
$25M? Wow. That is a huge sum...this is not Sony, Warner or Universal and I wonder if that's going to lead them to bankruptcy; they'll also have to take returns and/or issue refunds.
I imagine they will drip feed them onto the used market, which may reduce the market price. In most cases you could get more by selling them yourself than returning for the cost price so they will probably profit from any returns.
The one good outcome surely of all this is that labels will not attempt to mislead or not publish full details in the future. That's positive, regardless of the innocence or guilt of MOFI.
Wasn't this already announced last year? Like now I think the news is just that a judge said they don't have to pay more.
Normally these sorts of class action suits seem like this to me, but not in this case. Honestly, how many buyers of these records that were falsely advertised as "all analog" bought them because they thought they were buying something "all analog" and would not have purchased them at all if they were something other than "all analog"? Anyone who did so at the very least should be entitled to their money back. They option to return for a full refund, or provide a partial cash or credit refund seems like a very reasonable settlement. If they company gets away with doing just that and is able to restore good will and trust with consumers, it will have gotten away cheaply and lived to make records another day. We'll see.
I think the folks who feign shock and disappointment at the fact that not all of Mofi's releases were AAA is ridiculous - they are the ones who are charlatans. Any collector worth there salt knows that most vinyl releases require a digital step to resurrect the original tape to a release worthy state.
Honestly, if a company sells a product proclaiming that it is one thing as part of their sales and marketing material, in order to appeal to a particular audience that cares about that thing, and then it turns out the proclamation is false, the company is liable for false advertising -- and state and federal governments could act on it -- and customers have been damaged and have a reasonable civil claim. None of of this is on the customers, and whether or not the customers believe the marketing claims is irrelevant, the only question is were they true or false.
This is my take on it too. I've noticed an increasing trend of frankly fraudulent (or purposely misleading) behaviour on behalf of record labels and distributors recently. I'm glad to see this behaviour is being called out. Recently I've pre-ordered a 'deluxe 2LP tour edition' of the an album that turned out to be a single standard edition with a single sided 7" and I've ordered coloured 'exclusives' that were standard retail copies and I've ordered copies of albums that were advertised as 'extremely limited' editions - then given a wider standard worldwide release. Then I think of all the music that has the word 'audiophile' plastered all over the polythene just because it weighs 180 grams!
“In their class action lawsuit, plaintiffs argued that MoFi’s hidden actions significantly lowered the value of their records.” Now that is rich!
That guy is a thief. I will never again place an order through his shop. Just look at his ratings on trust pilot... Snvinyl is rated "Poor" with 2.2 / 5 on Trustpilot
well, having dealt with this tonk on a couple of occasions, you're quite fortunate to actually have received the records! guy is an absolute chancer jokes aside, assuming you have some sort of proof of purchase? I'd guess you just forward these onto mofi
If working with a fragile master tape, you are going to want to make a copy but there is absolutely no reason that copy has to be digital unless you are planning a digital release. Now making a digital copy (for CD etc) and an analogue copy will cost more, so many companies skip making an analogue copy to save money. If I'm paying MoFi money for a release it is not unreasonable to assume that they haven't been cutting corners anywhere in the process. MoFi got off very lightly in this case, if it had gone to trial they may have been bankrupted which wouldn't really benefit anyone.
