There’s much hoohah about an anti-pig page on Facebook set up by some people disgruntled over his tricks in order to get to the top of the charts.

According to this translation, just some of the tricks that the pig uses are as follows:

• – multiple versions of the album (with one of his albums reported to have… nine versions!)
• – high annual fee for the fan club
• – free hug if you buy five, photo if you buy three

To be fair, the pig is not the only artist to have many versions of an album. It’s become an industry practice to have “limited edition” and “regular edition”. The difference between the two may vary with the LE featuring personalized autographs or additional tracks or videos, while the regular is as regular as one can get. Then there would be further variations of these: combination of CD and DVD once the music videos come out, a photobook, and with merchandise. The list goes on, it depends on how creative the producers are and how naive the fans could get.

But what astounds me is… nine versions? Wow, that’s beyond creative. That’s, as a friend said, being a businessman and not an artist. I say, that’s being a scammer. And what bothers me is, in that article on CPop Access, it is noted that the pig’s fans are young and don’t have money of their own yet so they probably ask their parents for moolah to buy the album, and another one when a new version comes out, and another one… then another one. Or better still, buy three so they could get a photo with the pig or five copies to get a free hug! (The hug is not exactly free, it is worth five albums, sweetie pies.)

To be honest, I don’t care how many versions of an album an artist comes up with. As long as the industry standardize how to account for these sales. Because that is unfair to those who do not use underhanded tactics in order to corner the charts and those that do not have big companies to bankroll such practice.

Any top selling artists do this trick. Jay Chou and his merchandise. Wang Lee Hom. Jolin Tsai. Arashi. SMAP. AKB48 and their handshake events (that reminds me of the pig’s “free” hug).

It’s all about marketing.

But the industry has to do something about this.

While there’s no limit about making money how many ways you want, and there’s no limit to fans’ stupidity naivete… but such practice should seriously be r-e-g-u-l-a-t-e-d. Good business is good business, yes, but when it becomes tantamount to a scam, who’s gonna believe all those album charts now? And what’s the point of having charts? Let’s just have a free for all… free hugs anyone?

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