A little more on Victory

I know the last post was a little out of the ordinary for this blog, but this Victory Records story is something I want to pursue. I’ve been getting information from my friend Jack all day today about it (the bass player of the Acacia Strain who I mentioned in the last post), and I want to see this through to some kind of justice.

Jack told me he found out a bit more from an employee of Victory about what they’re supposed to do in CD stores. If they see any CDs by AFI, they’re supposed to put Aiden in front of it. If they see Paramore, 1997 goes in front of it. If they see Beloved, A Day To Remember goes in front.

I also found more evidence of this, but on a greater scale. Here’s the message Victory released to their street team in March of 2006, posing as one of their bands, Hawthorne Height.

“As for Ne-Yo, the name of the game is to decrease the chances of a sale here. If you were to pick up handful of Ne-Yo CDs, as if you were about to buy them, but then changed your mind and didn’t bother to put them back in the same place, that would work. Even though this record will be heavily stocked and you might not be able to move all the stock, just relocating a handful creates issues: Even though the store will appear to be out of stock, the computer will see it as in stock and not re-order the title once it sells down and then Ne-Yo will lose a few sales later in the week.”

Hawthorne Heights has since brought up legal action against Victory Records, accusing Victory of fraudulent accounting practices and “severely damag[ing] the band’s reputation and relationship with their fans.”