ABC Records - Professional Pirate or Genuine Visionary?

Simon Tsui - Pirate or Visionary?

Classic Records warning to ABC Records (click to enlarge)

When have Diana Krall and Allison Krauss licensed their songs to ABC Records?

The huge catalog of ABC Records with its hundreds of titles, is simply mind-blogging

Chinese Audiophile label, ABC Records, is under fire from all corners and many major labels for alleged piracy and license infringement of a big scale.

Its first legal suit was the Teresa Teng series a couple of years ago. Recently, Universal HK issued another warning to ABC Records for further infringement (you can find it Review 33 ). There seems to be no remorse from ABC Records as it becomes even more blatant and daring.

We remember reading an interview on Simon Tsui, its head honcho, who said pompously: "Without ABC Records, Chinese audiophile music will go backward by 10 years." He also claimed that ABC Records has the quality of European CDs but at China's pricing.

Whether all these accusations are truth, half-truth or pure lies, ABC Records CDs still sell by big volumes. If anything, it shows that Simon Tsui is a top-notch marketeer who knows how to play and toy with audiophiles' weaknesses.

Why, you may ask, that they can't be prosecuted or sued since all there is so much evidence? Hey, We are talking about a Chinese label governed by the laws in China. And that means, everything and anything goes! There is no way major labels from overseas like Classic Records can do anything about them.

Rumors also have it that Chinese audiophile singer Shirley, is not from Paris, as claimed by ABC Records. And the recording was also not done in Canada as claimed. Shirley sings in a bar in Shanghai and the recording is done in China. So much for clever marketing and audiophile guillibility.

Too often, we audiophiles are easily fooled by all those technical proclaimation (the what XCD, ABCD, XYCD, ZZCD, German Pressing, Western Electric Sound etc etc) and the tendency to believe too readily and therefore to be easily deceived.

It makes you wonder if we ever use our ears to judge critically.

Time to wake up.