Not true.It's not necessarily an indicator of the file quality on the original CD itself.
Early on, manufacturers could not digitally remaster the back catalogs of record labels fast enough to keep up with the growing demand for CDs. They could however, make a ton of revenue on compulsory licensing which essentially allowed others to create and distribute new CDs of previously released material. In addition, similar CDs produced in Europe and China also made their way into our markets. A lot of these hastily produced CDs were mastered from questionable source material - including vinyl records and cassette.
If you grab some Greatest Hits discs by classic artists - you'll inevitably hear some that contain the pops, clicks, wow, and rumble of a vinyl record. An easy find in this category is "Chubby Checker's Greatest Hits." At one time I owned as many as 10 different varieties of this title - only 5 of which were actually "Digitally Remastered" and took up permanent residence in my mobile music libraries.
As for the OP - he's referring to tracks purchased and downloaded online. The sampling rate for these is typically set by the distributor.