The Road to Copyright Hell Is Paved With Digital Dissemination

California’s Amoeba Records, one of our favorite record stores of all time (remember those things, they were stores that sold vinyl records and cassette tapes), is potentially in hot water. Seems like the notorious record store has been transferring hard-to-find vinyl records into digital files and making the available for digital purchase via their online presence.

So far so good. But, and here’s the big but, it seems that not many of the copyright holders/musicians were — or are — aware of Amoeba’s conversions and sales. Amoeba claims it has tried to contact the musicians without much luck. However, this writer for the Chicago Reader seems to have found pretty much all of them without a glitch. To be fair, Amoeba claims it is holding all profits due in an escrow account.

I’m sure it will all get squared away, and hopefully without any unnecessary legal fist fights.

Tags: amoeba records, Contracts, Copyright, digital media, music