Amoeba Vinyl Vaults
edulus
421 Posts
Vinyl Vaults is our boutique, curated collection of digitized vinyl and 78s, available for download exclusively here! Vinyl is the ultimate expression of an artist's work, and we're doing our best to preserve our history! Enjoy the depth and warmth of these vinyl masters, and for the full sonic impact upgrade to M4A (Lossless) or WAV Files.
http://www.amoeba.com/music/vinyl-vaults/#page-1
When a sale is made, Amoeba puts the money into an escrow account. Owner Jim Henderson told Variety that he's more than willing to work with whoever owns the rights to the music. "If (someone says), 'That's mine,' well, OK, we can either take it down or we'll sell it, and you've got this nice (digital) master. We'll sell it, we'll promote it; let's sign a contract."
http://pitchfork.com/news/49359-amoeba-music-digitizes-sells-rare-and-out-of-print-records-on-revamped-website/
Seems a little shady, no?
Comments
Yes, very.
Discussed at length here:
http://waxidermy.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=44733&sid=0e174e85a06b9b387e6d3b1f8089bd25
Putting money in escrow in lieu of licensing is not legal, and many of these 'obscure' artists and labels they 'can't find' can easily be found in about 30 seconds of googling.
If you wanted to work on the project you had to sign a disclosure agreement.
I think it's somewhat of a hail Mary attempt. They balled the fuck out of control and made millions and then things changed. Back then, I got the sense that it was sort of like a last ditch effort and if things went terribly wrong...pull the plug on everything and run, physical stores too. There were some weird meetings back in those days.
Those Amoeba parties on Treasure Island sounded like a good time.
Those continued past the glory days. I wasn't even there for the glory days, but from what I can tell, money was just pouring in. And then...
it wasn't. I'm sure they still do fine, but they were ballin. It was a pretty cool place to work. You could borrow anything used. You just signed it out. They even loaned employees money. That baffled me. Broke SF kids working for cheap and they'd basically take cash advances to pay rent.
This is the best synopsis I've heard yet on the matter. This whole thing reeks of desperation and an accompanied lack of respect for music history.
This doesn't jibe with the fact that there are currently only 1,000 titles on offer in the "Vinyl Vaults". Some of the titles are 45's or 78's which take like 10 minutes to rip and process at most. WTF is going on here? Ten employees working full time could digitize most strutters' entire record collections in less than a month.
Yes. This is bootlegging by any other name, and smart bootleggers don't draw attention to their activities. Amoeba has a worldwide name based almost entirely on the secondhand vinyl trade, and this misguided and, it appears, clueless attempt to muscle into the digital market by using their stock to gain an advantage could seriously damage it. If they think rights owners are going to do much else other than hit them with either a lawsuit or a DMCA takedown notice, they're in for a surprise.
haha wait wat
Yeah, because me or anyone else downloading music for free is exactly the same as what Amoeba is doing.
I didn't mean to suggest this is not bootlegging. It clearly is.
But you all are acting like this is the first web site to try to monetize others music.
You know what I think is shady? I think itunes having exclusive internet rights to selling music downloads is shady.
I think any and every music retailer should have the right to buy and resell music from a distributor, same as cds.
I think artist getting paid a license rate instead of a sale rate for itunes sales is shady.
This story is nothing but a yawn.
This guy [http://www.cd-choice.com/] has been doing the same thing for years and anyone who shops on gemm or musicstack has run across his ads.
This is one of many stories we have seen posted over the years about how dumb Amoeba is and, how they will soon be out of business.
This all misses the point, for me anyways.
As I said in the Waxidermy thread - it's the sheer pointless stupidity of it.
They aren't 'preserving our vinyl legacy' or whatever vainglorious mumbo jumbo they're puffing this up to be. They sure as shit aren't making their money back, especially considering the mostly tepid and uninteresting titles they are doing so far. And more likely than not, Aaron Fuchs or somebody like him is just salivating over the mega lawsuit they'll unleash on them - one they will almost certainly win.
The level of delusion is stupefying, and I can't help but think that there's some ego-driven false sense of nobility behind it.
Absolutely. If anyone brings the pain to Amoeba over this, it'll be a lone-wolf indie hustler like Fuchs.
One of the 'obscure' labels they 'can't find' is Ovation - owned now by Tuff City.
I don't know that this is obscure and it certainly isn't good ^^^
Sorry for the overdramatized title??? who can resist the opportunity to play on Amoeba???s unusual name? Don???t get us wrong, Amoeba has been a major supporter of Numero Group???s many releases, and the Numero Group itself. As it???s been well established with numerous Numero promotions and appearances at Amoeba over the years, Amoeba is one of our favorite stores (when the New York Times interviewed Rob Sevier and Ken Shipley about why they are aloof concerning their Grammy prospects, Amoeba let them hang out in their back room to do it.) It???s sort of Numero???s home away from home in Los Angeles, and not a visit to that fair city goes by without a pop-in. We love going to the store, we can???t deny it, and it pained us to have to be somewhat critical when asked for a response to their recent Vinyl Vault project which seems, on scratch paper, to be a great idea??? however, the ???due diligence??? (in making sure that copyrights are truly orphaned) has been less than exemplary (a handful of titles we have a stake in, or manage completely, appeared on the site for sale??? and have pretty much all been taken down.) Our position on the matter is pretty simple, and we hope it comes across in the article: we, at Numero, ask for permission because it???s the legal, moral, and the smart thing to do (for a company planning to stick around along time). It makes our job harder when someone skips that step, whether with ill will in mind, or best interests at heart. Many of the artists we???ve dealt with have become cagey from all the bootlegging they???ve experienced and the prospect of a legitimate release that hopes to lavish attention on their music (what we intend to provide) is greeted with suspicion. That???s just one of many, many concerns that selling music digitally without the owners permission brings up, but it???s the part most meaningful to us.