Amazon and TuneCore have had a major falling out over digital royalties, which has resulted in all music distributed by TuneCore being removed from the Amazon MP3 stores in the EU and UK. The tracks were removed on 24 January, with TuneCore’s Jeff Price taking to his company’s blog to explain that TuneCore’s deal with Amazon in those markets had expired without being renewed. “Although we fully intended to renew, TuneCore also had to address the fact that over the course of the agreement, Amazon had not been paying TuneCore Artists to license their songs for download in a significant number of the recordings distributed,” he writes. “We felt this put TuneCore in a position where if we renewed with Amazon in this territory without sorting out the position regarding all the rights involved, it would be contrary to TuneCore’s core business philosophy and purpose: getting artists and songwriters paid all the royalties they are owed.” Amazon has yet to comment.
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The big question is: do Amazon pay all the necessary rights for downloads in Europe or not? It would appear not from Tunecore’s statement, but why are Amazon not responding?