BEVERLY HILLS (Hypebot) — TuneCore informed its clients today that AmazonMP3 had pulled all of their recordings from sale in the UK and European Union. "Amazon removed your recordings as a result of an issue regarding royalty payments by Amazon to TuneCore customers," according to the flat fee digital music distributor.
The takedown began without notice on January 24th, according to TuneCore. Amazon sales in the U.S. and rest of the world are not affected.
Apparently the agreement between TuneCore and Amazon for UK and EU had expired. "Although we fully intended to renew," said TuneCore, they felt they needed "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."
Amazon has not yet replied to Hypebot's request for comment.
TuneCore CEO Jeff Price is hopeful that the issue can be resolved soon. "We have been attempting, and will continue to work with Amazon to sort out this matter," said Price, "even in light of Amazon’s somewhat heavy-handed approach of simply pulling all of your recordings out of their store without notice."
