Has Buying an “Import” Record Gone Totally Online?

Is it just me, or have the days of buying imported records gone totally online?

For those of you, like me, who lived through the vinyl era, there was a time in the early 80’s when one of the only ways to stay on top of the latest modern rock/alternative music was to head to a few record stores that specialized in acquiring imports.  So we’d shell out the extra bucks to acquire our songs and albums, months in advance of domestic release (or sometimes without domestic release).

Now it seems that there should be a way of buying an imported record, but it appears that online stores like Amazon have this duty to the public.  So to get a hard copy, we have to shell out their price plus shipping.  And that’s okay if you buy more than a certain amount, because then shipping is free.  And it’s probably a better deal than at retail too.

BUT of course there are some songs that don’t have a physical release.  That makes wanting to buy them even more exclusive, because Mp3’s are restricted in some cases to certain territories.  So songs you can buy on US iTunes are not available on UK iTunes and vice versa.  To me this defeats the notion of an online global community because the territorial rights divide that community again.

So I’m putting it out to the online music community to get its act together and negotiate something that makes music available for purchase worldwide.  This will help artists worldwide and will also bring different trends and musical cultures together for the worldwide community to share.

I’d appreciate your thoughts.  This isn’t by any means a fully thought out treatise on the subject, just a starting point for discussion! 🙂