I got a mail this morning that caught my eye, perhaps because of the Cloq Werks name and perhaps because it was all about vinyl. Interest piqued, I dug a little deeper and found exactly what I had expected to. But rather than write a whole piece about timecode vinyl, I am instead going to write about the angle that they’ve taken.

Cloq Werks make custom control vinyl in a plethora of colours to work with Serato Scratch Live. I had to dig hard to find that reference, and it was only mentioned once on their Facebook page and only alluded to as “SL” in the email. Obviously, they’re being very careful not to lean too heavily on the established brand.

Their unique approach is this – because you bought the timecode licence when you bought the Scratch Live package, you’re entitled to have backup copies of that timecode that you already legally own. And Cloq Werks are quite happy to create and supply a backup of your timecodes – for free. You’re actually making a voluntary donation to them for their time and materials to safely backup the recording that you already own. They are not selling you the original timecode signal recording because you already own that. They go to great pains to stress that you’re not buying anything and they’re not selling anything. Allegedly. But I’m not a lawyer though.

Sounds like a plausible spin of the law, and they do seem to have done their research on this. The splash screen on the site lists legal statutes and even links to the scary RIAA as corroboration. Feels more like a leap of faith through a legal loophole than a legitimate thing though.

The “backups” as they’re described are available for donations of between $9.99 for a pair of black ones right up to $39.99 for a pair of white ones. But how do you feel about this? While Cloq Werks may well be exploiting a loophole, or even operating fully within the law for all I know, it doesn’t sit right with me that any money I might spend doesn’t go back to the developers of the original product. I know you really REALLY want those elusive and expensive Serato whites, but is it because you want white vinyl, or because you want SERATO white vinyl?

Given the wide ranging cross section of readers we have on here, is anyone qualified to comment on how legal this actually is?