Hello mijostyn,
Yes, I agree with your comments that "HD Tracks has to have permission and pay for what they do. The last thing HD Tracks wants is to get embroiled over pirating substandard copies of recordings for profit. They have a good thing going, why ruin it."
My main points are:
1. Yes, HD Tracks has to have permission and pay the recording company for access to the artist's existing master recording. And that it's in the best interests of the recording company, as well as all other parties involved, for the record company to deliver the highest quality master recording of the artist's music that they possess.
2. The main issue, as I understand it, is that the highest quality master recording of the artist's music in the recording company's possession is highly likely to be no better in quality than a standard resolution master, most likely in the form of a reel to reel tape. The provenance and sound quality level of the recorded music on this master tape, of course, is limited by the optimum specifications or capacities of the medium the master is originally recorded onto. The quality level of the recorded music, in effect, is set in stone after it's been originally recorded and cannot exceed the quality levels of the medium it was originally recorded on.
3. HD Tracks subsequently transferring this analog reel to reel master tape recording in standard resolution to a hi-res digital master recording format, therefore, has absolutely no capacity to improve the sound quality levels of the original master tape. An analogy is a photograph that is limited by the camera technology and capacities of the camera utilized when the photo was originally taken.
Unfortunately for music lovers, this means that original older music recordings, from artists that are no longer together or even alive, cannot be improved upon by transferring them to the higher capacity format of hi-res digital. The only benefit of these transfers is that these recordings are in a much more durable format that does not degrade over time or with each use.
Tim