>"Why wasn't this material protected in, at least, a fireproof area, or, better, in some salt cave in the Utah desert?" Normally they are kept in at least a cl

>"Why wasn't this material protected in, at least, a fireproof area, or, better, in some salt cave in the Utah desert?" Normally they are kept in at least a climate-controlled vault as the oxide will eventually start flaking off the tape if its not stored correctly. I think the issue here was the sheer number of consolidations that UMG and the record business as a whole. The article mentions that were just a tenant at that point. Since the tapes are the assets that are acquired in a merger I'm sure someone made a call to some storage facility and said "move those things over here now." And eventually it became the purview of some warehouse worker.