Sound and audio-visual archives housing historical documents such as sound recordings, still images and films, are faced with difficult decisions and costly imperatives concerning preservation, accessibility and dissemination of their holdings. They are furthermore increasingly required to find ways to market their archived materials because of the lack of institutional support and/or 'soft' funding for the on-going costs of staffing, day-to-day operations and maintenance.

This paper presents Hugh Tracey's legacy as a scientific researcher of African Music for the way in which it has facilitated the work of cataloguing and digitizing the International Library of African Music (ILAM) sound and photo collections and creation of ILAM’s on-line archive now underway. Implications of making the archive accessible through the internet for educational and research use only versus e-commerce marketing, and the possible compatibility of the two options are considered with attention to ethics and the realities of trying to determine legitimate ownership of the archived materials. The debate over commercial value vs scholarly value is considered in view of realities of the need to generate adequate funds to cover staffing and operational costs and realities of burgeoning production of on-line sound and video archives throughout the world.