Tag Archive for 'digital music'

TuneCore — Helping Artists Digitally Will Now Help Sell CDs On The Cheap

Published
by
Rob Stefaniak
on February 28, 2008
in Management
. 1 Comment

TuneCore LogoTuneCore, pretty much the best thing going for Artists to digitally distribute their music through iTunes (globally) and other major digital stores (Rhapsody, Amazon, eMusic, MediaNet Digital, etc.), will now branch out into physical CD distribution on April 1, giving artists another way to sell their music.

Artists will pay an undisclosed “low” fee for the first year of distribution, and some other amount after that (a company representative says the fee will be on par with what it charges for digital distribution — in other words, next to nothing). In return, TuneCore will create a flash store that can be embedded on the Artist’s websites in order to sell the physical discs.

Artists will still manufacture their own CDs, set their own prices, and design their own cover art and liner notes. Going forward, there will also be an option to pay for CD manufacture with revenue from digital sales. TuneCore will process the orders and ship the CDs, giving 100 percent of sales revenue to the Artist.

I have used TuneCore and it is the real deal. Super easy, great accounting reports and a non-exclusive agreement of which you can opt-out at any time. Last year when I began looking for a digital aggregator to distribute an album for a band I represent, I first contacted IODA and The Orchard. They both wouldn’t deal with an Artist / Label with only one catalog release. So I found TuneCore and I am glad I did. It is truly a ‘no-brainer’. Their model is based on that of FedEx, whereas all delivery fees are paid upfront. Here is an example of how the math breaks down to distribute digital music via TuneCore:

iTunes US Store $0.99
iTunes Canada Store $0.99
iTunes UK/Europe (many stores) $0.99
iTunes Australia/New Zealand $0.99
iTunes Japan Store $0.99
Rhapsody Service $0.99
Amazon MP3 $0.99
GroupieTunes/Music.com $0.99
eMusic Store $0.99
Napster Store $0.99
Ten Songs @ $0.99 each $9.90
First Year's Maintenance (increased from $9.98) $19.98
Grand Total (for first year) $39.78

So, for an album of 10 songs it’s a grand total of $29.78 $39.78 to get the music in all the major digital stores. Then there is a $9.98 $19.98 yearly maintenance fee going forward to keep the music in the stores. The Artist gets to take home 100% of all revenues. It doesn’t get any better than that!!

UPDATE/CORRECTION from Peter Wells of TuneCore in the comments: MediaNet Digital doesn’t accept content from anyone anymore, so they had to pull it. Same with Sony Connect. They have added GroupieTunes, which goes to Music.com and does ringtones! Songs are still $0.99 each, but the yearly maintenance fee has increased and is now $19.98.

Dirt-Cheap Digital Distribution | Listening Post from Wired.com

TuneCore Will Help Bands Sell CDs on the Cheap | Listening Post from Wired.com

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Now playing: Coconut Records - Nighttiming
via FoxyTunes

U2 Manager Says Google And Its Hippie Friends Should Pay The Recording Industry — Techdirt

Published
by
Rob Stefaniak
on January 30, 2008
in Management
. 0 Comments

Longtime U2 manager, Paul McGuinness created quite a stir yesterday with his speech at the MIDEM conference. In short, he is blaming technology manufacturers and ISPs for stealing music industry money. He called on them to start taking responsiblity for the content they have profited from for years, and start sharing their revenues with the content makers and owners.

He also asked Internet Service Providers to immediately introduce disconnection policies to end illegal music downloads and urged governments to make sure they do.

Some very entertaining analysis can be found at Techdirt:

These companies, McGuinness claims, need to help out “not on the basis of reluctantly sharing advertising revenue, but collecting revenue for the use and sale of our content.”

Techdirt: Uh huh. And I guess that automobile companies should be collecting revenue for the oil companies. And, home builders should be collecting revenue for the electricity companies. And, airlines should be collecting revenue for the hotel industry. You see, these are all separate industries. They may be complementary, but it’s up to each one individually to figure out the business models that work. None should be pressured into saving the other from its own missteps.

I take issue with a great deal of the McGuinness speech, but I keep coming back to this statement:

And embedded deep down in the brilliance of those entrepreneurial, hippy values seems to be a disregard for the true value of music.

This seems to be a topic of great debate lately - the “true value of music”. As for myself, I don’t think the problem is that people don’t believe music holds no value. The problem is that people believe digital files have no value - or very little anyway. In our highly-matrixed world of shoddy hardware and unstable operating systems - vulnerabilities and viruses littering the digital ecosystem, the perception is that a digital file is so easily corrupted, deleted, lost, etc. and is simply not permanent. Why should someone pay a premium price ($0.99) for something that THEY perceive as impermanent and holds very little value (i.e. a digital file containing 3-4 minutes of data)?

Moving on, always colorful but a bit long-winded, Bob Lefsetz chimes-in with some of my favorite analysis:

Paul McGuinness just pulled a Metallica here. Another uninformed rich music industryite with no idea how the Internet and technology truly work is only going to end up a sideshow, with egg on his face. Metallica has spent almost a decade trying to come back from the brink. Will it take McGuinness that long? It will take the music business at least that long if they listen to him.

And lastly, an interesting tidbit of information was revealed by McGuinness: Universal Music gets $1.00 for every Zune MP3 player sold. We previously knew Universal was getting something back from Microsoft, but the amount has always remained undisclosed.

McGuinness Speech In Full — Billboard.biz

U2 Manager Says Google And Its Hippie Friends Should Pay The Recording Industry — Techdirt

Pint of McGuinness Stirs Heavy Industry Reaction — Digital Music News

U2 Manager Takes Internet Providers To Task — Yahoo! News

A Brave New World: The Music Biz At The Dawn Of 2008 — Ars Technica

Published
by
Rob Stefaniak
on January 25, 2008
in Management
. 0 Comments

Great article and case study on the changing music industry by Nate Anderson at Ars Technica, a technology news and reviews site. In short, CD sales are down, major label revenues are sliding, and the music industry looks to be in recession. But music isn’t dying; it’s changing…

Ok, we already knew all that, but it’s still a good read. Here are a couple of great quotes:

What’s happening is obvious; consumers are making far more purchases than ever before, but are often choosing to grab only selected tracks rather than complete albums. The album may not be dying in a general way, but it has certainly lost its importance as the primary way that buyers in the digital era get their music. Bands with a track record of putting out uneven albums won’t be able to milk that strategy for massive profits anymore, nor will any labels that nurture such acts.

It’s often said that it’s hard to compete with free, and that may be true for some segments of the population. (Are college kids ever really going to cough up much cash?) But for most adults who don’t get off on breaking the law or on stiffing artists, it’s easy enough to compete with free. Make something that’s faster, more reliable, with better metadata and album art, and a huge DRM-free selection. Throw in charts, some editorial staff, and some community features, and money is there to be made.

Throw in a solid graphic with numbers on digital and physical music sales from 2003 through 2007…

Digital And Physical Music Sales - 2003-07

Also, make sure to check out the eMusic case study on page 2. Some impressive numbers on digital downloads and the state of indie music in general is brought forward…

Internet distribution has opened up music (like many other products) to the effects of the “long tail.” Since huge quantities of goods costs so little to store and deliver, online venues can offer products that appeal only to very small numbers of people and still make money. “The long tail does better online,” said [eMusic CEO David] Pakman, saying that eMusic is proof of that fact.

A Brave New World: The Music Biz At The Dawn Of 2008

RCRD LBL

Published
by
Rob Stefaniak
on November 15, 2007
in Management
. 0 Comments

RCRD LBLA next-generation record label, called RCRD LBL launched today. It is a network of ad supported online record labels and blogs offering completely free music and multimedia content from emerging and established artists.

A joint venture of Downtown Records, the independent label behind Gnarls Barkley and others, and Peter Rojas, a journalist and entrepreneur who founded the respected technology blogs Gizmodo and Engadget, RCRD LBL is a hybrid record label and blog; its releases are to be posted on the company’s web site for downloading, free and unrestricted by digital-rights management software that limits copying.

As sited in the WSJ article, in a negative report on Warner Music Group Corp. earlier this month, Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield wrote: “A new model for music consumption must emerge, and that model most likely involves DRM-free downloadable music at no cost to consumers, fully supported by advertising.” This, Mr. Greenfield said, is a direct result of the fact that “an increasing majority of world-wide consumers simply view recorded music as free.” That report helped push down the stock of Warner Music almost 10% in a day.

Visitors to the site are welcome to download and enjoy any music posted on the site, provided it is being used for personal, non-commercial use. You can do things like make copies of the tracks and put them on all of your music-playing devices, burn them on to mix CDs for your friends, even use them in videos you make, as long as you’re only doing these things for strictly noncommercial purposes. In short: RCRD LBL is happy for you to share their music, but you’re not allowed to make money off of it. If you’d like to to use one of their tracks in any way that would be considered a commercial use, you must contact them first.

Music Test: Can a Firm Profit From Free Tunes? - WSJ.com

RCRD LBL Solves the Free Music Riddle | Listening Post from Wired.com