Sell Your Music on iTunes Music Store 432
Photo_Designer writes "CD Baby is now accepting music to be sold via digital distibution through iTunes Music Store, Listen.com and others. Their cut is 9 percent. The artists get 91 percent of the sale and retain all the rights to their music. There is a $40 fee for each album submitted. It will be interesting to see how much indie music gets on and how it does. Imagine being a touring indie band and be able to tell people to go to iTunes and buy your songs; it seems this could be a huge boon to musicians wanting to circumvent/boycott/avoid/destroy the RIAA." Note that this is not an agreement to get on iTMS or any other service, only for CD Baby to be your distributor. iTMS can still reject your sorry attempt at fame.
Just Checking (Score:0, Insightful)
We hate buymusic.com, because it uses evil DRM, is that right? I want to make sure. Cause it seems like itunes.com uses DRM also. I guess it's okay though because that is an Apple thing. I would never accuse Slashdot people of being hypocrites, of course... I just want to make sure my opinions are "slashdot-correct". There is no way slashdot people are hypocrites.
Looks like a good deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, this could bring a fair amount of indie music to the iTMS. Personally, I'm all for it. Hopefully, CD Baby can get the word out effectively.
Great idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless, the RIAA have done themselves no favours with their continued insanity, and this iTunes venture comes on the heels of Michael Jackson (he may be a nutter, but he's one of the top grossing artists of all time) saying that going to jail for downloading MP3's is nuts and that the RIAA needs to find a new solution rather than making criminals out of people.
So, anyone care to start an "RIAA Dead Pool". I reckon they'll be dead and gone by 2007.
Go forth, but cautiously... (Score:4, Insightful)
novellty press (Score:1, Insightful)
By the way I'm launching a newservice , you send me money and I'll try and make you famous if other people think your good enough and if you become famous I want a 9% cut . I wont do much with the $40 except take your demo tape and rip it in mp3 and put them on kazaa ; but hey its good exposure?
Bunch of morons.
Note in a bad sense , morons are easy to get money from.
Re:What abount major artists (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just Checking (Score:4, Insightful)
We like the iTunes Music Store because it uses reasonable DRM and a good format.
See the difference?
Re:Great for highschool bands (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a good point. There would be labour overhead and storage costs for each album. Even if they fully automate the submission process, can Apple swallow the cost of thousands of albums sitting on their hard disks?
What Apple might do is have a sales cut-off for artists, and maybe labels too. Sell a certain amount within a certain time or get kicked.
Re:Just Checking (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What abount major artists (Score:3, Insightful)
As for artists that have already signed, well, they're screwed.
Re:Great for highschool bands (Score:5, Insightful)
What I want to see... (Score:3, Insightful)
IF they get someone on there, then I can jump for joy; until then, it could very well be bogus. Only time will tell...
Re:91% of what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not what it seems?... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you do not have the money from gig sales to pony up the CD production costs, and the $40 fee, then sorry, your music probably sucks and the online services are better without you and other no-talented musicians saturating the service.
Not that I am attacking you personally, but really, if one is serious about making music then there should be no issue in spending a few thousand bucks producing a studio quality CD.
Re:Why deal with CDBaby ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course, that's a general rule: middlemen will always be part of a capitalist economy. 9% may be too much to make the service worthwhile for artists, and it may just as well be too little for CDBaby to break even. In either case, market pressures will correct it.
Re:Why deal with CDBaby ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. Apple's already said they're going to deal with only distributers. Smart decision if you ask me, you don't want to have to become a record company and deal with all that hassle (A&R, contracts, etc), plus you want to remain "neutral" so as to not piss off the other record companies. Not to mention 2 living Beatles, one tone deaf asian widow and the reincarnated soul of George in the form of a goat would sue you faster than you could say "Apple Records".
Re:Great for highschool bands (Score:5, Insightful)
$40 helps cut the crap (Score:3, Insightful)
HP had to lose the 1-800 number because so many people were calling about inane things and preventing the techs from helping people with actual problems.
By charging a relativly small fee they cut off the bottom of the bucket (like people who sing songs about Laci Peterson) and encourage better bands not to rush their album into release.
Ben
Re:Just Checking (Score:1, Insightful)
On the other hand, if 40 million people didn't like MY product, I would rethink my strategy (as opposed to saying that there is something wrong with 40 million people).
Re:What abount major artists (Score:3, Insightful)
However, they will miss out on the promotion that the dollars of a big label can provide--and, like it or not, that's how music gets heard. You'll still have the indies with their websites and live venues; presumably both will direct you to their stuff on the iTunes Music Store, cool. But you're not likely to hear them on the radio, nor are you going to see any print ads. Probably not interviews, either.
So you'll still have to know where to look on the iTMS, or you'll have to browse really deeply.
I think this is a great opportunity--don't get me wrong. But Britney isn't going anywhere.
Duhhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck that. Anyone who doesn't sell will either become discouraged and get a real job, or will persevere until they become great.
There are how many bloggers out there?
The cream will rise to the top even without the old maids at the churn.
Re:Great for highschool bands (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Proper Job... Finally... (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
A nice idea, but imagine what it would be like in practice? Britney, Christina, and friends would all have amazing karma and artists like Brian Eno would languish at the bottom of the Hellmouth because mainstream people wouldn't get it.
I think Amazon has been quite successful in avoiding this. You search on specific key words and then look at ratings and reviews. They also have tips such as "people who bought this also liked that". This could work for music also.
Tor
Don't get your hopes up. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're a touring indie band, you probably already have a record label. Indie means not on a major label. It doesn't mean unsigned. This service is to get unsigned artists a representative to push your music in the digtal world.
"it seems this could be a huge boon to musicians wanting to circumvent/boycott/avoid/destroy the RIAA."
If you don't have a record label, you won't get any radio airplay. For your $40, CDBaby will listen to your music, take the best of what they get, and hope someone like Apple is willing to sell it online. Whether or not anyone previews it and buys it is anyone's guess.
Because CdBaby isn't run by greedy fools? (Score:3, Insightful)
Last I looked, CDbaby wasn't trying to co-opt Madonna and Linkin Park. CDBaby stands by its own artists and doesn't try to osmosize the copyrighted works of other studios.
And that's why CDBaby won't become another MP3.com.
Re:Great for highschool bands (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you were talking about iTunes, which already has contracts with the RIAA, and consequently cannot be sued by them.
Don't take offense, I don't mean to single you out - but I find comments like this truly depressing. Somehow the RIAA seems to have subliminally brainwashed us - even though of us who are anti-RIAA - into believing that any sort of convenient digital music service must be illegal on some level.
-j
Re:$40 an album seems cheap (Score:3, Insightful)
>your digital distribution rights and I will guarantee your
>album will do just as well as it would have with CDBaby.
Do you have a contract with Apple?
I strongly suspect that CDBaby does, considering the past announcement wrt independents comming in to the iTMS was from their website.
> Storage and maintenance is not cheap for sites like
> ITune.
They get XServes and XServe RAID arrays at cost. At 1MB/min (approx, a little less actually) a 70 min album costs approximately 70 MB.
For *us* cost per GB on an XServe RAID is $4.36, or 0.00436 cents per MB. That means it would cost them about 31 cents to host the song, assuming that they pay what we do for memory (which, for a point, they don't--they get the machines at cost).
Yes, there are other issues (like the server to host them, &c), but these are not insurmountable obsticals when you can make storage that cheap.
> Why would Buy.com or ITunes take no name junk from
> somebody like CDBaby when they don't have other "Hot"
> titles to even things out???
Because CD-Baby is signing a contract with them and I think that just about anything that CD-Baby submits, they will host in accordance with that contract.
Re:Dude, thats almost flaimebait. (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't expect to use MP3.com or iTunes to find music that is totally new to me. At best, I'd maybe use them to check out other albums by artists I already know of.
It seems to me that streaming services, such as live365, are where one would go to find new music. Listen to streaming stations that play the kind of stuff you like, and then go to MP3.com or iTunes to buy it.
Wait a second... (Score:4, Insightful)
These aren't physical CDs, they're just music files, so why is CD Baby taking a continual 9% cut of your music?
Anyway, for most bands it's tough enough getting people to listen to your songs even if you put them online for free. So, this is probably just another way to coax money out of indie hopefuls.
Re:Great for highschool bands (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's that simple. You need a lot more infrastructure than just enclosures. You need somewhere to store the systems, power, cooling, someone to manage them, redundancy, especially if you're going to use IDE drives. And you've also got to contribute to the head office costs. It all adds up.
Even if you multiply that by 10, which is not unreasonable, it's only about $200K for their current load. But then you've got to consider return on capital. They need to make money on their investment, say at least 10%, probably more like 20%. So they need to make say $30K. With depreciation (33% a year) and gross margins of about 30%, they probably need to sell somewhere around 15% of their catalog each year to make a modest profit. Maybe double that to pay off the R&D on developing the shop in the first place.
The question then is can they sell 15-30% of songs from "all-comers" each year? I doubt it.
whoopty-doo, digital distribution! (Score:5, Insightful)
Just ask an indie artist when the last time someone downloaded their free MP3s off of Kazzaa... even providing the content for free will not guarantee anyone will ever download it.
What the labels get the big $$$ for is promotion, at least that is what they tell the artists. The labels have the connections... they can get you on the radio, opening for a popular band or a guest spot on Letterman etc. This is what makes the difference between selling 10,000 albums and 500,000 albums.
There are a ton of companies that distribute indie artists' albums, but these companies do little or no promotions beyond a "featured artist" list on their website or a sampler CD with new music.
The company that can find a way to connect with listeners and invade existing promotion channels while creating a new model that provides the artists with the bulk of the $$$ and provide direct digital distribution will change the industry... believe me, I have been cooking ideas related to this for years. I would love to see the industry turned on its ear.
If you have an existing fan base, this might be a great way to get your music out there without the expense of pressing CDs... but it will be catch-as-catch-can unless you have some kind of promotion tied to it.
But as far as I am concerned, much of what I hear is idle words... if you want to support indie artist, hit one of your local music venues and pay the $10 cover and you will discover that there are a ton of fantastic artists out there... nearly all of which will never make big $$$ playing music. The catch is that by going to a show, you may create a greater demand for physical or digital distribution of indie music. And if you are the type that doesn't actually have social interaction with others, spend some time on MP3.com listening to indie artists and buying their music.
Re:Just Checking (Score:3, Insightful)
So do I, but believe it or not, it was an oft-repeated criticism here in these very forums. In many a sub-thread about the merits of Ogg Vorbis, AAC and MP3, there was always one or two yahoos who proudly proclaimed that they wouldn't ever pay for anything but uncompressed audio. I don't share that opinion and neither do most others I'm sure.
We all hate and fear the RIAA and the MPAA...and with good reason. But to sit there and suggest that they should basically sell totally unrestricted digital music in the midst of the entire p2p phenomenon strains credulity to the breaking point. It just ain't gonna happen. Ever.
I'm not suggesting $0.04, but their current prices are wildly inflated.
Compared to what? The CD at Best Buy? Napster in its heyday? I don't think it's bargain-basement by any means, but the Bjork CD I bought for $9.95 beat the hell out of Best Buy ($17.99) and even the low price juggernaut Walmart ($14.99). I think given the fact that I have to provide my own CD-R balances it out nicely.
they are struggling against the huge P2P phenomenon that exploded exactly because they refused to serve the online market
First sensible thing you've said. I couldn't agree more. But life goes on. What happens now? We wait a decade or two until the entire recording industry crumbles and is reborn from its own ashes? Meanwhile we all suck tunes down from each other on the latest p2p network? Count me out. I'm suggesting that the RIAA took a timid step in the right direction, thanks to the mesmerizing salesmanship of one Mr. Steve Jobs. They started offering digital download sales with terms that people by and large would not find too onerous. That deserves to be supported.
Re:Just Checking (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not an all-or-nothing deal. They don't have to sell completely unrestricted content in order to woo customers away from illegal services. They just have to sell content with restrictions that people are willing to live with. That approach has the added benefit of actually deterring some folks from turning around and illegally redistributing it. Bonus!
If there were real competition look at what would happen if one of them did sell uncrippled files - they would capture the entire download market
You'd better pick up the phone and call the RIAA immediately. They'll be shocked and amazed at your astute analysis and immediately change all their business plans. Surely you realize that if this were really a viable way to go one of the big lables would have done it hoping to get the jump on the others. No, they all realize it's much more complicated than that. There's the nagging fact that - given the popularity of p2p networks - your legally sold content would be redistributed at about a 100% rate, every legal download being cloned hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. Again, why take this approach when they can nab virtually the same number of legit customers by offering a slightly restricted file and seeing the redistribution rate cut in half? The downside is?
even worse the MPAA, RIAA, and broadcasters are floating legislation...
Yep, they're evil. No argument. What they're doing in our capital right now is reprehensible. I myself have written several scathing emails to my elected officials about the matter. But that doens't make it any more likely - or sensible! - for them to start selling unrestricted downloads next week. I reiterate - it ain't gonna happen. Largely because they won't need to.
Re:Great for highschool bands (Score:2, Insightful)
Take this scenerio you have your CD on CDbaby for $9.95 and iTunes also for $9.95. If someone downloads it, apple takes a 35% cut and then CDBaby takes their 9%, leaving you with $5.89. If they actually purchase the CD from the website CDbaby takes a $4 cut leaving you with $5.95. Not a huge difference. Then take in the fact that you actually have to pay to master every single physical CD that is sold on the website, and at production runs of 1000 or less that's at least $1 per disc. In that scenerio selling the MP3's actually earns you more cash then selling the music from the website.
Now I realize selling the albums from your show earns you the most profit (which is also why I buy CD's at shows whenever I have the oppertunity). But there are reasons you want your music avaliable in other locations. Lets say I see a great show. I buy the disc and start playing it for my friends. They love it. Now if they only have physical CD's and the only place to get them is at their shows, my friends are just out of luck or are going to have to copy my disc. But if the band has their disc on CDBaby they can go download it or a few songs or buy the whole physical media. I can't be undercutting myself, because those customers wouldn't have bought anything if I hadn't had those options available.
The other problem is that people are looking at this in purely a money fashion. This is about more than the money. Being a closet musician myself, I know that at the level most of these guys are at there is no chance of them turning a large profit on this kind of thing. What you're really trying to do is get as many people as possible just to hear your music. That's the only way you're going to get enough following to actually get big enough to make money. Having your music in a lot of different places makes getting heard easier. Especially when all those places also provide free previews.