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Shipping, storing and setting up a website for a thousand cd's is not that of a big deal; there are plentoria of services around, ready available for the artist. Package handling and all that jazz is possible using open source software. Nobody told music is a career which starts from the first CD or did we?

It depends all in how far you want to go; since; Amazon is looking to this in a very commercial way for those who like to pay up for it; although those knowing the ropes will be rather selecting the real thing with all links attached instead of hanging with an Amazon solution... Maybe you are one of those people who sticks with Google tools only till something bad happens ;)

Also, Amazon does not offer which a custom e-shop can offer, a custom website, defined towards the artist, integration and all that; which is not that expensive either these times!... Still, Amazon or a custom solution doesn't guarantee your cd will be either succes from the first beginning ...

This is not entirely true in Europe, where licenses are still restricted by the artist copyright agencies. I've got my music distributed through Tunecore, which is an aggregrator and still I am missing a lot of income because my artist rights are not fully defended through exclusive contracts via a private company...

This is managed by Sabam, our RIAA in Belgium, which demands exclusive contracts like many others in Europe. They demand everything or nothing; which will limit the artist to promote and distribute his music without paying blood money.

• IF we sign up (Sabam, really for the common?):
  1. Our Creative Commons licenses would cost us, artists, creating the works.. money!
  2. Any distribution would cost us money, copy to cd is a minimal license of 150 pieces limited to the cd which you have subscribed for;
  3. Copy to USB key would cost money too with a minimal amount of blood distribution money;
  4. Free licenses wouldn't really be free, because they will collect royalties on the ARTIST NAME (in other words: there is no such thing as free music!);
  5. The artists creations will all belong to this agency, even after death ;)
• IF we don't sign up: we won't be defended for the music we create, loosing a lot of income which gets paid through Sabam ..
• Sabam collects royalties on parties anyways, also on Creative Commons works of artists having a contract with them!

Without our artist agencies backing up true royalty rights of the common artist; Tunecore (or any aggregrator); on-line store or physical sales and sales agreements will limit the artist for full coverage. Billboards, radio rights, artist representation, cd pressing and copyrights are being repressed from the common people as we speak. Children are being limited with their creative ideas because Sabam deletes their creations! It has to stop somewhere ....

By loosening up the copyrights a bit, the artist can choose his own distribution model and domains, while still getting royalty incomes from radio, television and cd-sales; also new artists will have a lot more chance to get on the bandwagon of the media industry. Maybe that's why they are so afraid of it, accepting such model; I don't know...

I've been writing about this extensively in previous linkings and: Music Industry, Wake up call for alternative licensing!. A very good read about this from Jam Young, this article (in dutch!) and many more available through google how they operate ...

In the meantime, I'm still forbidden of using Sabam because I don't want to sign away exclusivity contracts without end or real support towards the artist except limitations ...

This is not entirely true in Europe, where licenses are still restricted by the artist copyright agencies. I've got my music distributed through Tunecore, which is an aggregrator and still I am missing a lot of income because my artist rights are not fully defended through exclusive contracts via a private company...

This is managed by Sabam, our RIAA in Belgium, which demands exclusive contracts like many others in Europe. They demand everything or nothing; which will limit the artist to promote and distribute his music without paying blood money.

• IF we sign up (Sabam, really for the common?):
  1. Our Creative Commons licenses would cost us, artists, creating the works.. money!
  2. Any distribution would cost us money, copy to cd is a minimal license of 150 pieces limited to the cd which you have subscribed for;
  3. Copy to USB key would cost money too with a minimal amount of blood distribution money;
  4. Free licenses wouldn't really be free, because they will collect royalties on the ARTIST NAME (in other words: there is no such thing as free music!);
  5. The artists creations will all belong to this agency, even after death ;)
• IF we don't sign up: we won't be defended for the music we create, loosing a lot of income which gets paid through Sabam ..
• Sabam collects royalties on parties anyways, also on Creative Commons works of artists having a contract with them!

Without our artist agencies backing up true royalty rights of the common artist; Tunecore (or any aggregrator); on-line store or physical sales and sales agreements will limit the artist for full coverage. Billboards, radio rights, artist representation, cd pressing and copyrights are being repressed from the common people as we speak. Children are being limited with their creative ideas because Sabam deletes their creations! It has to stop somewhere ....

By loosening up the copyrights a bit, the artist can choose his own distribution model and domains, while still getting royalty incomes from radio, television and cd-sales; also new artists will have a lot more chance to get on the bandwagon of the media industry. Maybe that's why they are so afraid of it, accepting such model; I don't know...

I've been writing about this extensively in previous linkings and: Music Industry, Wake up call for alternative licensing!. A very good read about this from Jam Young, this article (in dutch!) and many more available through google how they operate ...

In the meantime, I'm still forbidden of using Sabam because I don't want to sign away exclusivity contracts without end or real support towards the artist except limitations ...

This is not entirely true in Europe, where licenses are still restricted by the artist copyright agencies. I've got my music distributed through Tunecore, which is an aggregrator and still I am missing a lot of income because my artist rights are not fully defended through exclusive contracts via a private company...

This is managed by Sabam, our RIAA in Belgium, which demands exclusive contracts like many others in Europe. They demand everything or nothing; which will limit the artist to promote and distribute his music without paying blood money.

• IF we sign up (Sabam, really for the common?):
  1. Our Creative Commons licenses would cost us, artists, creating the works.. money!
  2. Any distribution would cost us money, copy to cd is a minimal license of 150 pieces limited to the cd which you have subscribed for;
  3. Copy to USB key would cost money too with a minimal amount of blood distribution money;
  4. Free licenses wouldn't really be free, because they will collect royalties on the ARTIST NAME (in other words: there is no such thing as free music!);
  5. The artists creations will all belong to this agency, even after death ;)
• IF we don't sign up: we won't be defended for the music we create, loosing a lot of income which gets paid through Sabam ..
• Sabam collects royalties on parties anyways, also on Creative Commons works of artists having a contract with them!

Without our artist agencies backing up true royalty rights of the common artist; Tunecore (or any aggregrator); on-line store or physical sales and sales agreements will limit the artist for full coverage. Billboards, radio rights, artist representation, cd pressing and copyrights are being repressed from the common people as we speak. Children are being limited with their creative ideas because Sabam deletes their creations! It has to stop somewhere ....

By loosening up the copyrights a bit, the artist can choose his own distribution model and domains, while still getting royalty incomes from radio, television and cd-sales; also new artists will have a lot more chance to get on the bandwagon of the media industry. Maybe that's why they are so afraid of it, accepting such model; I don't know...

I've been writing about this extensively in previous linkings and: Music Industry, Wake up call for alternative licensing!. A very good read about this from Jam Young, this article (in dutch!) and many more available through google how they operate ...

In the meantime, I'm still forbidden of using Sabam because I don't want to sign away exclusivity contracts without end or real support towards the artist except limitations ...

I'd say a big copyright reform is needed, just because the current technology and society is still partially based on sharing, another part based on buying. I'm not against copyrights at all, it's just not viable anymore in it's current form. I'm from 1976 and till now I have not seen that much of support towards the common artist (which is you and me!).

Music has been always the cornerstone of any healthy community, years ago it used to be teached to the youngsters; singing hand in hand because there simply was no computer in every household. There was no Internet, no TV, PSP or anything electronic keeping the youth busy in free time except playgrounds, games, metal & plastic toys and friends! Music, has never changed that much; because it's still (even in it's current form) adored by young and old. When is the last time ago you've seen someone singing on the beat? (not always that good of a performance but..)

It's a part of everyone, just like Bach and Beethoven are known by any, the culture has been shifted the last few years to a buying model only. Currently only classics and oldies are in the Public Domain, rendering a lot of music useless as long as the copyright stays. Not really a big problem; IF; not misused at all, like we are all knowing the "Happy Birthday" song as classical example of bad copyrights undermining culture. Next to that, we're in the remix culture while most of the songs can't be touched; so far for a controlled fanbase?!

Just like we used to be very relaxed with computer security 20 years ago; which is unimaginable now-a-days; the music industry has been waiting, very relaxed towards the dimise of their own business model. Their business model is based more or less towards physical distribution while music stores and indie bands are growing like mushrooms out of the ground. Artists want to give extras towards their fans, while often being limited by the collection agencies. (read: Sabam, really for the common? for more info)

Copyrights in it's current form does not only demolish culture as it is, but also destroys a lot of historical heritage. For example, we cannot make a photo of the Atomium in Belgium without being sued or paying outragious amounts of money to the architect of that building; even if this photo has merely been used on a blog. We're in 2009 folks, not in 1990 where business was big through physical media, simply because no-one else had the money to buy the machines to make cd's, vinyl and other media.

I've been writing extensive about this on my blog in Music Industry: Wake up for alternative licensing. Artists need their copyrights, but more-or-less how THEY like to. We artists are investing thousands of euro's to create music while the music industry tells us how we can copy our own created music! That outrage got to be over ...

I'd say a big copyright reform is needed, just because the current technology and society is still partially based on sharing, another part based on buying. I'm not against copyrights at all, it's just not viable anymore in it's current form. I'm from 1976 and till now I have not seen that much of support towards the common artist (which is you and me!).

Music has been always the cornerstone of any healthy community, years ago it used to be teached to the youngsters; singing hand in hand because there simply was no computer in every household. There was no Internet, no TV, PSP or anything electronic keeping the youth busy in free time except playgrounds, games, metal & plastic toys and friends! Music, has never changed that much; because it's still (even in it's current form) adored by young and old. When is the last time ago you've seen someone singing on the beat? (not always that good of a performance but..)

It's a part of everyone, just like Bach and Beethoven are known by any, the culture has been shifted the last few years to a buying model only. Currently only classics and oldies are in the Public Domain, rendering a lot of music useless as long as the copyright stays. Not really a big problem; IF; not misused at all, like we are all knowing the "Happy Birthday" song as classical example of bad copyrights undermining culture. Next to that, we're in the remix culture while most of the songs can't be touched; so far for a controlled fanbase?!

Just like we used to be very relaxed with computer security 20 years ago; which is unimaginable now-a-days; the music industry has been waiting, very relaxed towards the dimise of their own business model. Their business model is based more or less towards physical distribution while music stores and indie bands are growing like mushrooms out of the ground. Artists want to give extras towards their fans, while often being limited by the collection agencies. (read: Sabam, really for the common? for more info)

Copyrights in it's current form does not only demolish culture as it is, but also destroys a lot of historical heritage. For example, we cannot make a photo of the Atomium in Belgium without being sued or paying outragious amounts of money to the architect of that building; even if this photo has merely been used on a blog. We're in 2009 folks, not in 1990 where business was big through physical media, simply because no-one else had the money to buy the machines to make cd's, vinyl and other media.

I've been writing extensive about this on my blog in Music Industry: Wake up for alternative licensing. Artists need their copyrights, but more-or-less how THEY like to. We artists are investing thousands of euro's to create music while the music industry tells us how we can copy our own created music! That outrage got to be over ...

I've had my first true cloud experiment a good week ago. It saved the sites of dozens of customers hosted at that same server.

Without clouds, bandwidth & servers had to be upgraded within 5 hours to withstand the load. With clouds, all load was handled perfectly by putting the highest load (images and javascript) on the cloud and leave the pure webserving to the server. It brought the load from unworkable to fully bearable. I've written about this at my blog.

This new form of clouding could for sure hurt hosting providers at the end, since they will be moving less data because of cheap clouding. I just can't see why it would be bad to get the prices of hosting and bandwidth lower because of new technologies. Let's hope the ISP's won't make the same mistake as the RIAA and others are doing by not thinking/ignoring digital.

Artist collection agencies, like Sabam gets money from all the artists, dead or alive, which they've got their exclusive contract with.

To my opinion, it's purpose is not to protect the artist, but those who collect afterwards....

I've been writing about this exclusive-licensing-crap limiting our (Belgian) artists at large.

Be sure to check out Sabam, really for the common? & Music industry, wake up call for alternative licensing! for more information...

Artist collection agencies, like Sabam gets money from all the artists, dead or alive, which they've got their exclusive contract with.

To my opinion, it's purpose is not to protect the artist, but those who collect afterwards....

I've been writing about this exclusive-licensing-crap limiting our (Belgian) artists at large.

Be sure to check out Sabam, really for the common? & Music industry, wake up call for alternative licensing! for more information...

Artist collection agencies, like Sabam gets money from all the artists, dead or alive, which they've got their exclusive contract with.

To my opinion, it's purpose is not to protect the artist, but those who collect afterwards....

I've been writing about this exclusive-licensing-crap limiting our (Belgian) artists at large.

Be sure to check out Sabam, really for the common? & Music industry, wake up call for alternative licensing! for more information...

I'd like to ask you to send a comment on the blog too, since these reactions will be sent to the Ministers of Culture, together with the reaction of the public. As long as the public doesn't know, there won't be a change. It's as soon as the problem gets discussed and seen (in public), things could change ...

How many Belgian people are confronted with this problem, only those who want to rent a movie with two languages. If we speak up we can change things too..
If we stay silent it sure won't get noticed at all...

In Belgium we're having 3 major languages ; French and Dutch are the two most used in this country.

While there are problems inbetween those two factions, the movie industry keeps making money on selling two types of DVD's to Belgians:
(1) The French edition and
(2) the English/Dutch/With all languages you can imagine except French!

Causing a much more rift inbetween these two factions, because there is TOTALLY no support at all towards an universal translation; making it possible to watch such movie with TWO instead of buying two different DVD/TV and Surround sets..

I've been writing about this at my blog (in English!)