Slashdot Mirror
Sell Your Music on iTunes Music Store
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.
This seems like a godsend for many of the bands my friends are in. For 40 dollars they have the chance to be distributed, instead of spending much more on CD's. What are the chances apple will accept them though? It seems like this is what they wanted from that conference they held with the Indie labels.
"What we have here is a failure to communicate"
The Warden, Cool Hand Luke
I really don't wanna hear you guys sing.
that pudge is harboring some ill will from a previous failed attempt at a career in indie music.
The trick will be how these guys work with the iTunes and Buy.com's of the world, and whether they actually offer anything of value. Compared to this setup, though, it does sound like an opportunity for artists to get a bigger slice of the pie...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
It has been anounced today that the long expected album "CowboyNeal in the Tub / Greatest Hits" will hit the digital shelves any time this week
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
You'd only need to do $44 in sales to recoup your investment. Of course that assumes that you really get to keep 91% of revenue. What about Apple's cut, if you get on iTunes? Does that come out of their 9%?
To understand recursion,
you must first understand recursion.
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.
Forget about Joe (or Jill) Artist, what about middle grade artists that have been perpetually screwed by their RIAA contracts.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
I have to say, it looks like CD Baby is being very fair to the artists with this deal. The artists can even sell their music via other means, just not to the same store, and they can end the contract with 30 days' notice.
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.
I can see the day when companies like McDonald's or Taco Bell start their own music labels. Walk in and get the latest and greatest boy band hit with a value meal prior to the "official release". Perhaps this is why McDonald's is pioneering wireless at their restaraunts?
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
It's gonna take a BIG organization outside the RIAA to come up with a system to beat them. iTunes is a great idea, and this new way of selling music is a good idea, though I think $40 is a bit steep. I think they should have an option. You either pay $40 to get the album on there OR they take a higher percentage of the revenue. (Say 15% instead of 9%.)
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.
I've never heard of CDBaby. Their website looks very shoddy, as if they used a very basic WYSIWYG editor. I would also like to know how picky apple is about taking music from the labels. Do they take anything the labels feed them or are they selective in their choices? If they'll take anything, then CDBaby looks like a fantastic way to get wide-spread distribution. If not, then you've just wasted $40 on a pipedream.
I'm already hooked up to a major RIAA label for life you insensitive clod!
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Surely the band could deal with Apple themselves ?
i thought that was what the internet was about, cutting out the middleman and dealing with the source.
when cdbaby want 9% (which is essentially the price of talking to Apple and a database entry) you can see why the industry is full of no good greedy executives with everyone clammering for a piece of the cash bonanza.
nothing changes egh
Why is this article in the apple category? It does mention the iTMS along with other services, but it could just as easily fit under a music category or RIAA category. I have noticed this same odd categorization of articles with only slight relations to apple in the past few days. Slashdot is not macslash, so it doesn't have any significant apple slant, right? I don't have any strong opinions on the matter, the Apple category is as good as any other, I just find it an interesting Slashdot quirk; something worth pointing out.
Now you can sell your own electronically encoded tunes on a gigantic global network that has a massive ad campaign behind it, for $40.
Good for CD Baby. They negotiated the deal with Apple and seem to be happy to provide the connection. The terms are more than reasonable. Hell, for $40, I'd make an album just to *see* if I had any musical talent that anyone else appreciated. (er, I don't.)
Now, what we need is some sort of powerful mechanism for allowing people to be introduced to music they'd like, but don't know the name of. I've often thought a moderation-style system similar to what Slashdot has would be useful. Of course, its ony a tiny hop from there to find all those wonderful demographics marketers crave.. you know.. the Volkswagen-Coke-Nintendo-Apple-Sony style connections...
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Reminds me of those novellty press site like xlibris . For "only" a hundered dollars they would print your buck and get an ISBN number for you , of course no one would ever take books from them . The success of this service depends on how much influence they have with itunes and other music distribution channels , right now it just sounds like another cool way to get for bucks from morons .
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.
The big plus side about this though is that it really starts to bring Darwin to the music scene. If a song sucks, less people will buy it if there's better stuff out there. Obviously there are still kinks in this system, but its a HELLUVA lot better than before where if you weren't with a label, NOBODY would hear/buy your music. This is definitely progress although it still kinda gives me a feeling of 'one step forward, two steps back' with CDnow being the middleman instead of the labels.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Here's the proof, came with my invoice:
Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Tuesday, July 15th. I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
All that, and shipping was only $2.25!
The main reason the RIAA still sells music, considering the music's quality, is that most people don't know there's someting better out there (most radio stations doesn't help). If some decent tracks are available on iTunes, and therefor get put beside popular music that's being searched by the "uneducated masses", people will be subjected to something that's good.
DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE
okImagine 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.
Imagine being a touring indie band and telling 95% of your audience that your music is on the iTunes store but they cannot listen to it because they don't have a Mac! That will really show the RIAA!
I hope all the music bands out there succeed!
Here's to all the luck in the world for all the Indies out there.
I've ordered a number of CDs from CDbaby recently in all cases after being in touch with the artist themselves - to find out where I could get their music from.
These guys are good, they have a range of shipping options that make it possible to order internationally with no hassle - they'll ship cds with no cases so that it can go via post as opposed to package.
The artists seem reasonably happy with their cut, in fact one told me that it was the first time he was able to pay his rent with CD sales.
This may sound like an advert, but they really were a pleasant suprise. As i like music, that's mainly non-stream especially with the slashdot crowd (modern jazz & real fusion), it was great to find an outlet which stocked these.
-- ac
At first I was going to scream "holy shitballs! That rocks!" But then I decided to read a bit more on it.
They say you just lend us the right to be your digital distributor: to get your music to legitimate music services like Apple iTunes, Listen.com, and more
So...does anyone have any idea how many CDs CD Baby has actually put up on iTunes? They say they will be your digital distributor...but just how successful are they in that role?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
It's nice to see this service starting to expand into indy music. I don't use the service but I support it because it's gives us all another choice. I think if they do a windows version then we'll really start to see an impact. You really can't lose with low prices and ease of use. Even if a person is anti-mac they can't deny that this service will be what the Ipod was to the old school mp3 players. I would also add that I am not a mac user but I can recognize quality no matter where it comes from.
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
I've been saying for some time that the record industry NEEDS to basically innovate or die. Use technology to boost their sales rather than fighting in a losing battle. They never heeded the words of the great Capt_Troy...
Nice to see someone doing this. Too bad for those involved with the RIAA that it's not one of them. I give iTunes a year in which it will grow and prosper. Then, the recording industry will finally give up and begin their own knockoffs (which will be nowhere near as good). One year...
Troy
So the artists have a somewhat fair distribution channel. They yet need to market themselves to make for people to download them and make a buck. And how would they do that? Lets also assume they have cheap means of recording their music - some software perhaps.
Democratic USA - Government of the corporations, by the Corporations, for the corporations.
(1) Typical profit per sale will range between -5% and 3% depending on marketing terms and market conditions
(2) Setup costs of $30 available to Ultra Platinum Plus artists only. Typical setup costs between $80-200 per song.
(3) Payment processing is facilitated by a third party contractor; allow 5-8 months lead time for most transactions.
(4) Expedited 20-day cancellation requires rapid cancellation charge of $10,000. Expedited cancellation not available for top-selling titles. Standard requests for contract cancellation will be considered on a per-request basis.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Thats what they did with my CD!
Quack, quack.
of audio.
Let's hope they do a better job of artistic managment then CP did.....
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Of course, it's all up to the end service.
"Bill, we got a new artist here - he's doing the Rednex thing, ya know, 'Rave Country'..."
"Yah. Circular file that one. Any chicks with big jugs? They always sell."
I'm a musician, and I've been waiting for something like this to come out. I just called CD Baby and they said that I couldn't JUST spend the $40 and sell digitally, I still had to have a CD printed up and ready to sell physically on their website... which I don't have $3,000 for...
I'm still waiting for a totally digital distributor, since I think that will be the next big thing..
It seems to me that the silence on RIAA's part about Apple's itunes speaks volumes. In a way I see it as Apple (and CD-Baby) calling the RIAA's bluff. They (RIAA) say that they're fighting for musicians to get paid properly for their music, but what they're really doing is fighting for executives and producers to get paid--people who long ago left the business of crafting artists to instead make their money simply distributing music. Now that much more efficient methods of distibuting music have formed, they are and should be left out in the cold.
By the way, look for the RIAA to find some angle to slam Apple in the near future.
Jay
proudliberals.com
Lighten up jackasses
...and skimming a nice 9% profit!
Blar.
Akamai's delivery system
Apple's techno-savvy and style
The Gap peoples' uncanny ability to corral or at least profitize from the natural tendencies of teenagers
A big slap in the face to the traditional recording industry
Could it equal a shake-up severe enough to shift the paradigm?
I hear alot of RIAA bashing time to time on /. but i wonder how many of you ever tried to think about how a band might benefit from the RIAA.
before you guys go bashing me just hear me out.
For a new band that wants to stay independant, they need cheap way to distribute their music, but what happens when their music ends up on a P2P network and ends up wildly successfull, ibso facto, no one pays for the music because its on Kazaa. how is the smalltime indie band going to get the resources needed to go after the individuals stealing the music? just a thought, i hate the RIAA as much as the rest of you, they are a monopoly that microsoft only dreams of having. ( to my knowledge microsoft has not bought many laws lately).
$.02
I find it very odd that a computer company (Apple) could be the driver being such a fundamental civil rights change. (aside: If artists can start to be compensated for their work, what's to stop us IT workers and software developers?)
The music industry is one area where the big corporation have been allowed to force people into contract that would violate labour laws if they were proposed in other sectors. We have been waiting with baited breath for technology to break down the barriers that have stopped artists from being freed, yet the technology companies themselves hove mostly worked with the RIAA to perpetuate this arrangement.
Bravo, Apple. I do understand that you are only interested in dollars like every other corporation, but you have shown that you do value creativeity and freedom as well, just like you keep telling us!
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
IF they get someone on there, then I can jump for joy; until then, it could very well be bogus. Only time will tell...
Given the $40 entry fee, the 91:9 profit ratio with CDBaby, the 40:60 profit ratio with Apple, and assuming that people only download singles for $0.99 each, it would only take 111 downloads of your band's songs to break-even. Not bad!!
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Don't be fooled! This site at best is some naive attempt at trying to make some money off honest artists, or this is out-and-out con. RIAA does not share their stage with others very nicely. It is highly UNLIKELY that ITunes will be allowed to carry titles that are not members of RIAA. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on CDBaby's site that guarantee you that you WILL be on ITune for $40. This means that they are basically charging you $40 for NOTHING!!! Unless they have a strong track record, which they don't, or have a public support from places like ITune, which they don't, this is nothing more than some piped dream by some enterprising guy. I cannot believe Slashdot would fall for a scam like this...
Apparently you haven't heard the information from the california democrat meeting where they wanted to delay the recovery of the economy to put pressure on repubs. Nice load of lies in that post... We're racists? You're the one making the black community dependant upon government. Racists. Gotta keep darkie under your thumb.
Fuck you RIAA. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
If you're looking for REALLY indie music, check out Section Z ("bedroom musicians", mixed bag - some are VERY good) or SpinWarp (D&B music and production techniques)...
Most record deals with emerging artists ususally take around 70-90% of the profits from album sales (after artificially inflated production costs). TLC, one of the biggest acts of the early 90's sold over 10 million copies of their album 'waterfalls' and walked away with about 170k$ each (do the math).
Basically, artists could sell about 1/10th (or less) of the records online as they normally would through normal channels and make more money!
Is this 91% of the supposed 52% that goes to the label and artist? (40% for label and 12% for artist) Or just the 91% of the 12% cut? This is a difference of either 47 cents or 11 cents per song.
CDBaby works with all the major online music services (or claims to) not just iTunes, so shouldn't this run either on the main page or not at all?
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Seems that if this is really happening that the RIAA and the major labels would pull the music from the artists they "represent" to punish the store...
This seems like great news, but artists won't get 91% of the 99 cents each track. They'll get 91% of whatever iTunes agrees to pay them per track, and we don't know what that is yet.
If Apple decides to give artists a quarter for every song sold (which is more than the 7 cents per track RIAA artists are currently receiving), you'll get 22 cents a track. Many artists might be better off selling their music for 50 cents a song using micropayments and encouraging fans to buy directly from them. More music gets sold to fans, and the artists receive more profit.
But there's definitely an advantage to being listed in iTunes or other major music services, and there's nothing that says you can't do both. It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Apple has announced that iTunes and the iTMS will be available for Windows before the end of the year.
Kevin Fox
I doubt it.
Can anyone tell me what 74 minutes at 128 kbps compression comes down to? Am I going to have to do the math myself?
:D
Screw it, I'm too lazy.
The fact of the matter is, I can store a good 192kbps quality album for around 100mb, give or take, and you can fit around 200 albums on a 20 gig hard drive.
That 20 gig hard drive might be $80 if you shop around. I doubt it'll be more than half that for apple.
So if you charge $40 for listing, you make up that hard drive for 200 albums on ONE charge. Sure, there are other costs, but remember, apple gets stuff factory direct.
What would bug me, if I were apple, would be the bandwidth. Still... I plan to buy TONS of CD baby stuff now
-- Funksaw
I don't know if anyone has posted this...but what i'd like to see is if I choose the option to buy the whole album, I should be able to download a CD image (bin/ccd/nrg/iso/something) of the entire CD (maybe including extras?). It'd be great for songs that seem to merge together (if you burn DAO, disc at once), instead of getting the 2 second gap from TAO (track at once) and messing up the song...of course if you wanted to buy one track at a time, it'd still be mp3/ogg/aac/whatever... :)
Maybe Slashdot should start its own "record label"? Line up S.P.O.C.K. and such for micropayment downloadable MP3s...
Not only that, but since 301 is a label with an established global infrastructure, there's a mechanism there to support an act no matter how popular it becomes. This guy is no small potatos.
All this displaced some great talent, discouraged new artists, and soured the old artists who made the service into what it was.
The question remains: What prevents the same buyout/long downward spiral of CDBaby?
I'm working on an article I hope to publish at Kuro5hin soon. You may find it helpful. In return, I would like your comments on how to improve it. I want to do the very best job I can so that it will be sure to get voted to the front page by the K5 moderators:
-
Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
If you're a musician who offers free music downloads, I will link to your website if you give my article a reciprocal link. Please read the instructions here.Send your comments to crawford@goingware.com
Thanks for your help.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
However, I would hate to see iTMS turn into a place where there is a bunch of crap music, sort of like MP3.com.
The only crap on MP3.com is the "mainstream" music that the record labels put on there. I have found so many brilliant artists there. I would hate it to become a replacement for mp3.com because then it would nolonger be free.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
this seems like its $40 for online distribution where people have to pay to get the mp3s? Great idea and all but who's gonna do that? I go to a lot of concerts and if an artist tells me to go to www.buymycdsonmp3.com or whatever and pay to download their mp3s I'm gonna forget by the time I get home... Now if they have cd's at their show for $5, well here's my money. And I got a nice shiny disc to do what I please with.
diskfaktory will print up as little as 50 cds with text printing for $50... A $1 per cd that a band can sell for $5 and make $4 a cd. Or for 100 cd's or something like that with FULL COLOR ARTWORK on the cd and I believe a four page booklet for $3 a cd. Seem's like a really fair deal to me. I'm working on doing local compilation albums with a few other bands, as well as a cd for my band, and we're not gonna need huge runs of 1000s of cds so this is perfect for us. The only downside is they're on CD-R's but even so, they still sound exactly the same.
The $40 I would imagine isn't so much intended to be a fee (it's really not much at all) but as a way to deter people who would otherwise submit any crap (or just unpolished material) they can come up with.
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
Work Safe Porn
This is the worst thing imaginable..!!!
This is my sig.
This is Perfect!!!
This gives Icy Hot Stuntaz the ability to make it to the big street.
Pimpin Cars,
Big-breasted Women,
and Fame!
Hell Jeah! Dyno-Might!
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.
I still do not grasp this fascination with "itunes."
Itunes allowed me to buy and burn legal mp3s of a Gang Starr album for $10.
Therefore I think it's a pretty cool thing.
Does that sound reasonable?
it would be much cooler to see them doing the online distribution themselves in a format (ie MP3 or OGG) that the truly free world embraces.
Actually, I'm part of a small group selling homemade music manufactured at home, and I can imagine using CDBaby to put up music we made even though we already put up mp3s of significant amounts of the music we sell for free.
Why? Exposure. People are much more likely to find and attempt to experiment with music on a "trusted" music service like iTunes than they are to bother with a link on some random guy's sig on slashdot. I would see that $40 sent to CDbaby as effectively nothing more or less than money spent on advertising. If CDBaby was just putting the mp3s on the CDBaby site themselves, It wouldn't look nearly as attractive, since iTunes Music Store etc has a known user base and CDBaby does not.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
This would be great if CDbaby didn't have a good track record with selling physical media. If you're asking if they have a track record selling with iTunes, well, of course they don't. No one does except the major labels.
-- Funksaw
Now if a file format other than mp3 becomes available it will be a good service for musicians!
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
MP3.com had a lot of promise. Then feearless leader decided they needed to offer Madonna because their own bands weren't going to make him rich, and thus began the beginning of the end.
MP3.com hasn't been "free" since even before the lawsuits... in fact, that's why they were sued.
There's nothing to stop you except for your own morals and ethics. As far as they go, I can't begin to explain that to you.
There will always be people who steal (people steal beer all the time). Beer companies and stores don't make money off the people who steal beer. They make money off the people who are of high enough ethical quality to pay for their beer. It's other peoples job to take care of the people who steal beer.
So the question isn't about what apple can do to stop you from stealing music at all. They can't and shouldn't do anything. That's up to you or law enforcement.
I find I like there DRM. Sure they do books not music, but you 3 devices to play the book on, all three can be computers or one computer, two devices or one computer, one device and a CD Burner. But you can only replace one device every six months (Keeps people from taking advantage of the system). However I had a system crash and so all my devices could not be accessed. I gave them a call and within 5 minutes they reset everything (did not even ask why) and I was able to download all my books and get them working again. If someone did the same thing with Music I would be happy.
No one has mentioned the fact that Apple keeps a piece of the sale. I think they keep 35%. If correct, this means that the artist gets 58 cents for every 99 cent sale. This means you need to sell about 68 singles to recoup your $40. Still, not bad.
aiff is apples format. its better than mp3
Trust me, if you're anywhere in the indy music scene, you've heard of CDbaby. They are pretty much exactly what they claim to be: the ideal distribution medium for indy bands.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
If you read through their little presentation, it's actually $40 per album plus a one-time fee of $35 to set up a cdbaby account. That's still not horribly bad.
My only worry with this is that as far as I can tell, CDBABY isn't *required* to do anything.. they have to attempt to get you on these services but if the services all reject you, you still have spent $40.
Moreover, it *appears* from the contract that if you want out-- like, in the unlikely event if iTunes Music Store doesn't accept you through cdbaby, but you later find a way you can get on iTMS not through CDBaby, but you are bound by CDBaby to go through them-- you can do so without penalty, but not until either three and a half years from the start of the agreement or until CDBaby wants to change the terms of your contract, whichever comes first.. that's much better than it could be, of course, the contract isn't limitless and you can get out freely after that block of time, but it decreases the ability to do this kind of thing just as a what-the-heck kind of thing.
Here's the thing I can't figure out from the contract. If you sign up with them, do they have exclusive rights to ALL online distribution, or only online distribution through the services that CDBaby works with such as iTMS? In essence, if I signed up with them, would I still be able to distribute mp3s on my own website of the material signed over to them? The little slide-show seems to imply this would be allowed, but 8ai and 8aiii in the contract seem to say that CDBaby has been given an exclusive right to this as well.
Anyway, definitely interesting. I'd like to see if there's any other way to get onto iTMS or other services first as a complete independent, but I will definitely keep these CDBaby people in mind..
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Then there is not much of an issue here. You can send CD Baby 5 CDs and you are good to go!
Maybe a moderation system is in order?
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
Well, yes and no. At the low end, any non-famous band cutting their own CDs is something of a novelty exercise and are not likely to make any actual money off the matter.
But: the way that bands actually get famous is for people -- lots of people, in places other than just the band's home city -- to hear their music. MP3 distribution can only get you so far; ideally you really want college radio DJs playing your stuff, and telling their listeners where to get it. For that, you need CDs. Pressing and distributing your own CDs is an incredible waste of time and money; cdbaby very cleverly automates the process and makes it quite affordable.
And: while basically nobody buys novelty-press books (unless the author is a multimillionaire self-promoting blowhard), lots of people buy indy-band music. Enough to make a living on? Probably not. Enough to buy the occasional new instrument? Hell yes.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
While I have no doubt in my cynical little heart, that this noble idea will become twisted and exploitative to the artists eventually (just as long ago the record companies served a good purpose for musicians) This is exactly what artists need to do, not just indie artists, Big artists especially.
If artists stop renewing contracts with major labels and begin to embrace the direct sale model, they will make crap tons of money more than they do with their current contracts. They already have the notoriety that they need to move product, and if enough big names go this route, the RIAA will quickly find itself without any clients.
I personally would happily give my business to an establishment such as this.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
"Imagine being a touring indie band and be able to tell people to go to iTunes and buy your songs;"
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.
Vote for Pedro
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.
Note: The subject has nothing to do with the post. I just happen to like the movie.
Who the fuck do you think owns MP3.com?
Yeah, I know its owned by the record industry. You got here right in time Captain.
MP3.com hasn't been "free" since even before the lawsuits... in fact, that's why they were sued.
I guess I don't know what you mean by free. They were sued over their myMp3 service that let people rip copyrighted cds and store the mp3's on their servers. And allowed you or anyone with your username and password to stream them from anywhere. The music availiable for download was always free and had the permission of the copyright owners.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Mod parent up!
No commercial relationship, just a happy customer etc.
Cheers,
Ian
If any company can find the balance of quality and diversity, it is Apple. A few Gigs of disk is well worth the bounces they will get in their song count and the coin of Jobs' realm -- good karma. I'm sure they'll beef up the Amazon-like "listeners who bought this also bought..." section to help.
.... The size of the garage just got a whole lot bigger. :)
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
Considering that CDBaby only started this service today, I'm guessing that the answer is "not many."
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
For one, Apple *will not* deal with the band themselves. Read anything put out by them and they make that explicitly clear.
It just occurred to me - they may have worded their last settlement with Apple Records so explicitly that representing music acts directly is the one thing they can't do, given that that is exactly what Apple Records does do.
Just a random thought. As a settlement, the details are not public. (I couldn't find them.) However, I seem to recall Paul McCartney forcing InterVideo(I think) to work with Apple Computer so his DVD would play on the computer he uses. If he still has influence with Apple Records, and isn't threatened by Apple, he may be holding them back. So called 'experts' keep bringing them up; surely if they had a legally actionable position they would have made it by now.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Kudos to Apple for their "light" DRM. But I think instead of them throwing the RIAA a bone, it may have been the other way around. The RIAA is supremely unpopular with digital music buffs. What better way to win some back than by allowing iTMS to use minimal DRM? They are limiting their exposure, and consequently their risk, because only 5% of computer users can access the store.
The truly telling moment will be when Apple launches their Windows-compatible iTMS. I have a strong hunch that right now RIAA views iTMS as a boutique shop that gives them positive publicity with minimal risk. I expect a return to more draconian terms for mass-market (read: Windows) music sales. Perhaps this is the real reason that iTMS is taking so long to release on Windows.
-j
This is not just itunes. and i cant see why apple wouldnt sell it, they may not put it on the page and you may have to search for it. maybe even a bilboard or ranking system in another area. to help with selection, but guess what dipwads, hd space is cheap, they can have every crappy band in the world on itunes and it wouldnt eaven dent their capacity. as far as distribution. why not take your music to the radio station, if they like it they may play it dipwad. if not you can bitch about the machine all you want, you still suck.
iTMS can still reject your sorry attempt at fame.
WTF is up with that quote?
"It's not like your minds are as open as the source you love..." - Me to the majority of Slashdot.
What the hell does CD Baby "distribute?"
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.
DRM and such aside, iTunes Store has pretty much the opposite business model from the one you're enjoying. The biggest difference is that the iTunes Store doesn't have a monthy fee. It's done on a track-by-track basis. This business model caters more to impulse buyers, a completely different set of people than those who are willing to pay a monthy fee.
Not to pan your service. Just saying that it's a different animal than the iTunes Store.
You may not be able to get it by going to The Wall or Sam Goody, and you definitely won't be able to get it if you buy CDs at Wal-Mart or a truck stop, but you almost certainly will get it if you go into one of the nation's many fine independent music stores. I grew up near such a store. The guys who ran it were nerds and they could be jerks sometimes, but they did know a lot about a lot of different kinds of music. They were usually very happy to give you (for free) off-the-cuff dissertations on any particular artist/producer/genre you asked about.
There is no substitute for knowledge.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Holes - analog or otherwise - are not unique to itunes. All that is unique about itunes is the religious zeal behind the corporate parent.
How about if I opened up an "online library" where I let anyone who could type in an ISBN number have access to the complete book?
There are so many holes in that system as to be completely obvious it is nothing but a feeble attempt at circumventing copyright. Ordinarily I really don't give a shit, and even support many such efforts - but in the case of MP3.COM I hold my nose in disgust, because its entire failure was due to their management betraying everything they purported to believe and (more importantly) betraying thousands of musicians who had aligned themselves with that message.
One reason I like doing my own disks is because I can choose the disk to use. I like the solid black ones for my dark music. And just today I just found some CDR's that on top look exactly like a 45 record singles. Course those CDs cost a little more, but when doing it yourself, you save so inthe end it works out to the same cost.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Sometimes I wonder about you all... when it comes to becoming a famous musician, it's not a matter of distribution, but creating a demand for distribution. There are tons of digital warehouses out there for indie artists.. just waiting to house their music for distribution, but unless people know (or want) to go there, there isn't much reason for having it housed anywhere digitally.
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.
"Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
Top 40 groups should jump on this badwagon. Why settle for a measly 2% when they can have 91%?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
P.S.
I agree it would be a good idea for them to offer something like CD images. I was just suggesting a workaround.
The synopsis does say it's limited to just those services. I'm looking at the actual agreement you have to click through, which *seems* to conflict with the synopsisy thing. I may or may not be misinterpreting what this means. In fact, i'm really not sure what it means at all. Could this be interpreted as limiting the rights holder from publishing the mp3s on their private website? Of course, it isn't like this matters too much if you can cancel at any time, but...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Hi, it has come to my attention that posts that have the same subject line as common trolls will be moderated into the ground, sometimes using the 'offtopic' moderation, even when they are entirely on topic, and relevant to the discussion at hand. That's life, I guess.
Mod away, morons, my karma bonus is not going to go away.
Also, you could allow people who purchased an iPod to download one song for free off of each album on indie.iTunes.com. As it stands now, if you were going to fill a 30GB iPod the legit way, it would cost you about $7,500 (assuming that you only store music on your iPod). IPods would fly off of the shelves, as would some great music that needs a chance!
I don't keep a lid on my coffee so when I walk around I look busy -me
On another note... I think it would be excellent if iTunes Music Store had a streaming radio station that played random songs continuously. Not all songs would be played - just those that are specifically cleared for play - and perhaps not all whole songs. (Of course constant 30-second snippets would quickly become annoying.) The majority of people who make music in their basement would gladly authorize iTMS to play their songs.
If you heard a song you liked on the iTMS radio you could go back to the recent playlist, locate the song, and purchase it for $.99 - Bam!
-- thinkyhead software and media
If you don't make any money? Even moderatley sucessful bands would seem to be much better off going the iTunes route.
I'll bet underground promotion done by the bands point to iTunes would be way more successful.
I can even see another industry springing up, one of pure music promotion and none of the other nonsense that goes on in the music world right now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is related to the moderation system, but simply posting anything on I-Tunes now seems worth it... There are enough people that would download your songs based on some intreguing snippits (ultra repative FruityLoops techno, for example) that it would make your 40 $$ investment worth it.
If it's so cheep and so much profit goes to the artist I wonder if big artists will break off from record companies to do this only. Think about it - if The Offspring's new CD is only avalible from I-Tunes a ton of people (maybe a quarter who would normally buy the CD) would get it from I-Tunes and that still is like 3 times the proffit they'd get had they gone the normal cd route and sold 4 times the discs.... It's an interesting possiblity.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
They have really super responsive customer service, and shipped very quickly. The site may look a bit plain, but look beyond the lack of Photoshop skills and you will find a lot of great music - plus they have a really nice means of finding new music by various categories that is hand-picked.
For anyone that likes soundtrack kind of music, take a look at The Haight Gang, a soundtrack without a movie but very well done and with a lot of great musical flavors woven in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They are hosting the music, hosting free previews, and spending a lot of R&D on building the best music purchasing software on the planet - not to mention advertising the heck out of the store and maintaining a staff that week through drek to come up with music recommendations. CD-Baby does not seem to be doing much, but then they are not taking a lot either. And they are also putting your CD up for sale on THIER site as well, which is a nice complement to the ITMS.
If it's so easy, go build yourself an ITMS and charge less!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As far as I'm concerned, any song taking up space on my HD of physical space in a CD rack is WELL worth 99 cents. That is a very reasonable price for literally years of enjoyment I expect to get out of a song I like. Cheaper is nice of course, but I do not begrudge Apple or the artist the money they make from 99 cents.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
sorry.. better urls.. no idea where those spaces came from :S...
c rosoft.com%2F&charset=iso-8859-1+%28Western+Europe %29&doctype=HTML+4.01+Transitional
w .oogle.com%2F&charset=iso-8859-1+%28Western+Europe %29&doctype=HTML+4.01+Transitional
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fmi
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fww
Reece,
AudioGalaxy didn't have a moderation system, but for each artist there was an easy to use message board, so just go to your favourite artist and see what other people recommend (and read why, if you don't care why, there was of course also the correlation system also found at Amazon).
I never bought as much music as in the days of AudioGalaxy, even though I had to "import" it from various different countries, since much of it was not available in the mainstream music stores.
So, if anyone can submit a cd to to be sold song by song on iTunes, listen.com, etc... Then this is starting to sound like it's going to be cutting into MP3.COM's business model!
The1Genius - Littera Scripta Manet
Dear Apple:
I bought an Apple computer because of its native support for teledildonics. I bought a USB FUFME and MacOS immediately recognized it and installed drivers instantly! As a gay Catholic priest who often can't be at the altar all the time, you can understand how the ability to have sex with children whilst on the airplane with my Powerbook and wireless internet service is a lifesaver.
I just have a single question, will Apple be releasing a firewire version of the FUFME anytime soon?
With much gayness,
Father Michael "Arminass" Sims
That never stopped overinflated karma for everything from Orca's Book Club.
MOTAS used to be "member of the appropriate sex".
Now it is "Money of the Appropriate Sex"
Actually they'll have the windows version by the end of the year.
.. not OUTSIDE THE US!!!) and telling people this.. only to find out that only US citizens can buy online.
More importantly: imagine having concerts outside (oh gosh NO
Won't that go down well? Canadians can already be heard complaining.. and so are the Aussies..
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to download 300 Megs of MP3s from Limewire to my computer. 40 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Limewire is straining to keep up file sharing music as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 300 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
Every time I log into iTMS, I want to like it, but the majority of what I see are crappy records by artists that have been irrelevant for the past twenty years. I mean, sure, they have a few new Top-40 artists and Clear Channel-wh0re artists, but they are also pushing junk like Grace Jones and Marc Anthony way too hard.
anyone actually click the link? you have to have a $35 cdbaby account before you can do the $40 electronic distribution deal. read the last bullet on this page if you don't believe me. just thought someone should mention it.
validate slashdot, if you can. A great solution to the problem; screw making your code valid; just block requests from the validator in robots.txt!
Absolutely right, dirt cheap distribution, but the cost of having your music mastered professionally doesn't go away.
Respect for my ears and installation, master that sh*t!
If you think your music is good, it's worth it.
tw I don't think Apple is going to *want* to sell badly mastered stuff, and it's pretty clear from the musicbaby website that they (Apple) have the final say in this.
Cheers
I think, therefore I am...I think.
This "anonymous" coward is an artist with a web site at CD Baby - http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/narcolepticpianist to be exact. I can tell you this: There is no indie music distributor around that gives a better deal to the artist, whether it be in CD or digital format. They truly give the independant artist a chance (and the money that goes with said chance!). That's the reason they're the second largest indie distributor on the internet, second only to Amazon. But you have to take them for what they are. A statement above suggested that CD Baby should not be receiving 9% of income from downloads. Why? If all someone is selling is downloads and not CDs, then CD Baby is giving that artist free warehouse room, a free ticket onto itunes, and a free website. CD BABY IS A BUSINESS. I for one do not want them to lose profit. Also, the itunes (et al) option of downloading music is NOT required. All CD Baby is doing is giving artists the CHOICE to have more distribution, more sales, and overall, more of a chance of and for their album. They don't have to take it if they don't feel it's right for them. On the other side of things, I can tell you from reading the member boards inside cdbaby.net that we're all curious to see how Apple handles quality control, and fairness between indies and labels. Here's hopin' for the best!
Show business is lousy with folks who will "represent" a "client" for a fee. Really folks. How much forbearance do you think Apple or any other digital download store will have for a distributor who offers music with the solitary merit that the check cleared.
I did a diploma in multimedia production through Tom Misner's SAE schools. In this case in Switzerland. The schools definitely do have a fairly good level of education and since their main focus is audio engineering, your CD stand's a good chance of being heard by budding producers/DJ's/sound techies. His system is really one of the better and fairer ones, my only gripe being that the schools tend to be a bit like the McDonalds of audio engineering.
for $40 dollors a touring band could be like, get a tape of this concert in x number of days at blah.
they could sell high quality recordings and own the bootleg market of there stuff. Only need 10 people a concert to be interested enpough to make your money back.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg