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Sell Your Music on iTunes Music Store

Posted by pudge on from the gain-40-pounds-and-be-the-next-D dept.

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.

67 of 432 comments (clear)

  1. Great for highschool bands by davisshaver · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Great for highschool bands by darkov · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What are the chances apple will accept them though?

      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.

      --
      Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
    2. Re:Great for highschool bands by jared_hanson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apple definately needs a solution to keep the quality of the selection resonably high. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for variety of choice, and I fully support independant bands. However, I would hate to see iTMS turn into a place where there is a bunch of crap music, sort of like MP3.com. No one will buy music there if they have to wade through sludge to find a choice indie band.

      --
      -- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
    3. Re:Great for highschool bands by MarcQuadra · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Maybe a moderation system is in order?

      --
      "Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
    4. Re:Great for highschool bands by Roark+Meets+Dent · · Score: 5, Interesting

      An easy solution would be to have a separate section for unsigned musicians. This would make it clear to paying customers whether they are shopping "mainstream" music or as-yet-unheard-of bands. I somehow doubt Apple would have any problems storing a few thousand CD's even if they didn't sell too well ... many people I know have that many on their personal hard drives thanks to P2P apps. Remember, Apple isn't selling CD images, they're selling compressed formats.

    5. Re:Great for highschool bands by Cruciform · · Score: 4, 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.

    6. Re:Great for highschool bands by darkov · · Score: 4, Funny

      Maybe a moderation system is in order?

      I can see my tracks getting modded -1, Troll

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    7. Re:Great for highschool bands by donmontalvo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      wait a minute...why does apple need to control this? freedom is what this is all about. folks who want to download mp3's search through an amazing selection...which is what this is all about. if you know what you want, you'll know what you should get. this is going to be a big boon for the world's struggling artists. the only folks who should be panicking now are the fat cats that are milking the music industry gravy train...yes...the same engine that's depriving some pretty awesome talent from ever being able to lift their foot off the ground. this is awesome...bring on the new music!!! don montalvo, nyc

    8. Re:Great for highschool bands by mosch · · Score: 3, Informative
      Forty dollars is a bass drum pedal. It's virtually nothing compared to the expenses involved with making and recording music, even at an amateur or semi-professional level.

      Most of the semi-serious musicians I know have well over ten thousands dollars of equipement and software, many of the more dedicated ones I know are probably in the hundred-thousand dollar neighborhood.

      Starving musicians are starving for a reason... because every single dime they earn goes towards doing something that might move their musical career forward.

    9. Re:Great for highschool bands by SeanAhern · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would certainly hope that any music moderation system would be more advanced and flexible than slashdot's. Taco would be one of the first to tell you that /.'s moderation system has shortcomings.

      Music would need many axes of moderation. Britney and Christina would certainly get moderated highly, as they are very popular. But only in their respective category.

      Different genres should have different moderation "tracks". I should be able to ask something like "What's the most highly moderated Celtic music this week?" or "People who liked Phish's latest album bought a number of other albums. What ones were the most popular?"

      If a moderation/rating system had that level of control, we'd have a effective and useful way of separating the wheat from the chaff, at a personal level.

    10. Re:Great for highschool bands by darkov · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That works out to about $6,500 for 100k albums

      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.

      --
      Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
    11. Re:Great for highschool bands by stonecypher · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      Rackspace isn't that expensive. Power, granted, is a bit of an issue, but most drives can be spun down (just sort by frequency of file touch; then there can be these drives in a back corner - maybe the armageddon closet, as in nobody's downloading the Bran Van 3000 track until the armageddon.) Cooling, you're right.

      Someone to manage them? Pfah. RAID 5 pretty much manages itself. You need a monkey to swap the failed drive. Apple can afford both bananas and a pooper scooper. (Sure, you're right. Still.)

      So, okay. Let's assume triple redundant drives; that pushes my bareassed guess up from $9k to $27k. Throw on another 3k/y for electricity and cooling, and that's *way* too high. (At least, in PA. You californians and your power grids.) That's $30k/y.

      Where you get depreciation at all is beyond me; I suggest you ratify that. Where you get a depreciation of 1/3/y is so far beyond me that it's gone around the planet twice and is tapping on my back. Gross margins you don't need for a marketing ploy, and hosting music that nobody wants is a marketing ploy.

      Also, I notice that you've pulled the number 15% out of the thin air. Adding to my $30k/y figure another $25k/y for some college dropout to live his dream job sitting in apple's music farm watching blinkenlights, you start looking at $55k a year; that's not even a quarter the cost of a single national TV spot, and I'm willing to wager that the bands they'd tack on in the process would do a hell of a lot better job of advertising.

      "Thank you, this has been Angry Metal Fishnipple, goodnight! If you like our songs, go to iTunes!"

      That's gonna get heard for a quarter the cost of a TV spot in every dingy bar across the nation forever more? And it's all the small music enthusiats which make a vocal point of hating record stores and TV spots that are gonna hear it? I can't imagine a better marketing move. I'd like to pretend that I'm surprised I didn't think of it first, but frankly, anyone that can sell Macs is some kind of marketing ultragenius anyway, so . . .

      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
    12. Re:Great for highschool bands by strAtEdgE · · Score: 5, Funny

      Even if they fully automate the submission process, can Apple swallow the cost of thousands of albums sitting on their hard disks?

      If I can, why can't they?

      --
      ----- sXe
    13. Re:Great for highschool bands by darkov · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Where you get depreciation at all is beyond me

      Well, you have to factor the cost of your equipment into your expenses. Computers are considered to have a useful life of 3 years (in general, in Australia for tax purposes, probably in corporate America), so you have to add 33% of the cost of your equipment to the expense of delivering the service each year. It's accounting and it's a mysterious thing, I agree.

      Also, I notice that you've pulled the number 15% out of the thin air.

      Indeed. But this whole discussion is based on thin air figures if we're talking about how Apple would actually cost it.

      The more general point I'm trying to make is that corporate costings are way different to what most people would consider reasonable and it's mostly due to accounting, which is the result of many things that most people don't think of.

      A little story: I used to work for an investment bank. They had a tricky database optimisation problem and no time or budget to get a programmer (me) to do it. It was a 12 Gig database, so I said: buy another 12 Gig of memory and plop it in the server, allocate it as cache and your database will rush (reporting database, practically no updates). They told me it was impossible because the memory would cost $AUD30K (about $USD15K) a year! (This was only a couple of years ago) Why? Becuase the IT department factored in the cost of "support" for all hardware they sold. Go figure.

      --
      Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
    14. Re:Great for highschool bands by stonecypher · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Oh my god, someone that argues pleasantly and without slander? Am I still on slashdot? :D Mod parent up. He deserves it.

      Well, you have to factor the cost of your equipment into your expenses. Computers are considered to have a useful life of 3 years (in general, in Australia for tax purposes, probably in corporate America), so you have to add 33% of the cost of your equipment to the expense of delivering the service each year. It's accounting and it's a mysterious thing, I agree.

      Hm. That's an interesting take. For the purposes of finding a way to squeeze money out of taxes, that's probably great. But if they're being sensible and using drives with a high MTBF, then their estimated life span seems less important than their actual life span. Granted, I've never run a service like this, but I'm willing to wager that an average whole-drive turnover of 5.5 years or more isn't unreasonable. Either way, it seems quite likely to compare very favorably to the cost of commercials.

      The more general point I'm trying to make is that corporate costings are way different to what most people would consider reasonable and it's mostly due to accounting, which is the result of many things that most people don't think of.

      There's certainly something to this. However, the better a job we do of nailing down those actual numbers, the better job we can do of comparing those numbers to numbers we made up about other industries. ;)

      because the memory would cost $AUD30K (about $USD15K) a year!

      Now that you've presented it that way, that gives me a very different take on costs. That said, I stand by my argument, because I'm comparing it to another cost which has an ongoing nature: advertising.

      Remember, if it were a service issue, I'd be with you: too expensive and a bother. But I really think that they'll do it on the advertising basis alone. I mean, think about the discounts that malls give to big "destination" stores, because they drive up the visit rates to the other stores in the mall, allowing those smaller stores to pay the otherwise exorbitant rent.

      And besides, I want them to host my friend's band, so maybe a viral meme started here will eventually get back to them.

      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
    15. Re:Great for highschool bands by Joey7F · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh my god, someone that argues pleasantly and without slander? Am I still on slashdot? :D Mod parent up. He deserves it.

      Yeah I know, it IS refreshing, but I still would feel better if I saw a 'fucktard' or two. :\

      --Joey

  2. Methinks... by Spazntwich · · Score: 4, Funny

    that pudge is harboring some ill will from a previous failed attempt at a career in indie music.

  3. In other news ... by bigjocker · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  4. $40 an album seems cheap by eoyount · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:$40 an album seems cheap by cabra771 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I take it that you've never been in a band and made an album before. Where should I start...there's recording time and production costs along with other various rental and studio costs, graphic design, promotion, the physical medium for distribution (although online distribution negates this cost), etc...
      If it's only costing you 44 dollars to make a record, I don't want to hear it.

      --

      -my other sig is your mom
    2. Re:$40 an album seems cheap by dhovis · · Score: 4, Informative

      IIRC, Apple gives the record label (or CDBaby, in this case) 65 cents per 99 cent track. CDBaby will then take a 9% cut of that 65 cents, leaving the artist with about 59 cents from each track sold. NOT BAD!

      So if you managed to sell a little over a million tracks, you'd pocket a cool $600,000 dollars or so.

      --

      --
      The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.

  5. What abount major artists by luzrek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  6. Looks like a good deal by xyrw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  7. Great idea! by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Great idea! by Trigun · · Score: 5, Insightful

      $40 bucks is nothing when compared to getting a CD mastered. Let alone distribution costs. If the band can't fork over $40 bucks, then their music probably isn't worth the $0.99 download.

    2. Re:Great idea! by JustAnotherReader · · Score: 3, Interesting
      $40 is Steep? You must be joking. For less than the price of set of guitar strings and a tuner you can distribute your music. That's amazing.

      I love the idea of indie bands telling their audience We have CD's for sale here tonight or you can just go to CDBaby and buy them there". It's an easy to remember web site that the customers can still remember after a few beers.

      Great idea. I hope CDBaby makes millions (which means the bands they represent will make tens of millions. That's kind of a nice change isn't it?)

    3. Re:Great idea! by FatRatBastard · · Score: 5, Funny

      Most muscians I've known have no money:)

      That's what their girlfriends are for. If they're not mercinary enough to be nailing a girl with some cashflow they should have their "rock star" badge confiscated.

  8. Go forth, but cautiously... by jeeves99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Go forth, but cautiously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      From the horse's mouth:

      * Our servers are running 100% OpenBSD - the world's most secure operating system. Powered by Apache, PHP, and MySQL.
      * No Microsoft products were used in the creation of this website.
      * We try to stay HTML 4.0 compliant. No special web browser needed. (I recommend the Opera and Mozilla web browsers for their speed and standards.)
      * CD Baby website (front end and back end) made by me - Derek Sivers. It's my favorite hobby.

      http://www.cdbaby.com/about

    2. Re:Go forth, but cautiously... by seasleepy · · Score: 5, Funny

      I've never bought from them personally, but they sound like a bunch of people that really love music...very small record-shop-ish. (See the bonus free CD for returning customers.)
      A friend of mine who got something from them a while ago also thought their e-mail confirmation was absolutely hilarious:

      "Your CDs have 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 CDs and polished them to make sure they were 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 CDs 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, Thursday, April 17th.

      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"

    3. Re:Go forth, but cautiously... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Think their website looks shoddy? You must not have seen slashdot's main page.

  9. Screw that! by EinarH · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm already hooked up to a major RIAA label for life you insensitive clod!

    --

    Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.

  10. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This is it. The missing bridge.

    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.
    1. Re:Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. by medeii · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'd love to mod this up, but I'll reply instead.

      CD Baby has that sort of mechanism, or at least something like it. Searching around the iTunes store didn't really help me much, because a lot of the music I listen to (Delerium, Balligomingo, Ceredwen, and assorted video game music) either isn't available, or really doesn't fall into any particular category. I went to read the article, then went to CD Baby and started browsing CDs. Their searching feature for something that "sounds like" a different artist caught my eye, and now I'm happily looking at different trance/tribal artists that, though certainly not mimicking Delerium, have a similar feel. I can't get that by going to a store, and this is the first time I've ever seen anyone give that sort of feature prominence.

      Anyone know of other online stores that feature this? CD Baby's got a good start, but I'm really not keen on the million albums that require RealPlayer for me to listen to them.

      --
      got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
  11. CD Baby Cares by BeetMonster · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

    1. Re:CD Baby Cares by Xerithane · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm from Portland. It's true. We have a ceremony every day at 3:36PM. It gets a bit crowded, but they also provide free dinners for us all. Afterwards, if you are over 21, they buy you a beer.

      All the companies know this, and revere this sacred time and let all of us get off work for it. Don't worry, it's all paid time off. Sometimes they even will allow us to use the company limo to travel down there, complete with caviar.

      --
      Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
  12. Re:Just Checking by Paulrothrock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We hate buymusic.com because its DRM is too oppressive, not to mention it's based on sub-par Microsoft technology that's already been cracked.

    We like the iTunes Music Store because it uses reasonable DRM and a good format.

    See the difference?

    --
    I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
  13. Re:Just Checking by jared_hanson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Get ready to be modded flamebait. Anyway, I just wanted to clarify your position. The DRM in buymusic.com is much, much more restrictive than that found in iTMS. Given the state of the industry, it is a pipe dream to even think that any store will get to license media from the big record labels without at least some DRM. Hence, we like Apple for getting the job done with the least invasive DRM possible. It is a lesser of two evils situation.

    --
    -- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
  14. In your dreams... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    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!

  15. Re:Just Checking by jeeves99 · · Score: 4, Informative

    True, anything with the MS name on it will get ridiculed severely on slashdot. Thats just the culture here. Also true, slashdot harbors a lot of goodwill towards apple.

    That being said, there are fundamental differences between the apple and buymusic.com approaches to treating their customers. Apple has uniform licensing which guarantees unlimited burns, simultaneous access to the music on 3 computers (with the option to change the computers as often as you wish), and unlimited transfers to an iPod. (apple needs to add support for more players)

    BuyMusic.com offers none of these things. Songs are tied to ONE computer, without the ability to change that. Depending upon the particular song, burns and transfers to a (select) number of mp3 players is limited to a discrete number.

  16. cdbaby is good for the artist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  17. Proper Job... Finally... by Capt_Troy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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

  18. Industry Response by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 5, Funny
    BuyMusic.com, a recently-launched competitor to Apple iTunes Music Store, announced today that they would begin distributing independent artists' work, much like CDBaby's newly unveiled distribution plan. Through BuyMusic.com, independent artists would see up to 99.9% profit per sale(1), with one-time setup costs as low as $30(2). Artists would receive their checks in as little as one week(3) after BuyMusic.com receives payment for the sale. Artists wishing to leave the service may be able to do so as quickly as within twenty days.(4)

    (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

  19. Wait! by msimm · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thats what they did with my CD!

    --
    Quack, quack.
  20. Not what it seems?... by treegnome · · Score: 5, Informative

    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..

    1. Re:Not what it seems?... by clifyt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A good friend of mine makes a little change through this company.

      He prints the liners with an inkjet printer and buys printable discs (about $0.30 as opposed to $0.10) and has a friend with a CD printer do them up for about $1 each...pretty much the cost of the ink. The cheapest CD Printer on the market is around $350.

      Past that, $3000 should get your album mastered and recorded and all that...quite a few popular indy rockers these days doing their entire recording on $5000 or less.

      If you can't afford to burn a few CDs and con a friend at a studio to print a few custom discs for you, ya shouldn't be waiting for anything like this because we aren't going to be buying your work anyways.

  21. Fantastic! by DrWhizBang · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...
  22. Not too shabby by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
    1. Re:Not too shabby by Graff · · Score: 3, Interesting
      it would only take 111 downloads of your band's songs to break-even.

      I'm not sure about that, by my calculations it works out to 68 songs.

      99 cents per track

      Apple gets 34 and label gets 65 according to several articles I've read.

      65 cents * 91% = 59.15 cents per track to the artist

      $40 / $0.5915 per track = 67.6 tracks

      Round off to 68

      So it's even more amazing than you thought. As I pointed out earlier, if you have 12 tracks per album then after 6 albums you would see a profit. That's pretty damn good.
      --
      Sapere aude!
    2. Re:Not too shabby by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Apple gets 34 and label gets 65 according to several articles I've read.
      That's where our calculations differ -- I was assuming almost the opposite -- that Apple was getting 60%, while the label got 40%... I guess I remembered the ratio inversely.

      But anyway, yes, the whole idea is awesome. I might break out Fast Tracker II from years past and crank out some music again, mainly to have it available on the iTMS. :^)
      --
      Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
  23. Artists: did you catch that: 9%? by MagicMerlin · · Score: 4, Informative

    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!

  24. Re:Just Checking by feldsteins · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think your problem is that you don't understand the difference between "draconian, treat-your-customers-like-criminals" DRM and fairly sensible, "hey-we-gotta-stay-in-business" DRM. Apple uses the latter. Pressplay, the former. From what I've seen of buymusic.com, they fall in the middle. If you don't understand the differences between the services, go read up on them.

    And, by the way, you can "hate DRM" all you want, but someone had to toss a bone to the RIAA for some music to get sold, man. If the Apple iTMS is innovative at all (and it is) then it is innovative solely because of the fairly decent customer rights that accompany the downloads. If you're holding out for the totally unrestricted, uncompressed downloads for $0.04 per song, like some folks here seem to be doing, I think you'll be hearing a lot of silence. Or using illegal services. The copyright holders for popular music (the big 5 labels, the RIAA, etc.) will never, never, go with a service who's restrictions on illegal redistribution amount to nothing more than "the honor system."

    Finally, I'm getting tired of the very vocal minority here at slashdot who insist, thread after thread, that Apple gets some sort of special privelaged treatment in these forums. Thier reputation here has risen above the likes of Microsoft in recent years, it's true, but they still take quite a few lumps around here. Some of them are even deserved! So if you say Apple is the slashdot darling, then I say "bullshit." It's rare enough that they get credited for what they do get right.

    --
    You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
  25. CD Albums... by frission · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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... :)

  26. Re:Why deal with CDBaby ? by anonicon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nice troll, and very wrong.

    For one, Apple *will not* deal with the band themselves. Read anything put out by them and they make that explicitly clear.

    What CD Baby is doing is acting like a record label on behalf of the 38,000+ indie artists who sell their music through CD Baby, even though CD Baby has no exclusive right to the CDs sold on that site.

    Instead of going through a point-by-point refutation of your garbage, why not actually read a little to see what's happening.

    Cheers!

  27. Re:Why deal with CDBaby ? by FatRatBastard · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Surely the band could deal with Apple themselves ?

    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".

  28. Better deals abroad by poptones · · Score: 4, Interesting
    For forty dollars you can join the new label from Tom Misner and have an online distribution chain that carries over into a worldwide CD distribution system. CDBaby is cool, but this really seems more like you're paying them to broker a deal with the people who have, for the most part, completely fucked up the music industry for the last decade.

    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.

  29. Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music DwnLoads by MichaelCrawford · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Many unsigned musicians offer free downloads of their music as a way to attract more fans.

    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:

    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.
  30. Duhhh... by poptones · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Isn't the whole fucking point of this "new order" to avoid having to sign bands? What you want is what we've had for decades: a system where musicians who don't meet the marketing meddle of a few sharkskinned gatekeepers get quarrantined off into this "other place" where "the lesser bands go."

    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.

  31. It's actually $75 by mcc · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  32. Look at Amazon by f97tosc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:Look at Amazon by RajivSLK · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's too bad Amazon has already applied for a patent on this... (along with the rest of the internet)

      Method and system for conducting a discussion relating to an item

      In the future you will not be allowed to discuss items (read stuff) on the internet. All your discussions must be limited to non stuff (read old woman gossip).

      Infact most of the ideas in this thread are patented or pending a patent (which, we all know, will be granted)...

  33. Re:Dude, thats almost flaimebait. by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 4, Insightful
    However, there is also a lot of stuff on there that I consider to be not very good. Granted, one man's trash is another's treasure, but MP3.com seems kind of littered to me, and I am sure to most people

    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.

  34. Re:Dude, Where's my car? by tedtimmons · · Score: 4, Informative
    Wow, that's a pretty bad interpretation of how my.mp3.com worked. No ripping or uploading was involved.

    Roughly, a CD was 'scanned' (checksummed) to determine what CD it was, and if it was a copy. If it was determined to be correct, you listened to MP3.com's ripped MP3s of the CD. Various attempts were used to make sure you weren't sharing your username and password.

    The trouble came because MP3.com was still letting you listen to _their_ CD, not yours.

  35. Wait a second... by Tom7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  36. Re:diskfaktory seems a much better deal by TheAwfulTruth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's ok if you really are printing up more than 100 or so. But it's actually a lot cheaper to do it yourself for smaller runs of 50 at a time... You can do full color for that same $1 if you do it yourself. But... That's just your TIME being used up :) Maybe one person's time is worth more than another's and $3 a disk ends up being worth it...

    --
    Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
  37. whoopty-doo, digital distribution! by GI+Jones · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  38. Apple: Read This by The-Perl-CD-Bookshel · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Why not take all of the bands that submit work that aren't chosen for iTunes and throw them up on something like indie.iTunes.com. You would get a wild indie following.

    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