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Magnatune - a Non-Evil Record Label?
jea6 writes "As seen on Fark and sure to intrest non-crossover Slashdotters, Magnatune is a record company with a catchy slogan. They highlight: 1) We're a record label. But we're not evil. 2) We call it 'try before you buy.' It's the shareware model applied to music. 3) Listen to hundreds of MP3'd albums from our artists. Or try our genre-based radio stations. 4) If you like what you hear, buy our music online for as little as $5 an album or license our music for commercial use. 5) Artists get a full 50% of the purchase price. And unlike most record labels, our artists keep their rights to their music. 6) Founded by musicians, for musicians. No major label connections. We are not evil. So if you are anti-RIAA (artist or consumer) and looking for an option (albeit a small option), this may be a start. The music is Creative Commons licensed, which is the brainchild of the eminent Lawrence Lessig."
50% sounds great. plus to retain creative control ove your music? not bad. this is a meme worth persuing.
-knowles
Mod me down for saying this but which sane artist would like to have this record label huh? It cannot even come up with a sound business plan. MAJOR artists would not earn as much publicity with this label as they do when they have a strong label like sony IMHO, only new/worn out artists would go for this and that will dictate the future of this label.
Go ahead, mod me down but one should face the reality before supporting something thats just "new". We also need to know that it is good.
I've been trying this site for the past 48 hours. Their music selection is limited, but its a starting label...its a chicken & egg scenario i think -- Need customers to attract musicians.
;)
I found its offerings to be professional and compentent, if unremarkable. So far the site seems to deliver on what its promising. FREE downloads, FREE streaming audio. Their business model appears to be ethical (by my standards).
Basically I'm waiting a week or two to see in the media if things are kosher before buying something: e.g. this is a legitimate venture?; they're on the up & up?; people don't have nasty customer service problems, etc.
Slashdot users -- this is probably THE busienss model we've been biatching for. If this venture fails, lets try to make sure its not because of lack of demand.
NOTE: I have NO affiliation with this site whatsoever. I can can barely read music.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Nice. Between this new label and cdbaby, maybe the artists will start to actually make something off of their CDs, and make me more apt to buy as well.
Depends what you consider good music. From what I can see, the RIAA and cronies tend to be pushing mass-market pop and "easy listening", so they can get their money back and much more.
This way, good music can get to the top so much more easily, if it's all word of mouth and independent of mass-marketting, rather than hyped.
jer
We may be human, but we're still animals
- Steve Vai
This isn't new, in fact independent labels (like Victory Records, Drive Thru, Jade Tree etc.) have been going this for a long time (download full MP3's, completely legal)... and they are not any way tied to the RIAA.
Why this is news, is ridiculous... this type of model is just good business if you are an independent label, because this is what gives you your edge over the majors, your ability to be flexible, without sacrificing the bottom line.
sad robot making broken music
If it works, and the artists use the label, then good luck to them. Personally, I'll buy music if I like it, and the only place I can hear it (and therefore form an opinion on whether I like it or not) is on the radio. A try before you buy is good, but without a radio station, it's useless. Thankfully, they've realised this, and it should be a great success! Maybe we'll see some non-evil bands (like Radiohead) join the label as well! Who knows! Anything can happen in the next half hour!
One feature I think is extremely unique is that people can choose what they pay. From $5-18, and the recommended amount is $8.
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
Same amount I would pay for a bottle of water, probably.
:-)
If Evian came out of my faucet at home I wouldn't buy bottled water. Instead what comes out is some foul tasting sludge that only once put through the Brita filter is drinkable and then still tastes off. This is why I buy bottled water. So what's your point here?
I will not buy music before I've heard it. Bt where can I hear stuff outside the mainstream? Not on the radio (they won't play them), and not in the record store (too damn inconvenient to ask to listen to more than a few CDs there). Being able to download songs or listen to streamed music is a big help in selecting artists who have not been previously 'marketed'... so now we can continue to give the RIAA the finger and put our money where our mouth is.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I think there's some truth to this. If an artist can make as much (or even more) money selling fewer records, then there's not a need to sell millions. It might also allow for many more artists to be "successful" - even when they have only a small, but usually very loyal, fan base.
Oddly, this is probably how it was in the age before records and mass distribution when all music was "live" music.
The gurus at Slashdot devised this really clever little distributed moderation system that works quite well to sort these posts by genre and revelence. I would think that Slashdot itself may provide an example of a ranking paradigm to help moderate the music at Magnatune. Statistics will evolve which show the more meaningful parameters of the music offered.
If I were working on their system, I would probably try to configure the radio streams so I could detect if the stream was aborted. That is a strong indication the guy on the other end was not much interested in that one. I would maintain statistics on which song of an album was downloaded first. Knowing which track was downloaded first probably will generate data for which tracks are the best ones of the album, based on which spawned off downloads of other tracks.
The album gets modded up for selling a track, a major mod if the entire album sells.
Its a brand new site, a brand new paradigm. But they will have the same bugs to work out as CmdrTaco has worked out here. Maybe they can look over here and talk to CmdrTaco for some insights on handling a torrent of data of various quality and how to set up some sort of moderation system similar to the one working here.
We are evolving. They will too.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
they don't want to release something really new, cause it's risky.
It's risky, because sometimes people "experimenting with interesting sounds" just plain suck.
The fact is Music IS a definable thing, though taste is subjective. A lot of music now days very barely falls into the definition of music. This goes for some pop music, but a whole LOT of indie music.
Indie music, on the whole, DOES suck because the people either lack talent, lack recording skills, they lack the funds to get proper equipment, or maybe they just really really universally bad taste. Whatever their excuse may be...
But when you really dig into what makes music, uhm, musical, you'll notice there are human biorhythm connections. Some things work really well, some things don't work at all.
Music that incorperates some or all of the basic principles tends to be more easily received by the listener. Random, disjointed, haphazard noise tends to irritate the body until it gets used to it, but even after becoming used to it (the same way you get used to city traffic, the sound of airplanes passing by, or the sound of a train station down the street) your body is still never really ready for it.
Some people will jump in here now to defend new and interesting sounds, or things that "break the rules" because it's cool or interesting, but most of the time it really isn't either. There are exceptions to every rule though, and that's what seperates the true artists from those who are just wailing away without any talent, which is as common today as the tasteless masses that enjoy it.
A serious music fanatic that I once knew told me that the best way to test if music is true to the nature of music is to try to hum along, clap your hands, and tap your feet. While some music makes one or more of those things difficult, as a general rule I noticed he is right. Things that do "make sense" as music tend to be more easily accepted by the senses.
He then pointed out to me that those songs that "make sense" stand the test of time. We can hear them 10, 20, or 30 years later and still enjoy them. Really, really, bad stuff from the 90's is already forgotten, probably never to be aired again (thankfully).
Back to the topic -- This Shareware Music thing hasn't any more or less potential to create good music than the current Music Business. It just has more of a chance of exposing us to the stuff that REALLY SUCKS (irrelevent of tates). Now even the really shitty artists will have some exposure, where they had only a small chance with the big lables that were afraid to bank on the masses of people with no taste at all. (People probably accepted the crap because they've been exposed to way too much hectic noise and insanity their lives and the music doesn't grate their nerves like it should...)
We're definately going to have less "quality control". Some of it is really going to stink, but some of it just might be really good. And that's why I'm so much for this idea. It gives everyone a fair chance, and if someone really wants to listen to total shit, they have that right and now they have that chance.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Well they're still around but they no longer have hold of the royalties business. For those of you who don't ASCAP was the only company collecting royalties for artists for a long time. Till one day they decided to double their fees. NBC thought that was crap and started their own royalty company: BMI. The primary difference was (and I think still is) that there no dues to pay with BMI it's a flat percent rate.
Why is this relevent to: but it still sucks unless its got good music.?
Because ASCAP said the same thing about BMI who basically opened the flood gates. Sure, many people that were BMI members (Read: could not afford ASCAP member dues) had NO talent (in singing and music) whatsoever and many indeed suxored a lot. But BMI's open invitation also hit gold. Such as Frank Sinatra who went to BMI to apply.
It may take time but I believe Magnatune will get some really genuinely good artists. Now the only trouble is keeping MTv from saying they suck.
No. This is potentially an ILLEGAL solution. How can bands on the label pay their songwriters the statutory 8 cents per track? And even if the band members write their own songs, what steps can they take should some songwriter they've never heard of take them to court, claiming that a song that they wrote is "strikingly similar" to some song they don't remember having heard? Heck, it could even happen by accident.
Will I retire or break 10K?
yes, but mp3.com got bought, so "mp3.com, originally" no longer exists. In addition, "mp3.com, originally" had an additional problem: artists could provide recordings only in 128 kbps MP3 format, which is capable of nowhere near the fidelity of pristine 16-bit 44.1 kHz stereo PCM audio to the good ear.
Will I retire or break 10K?
>> ....we, as a society, have confused well marketed with "good."
I doubt that. You're assuming that, given free choice, people will always buy "good" music. That's not true. People will buy music they like, whether or someone- even the buyer -- thinks it is good.
That's why the books at the top of the bestseller lists are usually not at the top of anyone's "Good Books" list. When people want to be entertained, they buy something that entertains them. When they want to read a "good" book, or listen to "good" music, they'll do that, too. We're all capable of making that distinction. Businesses are smart enough to know that most of us want to be entertained more than we want to spend time pretending to like "good" music.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I'd just like to say I bought an album off Magnatunes after finding the site from Fark late Saturday night. I emailed John with some words of support and amazingly enough, he emailed me back an hour later. Nice to see he took the time to read his email while watching his site get slashdotted.
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/
I think comparing indie artists to impressionists might be a bit of a stretch. All the original poster was trying to say is that just because something is new and different that does not make it good. Tapping your toes, swaying, and just plain grooving are all signs of good music. I doubt you'll find good music that doesn't make you shake sumthang.
If anything could be considered music why do we have a seperate word than sound or noise? All music is sound, but not all sound is music. Experimental "music" is most often just sound and not music at all. And thats okay, but its not music just sounds.
I do find it interesting though, that in a follow-up post you yourself make a value judgement on what is or is not music. Long live musical elitist hypocrisy!
All they offer is a website to listen to the songs and then buy them. If I need that service, I'll use CD Baby, where I don't sign the rights to my music away. And boy do they have many artists already!.
Additionaly, CD Baby takes a flat amount of $4 (CDs) or 9% (iTunes music store), all without signing my rights away. I think I know which one I'm choosing :-)
I don't know. The way I read it, he's not only saying that something being new and different dosn't make it good - being new and different in fact will make it bad.
Then you read it wrong.
If it weren't for new ideas, we wouldn't have so many diverse types of music. Rock would have never come along. Disco (for better or worse) would never have come along. We wouldn't have Techno or Electronica. I even see merit in some more modern R&B, Dance, and sometimes (but not often) Rap.
New ideas are great. Breaking rules can be fun and interesting.
But don't use "ART" as a defense for lacking talent. That's one of my personal pet peeves.
A: "Man, this is terrible."
B: "That's just your opinion."
A: "No, that person literally doesn't have any sense of beat, can't carry a tune, and the music is just a single monotonous repeating tone. That's a fact."
B: "I still like it."
A: "Well okay, but that doesn't save it from being bad music."
I've never felt any desire to shake anything upon hearing any music, so perhaps I'm not someone who should be having an opinion on this in the first place.
Very possible. Some people are not artistically inclined. To assume everyone has some artistic ability, and the idea that art is what you make it is an attitude I can't stand. It cheapens the value of the truely gifted people.
To say that this guy is brilliant because his voice has a wide and pure range, he has a wonderful sense of beat and harmony, and he can play 6 different instruments but then turn around and say this other guy is brilliant because he can grunt a bunch of garbage to some repeating track of rubbish that barely registers as anything more than white noise is completely unfair to the real artist of the two.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Magnatune seems to be onto something... I would also suggest that people buy local. I've been going to a lot of small concerts being held in basements and living rooms lately. Totally Unknown bands. Usually these concerts cost $3 to $5 and there are 2 or 3 bands (a great deal). Now some of these bands totally suck - when that happens people just walk out into the backyard or the porch until a better band comes up. But some of these bands are very good and very different than the music that the RIAA is shoving down our throats - some of these bands are actually innovative. Most all of them offer their CDs for sale - usually for less than $5 (sometimes for only a buck!). It's great: I can spend lots less than I would on an RIAA artist concert and get their homegrown CD's for MUCH less - AND all of the money I spend on them is actually going to the artists. In most cases these local bands don't give a rip about ripping their CD's (some even have copylefted their music and encourage you to copy). So buy local - find bands in your area that are selling their own music. Sure, when someone asks you what you're listening to, they're not gonna recognize the band's name, but why listen to what everyone else is listening to?