Slashdot Mirror
Selling Independent MP3s Direct to Customer?
jetsetsc asks: "I am not a programmer but I am a musician. My band's recordings belong to the band, and we'd like to skip the middlemen — labels, iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, etc — and setup a way to sell MP3's cheaply, and directly to fans. I have searched quite a bit and found nothing that fits the bill. Snocap is sort of similar, but they are more about a central store with a MySpace tie in. We don't need a fancy search, or a complicated 'if you liked this try...' feature. I figure potential fans can find our webpage on their own, referred by Pandora, a music blog, internet radio, or even (gasp!) a print article. When they get there it'd be great if they could listen to samples, check off the songs they want, pay 39 cents (or however much) through PayPal, and get a secure non-transferable download just like iTunes. DRM not required. I can't believe in this day and age that a service or software package like this doesn't exist. Any ideas?"
What's wrong with Sounclick?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
and get a secure non-transferable download just like iTunes. DRM not required.
How would you go about making it "secure" and "non-transferable" without the DRM part? (Ignoring, for a moment, that DRM is neither secure nor does it necessarily make music non-transferable)
Is it just me or is that completely contradictory?
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
We don't need a fancy search, or a complicated 'if you liked this try...' feature.
You might not need those things, but any company providing files for download at cost certainly will. It's called cross-selling, it's marketing, and it's the sort of thing that makes the difference between living and dying for an ecommerce company. When you're "microselling" something you need to sell a large number of units just to stay in business. How is the service going to do that if they don't maximise every conversion?
("maximise every conversion"? Oh god, I've turned into a PHB. Shoot me now.)
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Why not just set up an online shopping basket I'm sure theres plenty of help with that, ok it doesn't do the DRM/no tranferable bit but its quick n easy
Since you don't need any of the music-specific features, look for a package that helps you sell software. It's the same problem you're trying to solve and there are many options. This one was near the top of my google search results, and looks to meet your needs. There appeared to be numerous similar apps.
.sig: file not found
If you code it . . . they will come . . . If you code it . . . they will come . . .
-You have been modded appropriately-
Put up a static page with links to 30 seconds versions of each song. Each of them has a checkbox called "download this". At the end a huge Buy Now button. Next page, compute how much you want and send them over to PayPal. On the final page, give them the links to the real songs, possibly with an expiration code embedded or something.
But really, "non transferable" music is simply non existant, even more so when you ask for no DRM. Oh and get ready to see your music on p2p networks in 3... 2... 1...
Global warming is a cube.
"What's wrong with Sounclick [soundclick.com]?"
I signed up for them once and got a lot of spam. They even make you sign up for the spam lists to download their FREE mp3's.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Sounds like http://www.mindawn.com/ is what you're looking for. They sell lossless (flac) and lossy (ogg) sound files. No DRM. Their catalog is growing steadily, and they work with a lot of independents.
"....setup a way to sell MP3's cheaply, and directly to fans.....and get a secure non-transferable download just like iTunes. DRM not required."
DRM is required to have a "non-transferrable download". Once you do that, it's not an MP3 anymore. MP3 files are not encumbered by DRM and are transferable. You are going to have to ask: do you want MP3, or do you want DRM? You can't do both.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Dreamhost (note: my hosting provider, and a referral link) recently announced Files Forever (non-referral link) that I think would let you do what you are after. It's beta now (I don't know if they will let non-Dreamhost customers in) but I think it's an easy solution to what you're looking for. When they announced it on their Blog they specifically mentioned being able to use it as an iTunes alternative.
Hope that helps.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
If you look at his request for "non-transferrable downloads", the DRM-free flac and ogg files don't fit the bill. He's going to have to modify his request, because he cannot have all he's looking for.
Where were you when the voynix came?
He also specifically asked for an MP3 service. You just can't do "secure non-transferable" with MP3. Technically impossible.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Try out files forever from DreamHost.. DRM free, secure downloading of files, they handle the credit card processing and send you your money via paypal.
Currently it's in beta and only available to dreamhost customers, but they're a pretty decent host.. and try using "9999" as your promo code when signing up to get $99.99 off the first year!
dreamhost is offering a service for their customers: https://files.dreamhost.com/ - No DRM is allowed.. period! - Once you upload your file to sell, you pay a tiny one-time storage fee, and we serve it FOREVER at a nice, permanent, URL. - Anybody who buys a file somebody offers via Files Forever get an online backup of it included.. that is, they may re-download the file as many times as they want, FOREVER! - Any file you buy from Files Forever you can also "loan" to your friends via the service! They are then allowed to download the file as much as they want until you ask for it "back." (This is awesome, trust me.) - We handle all the payment processing / shopping cart stuff, and take just 5% + 50c for credit card fees. (We combine purchases to minimize these costs too.) - You can even offer an "affiliate cut" for people who re-sell your files!
/ http://suffocate.us
/ http://johngrayson.com
There are a number of sources that sell "shopping cart / download" services - just very few (if any) that actually only do this for MP3 files. And certainly I am hoping that by non-transferable you mean anti-leech related tech (limit download to original purchase, not just some direct link to the file). Again - these things exist all over.
Heck, I used to work for a "Brand Management Firm" (that's what they called themselves) that did some moonlighting hosting web sites for clients. To setup the shopping cart etc, they would have charged about maybe $400 back in the day - but I bet you could get a similar service for under $100 now - though I doubt you will have the volume of sales to make a percentage of sales interesting. But that is just me guessing on the popularity of the band.
If you don't go the DRM route, you might as well just set up a website with a standard store and sell the files and a donation button so people can "tip" you. This is not difficult and could be done in a few days. Of course you are going to have to hope that
Your band can literally be the test case for musicians using micropayments as a means of making a living as so many people claim is possible.
One other thing, you can try this with one or two songs to start. That way you don't give away your entire catalog.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
First, a preface. There are sites out there that will do what you want, and as part of their fees, will handle the site development, order processing, and fulfillment. If you really want to do it yourself, remember that there are typically per-transaction as well as percentage fees for card processing, which is why micropayments have yet to really take off.
Now, that being said, OSCommerce will do what you want. It will provide a pretty interface, allow you to create time and/or number of download limited links, and has plugins to handle billing with pretty much anyone you'd ever want (and some you wouldn't touch) to handle your billing.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Think about it; the website will probably be a dozen screens. Nothing fancy and almost everything is static (i.e. it doesn't need to change when a user clicks somewhere). Let's see if we can get an initial draft:
- Static pages: index page, discography, agenda, lyrics
- Dynamic page 1: you can fill in an e-mail address and then be transferred to Paypal. This is described well.
- Dynamic page 2: when Paypal returns a successful payment, this page shows a number of links to download the songs or albums. Contained in the link is a Secret Number tied to a cookie, an IP address or some other way to distinguish a user. The Secret Number is then put in a URL and mailed to the user with the e-mail address from the first page. You could also make this page much simpler and just count the number of downloads. A user can download twice and then the Secret Number is revoked.
Because you only asked about software, I assume the website design is done. So that means that you need two PHP pages. With a good description, $20 and an account on one of the freelance programmer boards, you're done.8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
"I am a programmer, not a musician. I want to start a band to play music for my daughter's birthday party but I do not have any instruments, knowledge of how to play music, or band-mates. I can't believe that there are people who will accept money to play music for my daughter (which is what I really want), but that they won't do it for free. I mean, I can go to the store and buy a CD, and buy a CD-player and play that for my daughter for FREE- what is their deal? I would also like to require everyone to wear headphones during the performance so that nobody steals the music, but I would also like it to be nice and loud and have a big stack of speakers (because big speakers are cool)."
If you want to sell MP3's directly to your customers, put up a web-page that says: "MP3's for sale" and take pay-pal (who will also take a rather large % cut of small-dollar sales). When people send you $$$, you email them the MP3's. If that sounds like a lot of work or hassle, accept that you will have to give your MP3's to a 3rd party who will do a better job of selling & servicing customers securely. eCommerce is still moderately difficult. It would be nice if it were easier, then the answer would be "find a web-host that supports Sell-A-Zip-File-3.0" and just do that (which means you're still paying money to a 3rd party to sell your MP3's).
Sorry for the snark, but I'm in a snarky mood.
--Robert
"True, but he also mentioned MP3 files which, while I believe there are DRM schemes for it, none of them are widely used"
.MP3 file, but have some sort of DRM to restrict play in my old Winamp 2.0 or my CD player that plays data CD's with MP3 files on them?
Really? There is something by which a file can be a valid
Where were you when the voynix came?
Have you looked at Amie Street at all? They provide a lot of the services you mentioned wanting, plus have a neat pricing model that should appeal to most geeks (songs start at free, go up in price depending upon the number of purchases to a max of 98 cents. Plus a mini rewards/stock market system for if you buy a song at a low price that later goes high). Not exactly no middlemen as you said but as close as you're easily going to get.
I would like to point out http://tychomusic.com/. Very nice way to preview the music, and after listening to all of what was up there, I bought 2 "albums" of mp3 downloads from their site.
I have never bought music based on a 30-second sample, and I never will.
Also, I've never tried them, but I've heard that eMusic and Last.fm are good ways for indy musicians to get their music out.
I have an independent label. We have interns manage getting the releases out to all of the major sites.1 1638090
/ ArtistServlet?id=36183 //teh evil
We track royalties and sales data from all of them.
in addition to iTunes store, the catalog is available on most pay sites:
http://www.playittonight.com/
http://www.dancerecords.com/artists/Synthique
http://www.last.fm/
http://www.emusic.com/artist/11616/11616213.html
http://www.napster.com/view/artist/index.html?id=
I just noticed that I have stuff on the WalMart music site. That's disturbing, since I don't remember anyone contacting them..
http://musicdownloads.walmart.com/catalog/servlet
Lulu.com sells MP3s, among other things for you. They just take a small bandwidth fee. They'll also let you sell CD's off their site so that your fans can buy CD's instead of downloadable MP3's if that's they way they roll.
They set up a basket with your purchases in it. Only if you have successfully downloaded the item, does it get removed from your basket...if you have errors or an incomplete download, it remains there for another try, until you get a good download. Basket is valid for 48 hours or something, but once you download the items, they disappear from the basket, so only one download per purchase.
Have you considered the Podsafe Music Network? They now let artists sell their music for a dollar a track, with no DRM. The PMN has an added benefit of promotion via podcasts playing your music.
The BBC tech section had an article about crackers a while back, pointing out to just how screwed up paypal is. People don't trust paypal, and with good reason. Not to mention you might get your account hacked yourself. Other than that, read the rest of the comments.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
If you really want distribution, play with the big boys. Either find an indie label to help, or try to go it alone, but get your tunes on the majors services.
;-)
If you really just want your music to be listened to, put up 64kb versions of your tunes on a static web page, and sell CDs (yes, the real ones) with a paypal cart. If you want to be nice, include high quality (256-320kb), pre-tagged MP3s on the CD on a data track. I suppose you could set up a downloadable MP3 for purchase individually, but since you're going to pay $0.50 for the transaction fee, there's not much profit left on a $0.39 track
Don't bother trying to lock down the content - the folks who really like your music will probably buy the disc anyway. A downloadable zip of the album would be a nice bonus for that "instant gratification", though. (I suppose that could be the primary product, too, given the backend work)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
What about http://www.emusic.com/? I use them to buy from alot of independent artists. Just a thought...
They might be an option - depends on what sort of music you're doing:y /pc/home.asp
http://www.wovenwheatwhispers.co.uk/folk_communit
It's mainly "folk" (whatever that means this week - and it certainly means something different in the UK and the US) - but if you're doing a Robyn Hitchcock cover you can't be that far off (assuming that you're these "Jennifers" - http://www.thejennifers.com/music.html of course).
A buddy of mine just launched a site to serve precisely this market: Indiekazoo. Simple site to use, simple ecommerce, very convenient.
IndieKazoo makes it easy to:
* Take control of your own music sales
* Sell your music as MP3 downloads
* Sell your out-of-print CDs and music again
IndieKazoo is perfect for:
* Bands with tracks or CDs to sell
* Individual musicians
* Singer/songwriters
Key features:
* Songs play on any MP3 player or device (iPod, iTunes, MusicMatch, WinAmp, etc.)
* Admin area to track sales and music store usage
* Adjustable song samples for visitors
* Set your own prices
this is getting old and so are you
blog
I mean someone is going to be the middleman no matter what. The least you are going to pay someone is if you could implement it all yourself, but even that would come at the cost of all your time.
Do this: Incorporate yourself as an indie label and talk to iTunes or eMusic. From what I understand Apple doesn't make much (if anything) on Music sales. They are in it to sell iPods. Users can always burn Apple's tunes to CD and then reimport, so their DRM isn't that bad (IMO). Anyway, I doubt you are going to find a way to get to your listeners in a way that is much easier on them than iTunes. Then again, maybe you don't like iTunes price to users. emusic tends to be more economical per track (unless you are a punk band that writes thirty-five 1 minute songs for an album.) I have no clue about emusic's payoff to record labels. Write Dischord records and find out. Those guys are awesome and I bet they'd help you out. They are not really in it to make duckets, they just want to document the DC scene.
Its not my favorite software ever and is suffering from a sever case of featuritis, but you can do this with Zen Cart (http://zen-cart.com/). Its an open source shopping cart writen in PHP that allows you to sell downloads. When a user buys a download, they are given a custom URL to download the files and this URL can expire after a certain time period. I set this up for a friends record label, and besides the need to strip out all the extra features its been working fairly well. And you can sell t-shirts from the same store.
I run a site that sells mp3s. It is currently evolving from it's original purpose as a tiny site dedicated to a few bands into a site where any band can sell their own mp3s and merch. The problem is that transaction fees for a credit card are 2-3% plus $0.25 - $0.35. You can't offer mp3s for 39 cents and make any money. In my situation, my worst case scenario is that a customer will buy only a single mp3 for $1.00. That makes the transaction fees take away about 33% of your profit. Then you have to take what's left and split it between the band and the service provider.
We sell plain old (high quality) mp3s. We offer the same protection on our mp3s that you probably already have on your CDs. None. We figure if your willing to sell a standard, unprotected CD, there is no reason not to sell a standard, unprotected mp3.
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
I am using http://dllock.com/ for selling MP3's online. They are working on a gateway to Paypal. (currently using IPN2 to cover for that time). I checked out many different solutions, but Download Lock is the only one that really works on my rather complicated servers. And it is pretty robust without bugs so far.
No, it doesn't solve the exact problem you're trying to solve.
But getting your label to distribute through them *will* increase sales, result in increased attention to your band, and support one of the major DRM-free independent-music supporting communities.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
How far off the mark is Magnatune for you?
JoCo has done something like this. Check out http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songs
I'm setting up an mp3 store for my band at the moment. Free (as in beer) shopping cart software, knows how to handle digital products, checkout works via paypal (or a whole ton of other options). You don't exactly need to be a "programmer" to get it to work, but it is possibly helpful. If you've installed software like phpBB or a photo gallery on your site before, you'll be fine. Or you should be able to easily find a local friendly php/mysql hacker to sort it out for 50 bucks or a case of beer or something, if you don't feel brave.
Here are some step-by-step instructions someone pasted to me, not sure where they're originally from, but they make it pretty damn easy to follow.
Before these instructions begin, it assumes you've downloaded and installed the latest version of Cubecart (3.0.13) - which is one of the most painless installs of web software I've come across, so I shan't add any instructions, I didn't even really need to RTFM.
I'm not quite sure if it works yet so I won't paste the link. The link in my sig is not what I'm talking about here, that was for selling CDs and doesn't use cubecart. And don't click on buy, because we've sold out of CDs... hence the mp3 shop in progress
Everyone who thinks that people who make music, films, ect should just beg for tips ...
A tip jar is not a begging bowl. Tips are a donation reflecting satisfaction with services rendered. A beggar offers no services.
Perhaps you should ask a waiter why he is begging for tips. He might straighten out your misunderstanding.
If your group sucks, the RIAA will leave you alone. If you are good, and (evern worse) if you get a following, then you will be sued by the RIAA.
At that point, your options are:
1. Suicide
2. Defeat
3. Shooting up a RIAA member company's stock holder meeting.
Andy Out!
All of us slashbots believe that Music should be free, and don't mind telling you how to run an unprofitable business that benifits us at your expense.
You want this site. Completely addresses your problems, so far as I can tell:
http://www.mperia.com/
Not affiliated, just a very happy customer of theirs. Works like a charm for me, and bands seem to have complete control over how to setup their business there.
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
I blogged this recently:
Selling Music Online - the Minimal WayA friend of mine called me yesterday while I was standing on the end of the Santa Monica Pier saying that one of his band's songs would be airing on Grey's Anatomy next Monday. He asked how he could quickly setup his website to be able to sell an MP3 of the track in time for the airing. The band already has a paypal merchant account and this would be only need to be a temporary solution.
I thought about the question and asked a few technically inclined musician friends about their experiences. (Neither of which were very helpful! One recommended an "online" music label and the other warned of RIAA restrictions.)
So, here's what I came up with and recommended to my friend:
These two services allow you to upload the digital files you wish to sell to their server and enter you PayPal account information. They'll then accept the "Buy" button links from your website and pass them off to PayPal's standard interface for payment. PayPal then returns to their site for the "Thank You" page and a secure, limited time download URL is provided to the purchaser.
- EJunkie (Pricing)
- PayLoadz and PayLoadz Express (Pricing)
An Additional Note:Simple, straightforward and to the point!
From my reading, PayPal now has new rates for micropayments which cost less for items under $12. (5% + $0.05 vs the standard 2.9% + $0.30) See PayPal's Site for more information on micropayments.
So, without knowing more about the subject, I think one of these services would be the way to go. They both look like they are pretty easy to setup and the deciding factor would simply be cost projections based on how many sales they expect to make! Good luck guys!
Wow, you all have given us a lot to chew on. A few points:
By "Non-transferrable" I meant the download link, not the digital music itself.
Yes we are the www.thejennifers.com, and because we are including the Robyn Hitchcock cover on our new CD we are learning what's involved with getting the proper license to distribute (on CD and digitally) it from the publishing company. We do already get our stuff distributed to the big boys (iTunes etc.) through the wonderful CDBaby.
For selling directly, it looks like something like osCommerce may work - basically a shopping cart for downloads, if we can make the overhead-per-transaction work. This won't be the end-all of our sales, but we'd like to be able to give people who want to buy DRM-free music - with the $$ going to the band - an avenue to do so. We're actually OK with people sharing mp3's - it helps spread the word. So maybe even a paypal tip jar would suffice.
I was suprised to find so few bands selling mp3's directly this way. I really think it's the future of music sales. Thanks again for all the tips.
And no, we hopefully won't be visited by the RIAA - we own all the rights to our music - songwriting, publishing and recording.
-J
email me expert01_@_users.sourceforge.net
I can help you distribute your music in the manner you wish, without worrying about bandwidth overheads, needing individual links, or bothering with small payments.
Why charge? Look at it this way, music sales are a small part of a band's income. Give away your MP3s and consider it a promotional cost. Bands make most of their money on concerts and merchandise.
It looks like Big Head Todd and the Monsters are doing ok giving away plenty of MP3s. The Grateful Dead did just fine letting fans record their concerts and not worrying about record sales.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
I think oscommerce chain reaction edition should work well for you. They set up the packages for you, and they offer hosting options. you can also get some assistance and an idea of what it could look like at musica360.com The owner is a really nice guy and helped me a lot when I was working on a simular project. good luck!
like a man without arms, you can't hang......
I wrote something from scratch using Paypal Micropayments. I can set it up for you. Email me: mike@mikebaas.com I am working on a Google Checkout version of the same system.
I think Bishop Allen has a system that does what you are looking for. I seem to remember is was developed by one of the members, but I'm not sure if its OSS or if they'd be willing to share.
www.e-junkie.com will let you do this. You upload MyCoolSong.mp3, and pay them $5 a month (more if you have more than X particular files you want to distribute). Then you configure your Paypal account to send them the IPN information (takes about 3 seconds). Every time someone presses your Pay You Money button they get redirected to a download link afterwards. If they were to hypothetically mail that download link to a friend the friend would find it doesn't work for them. The MP3 itself is not drmed, of course. I use e-junkie for selling software and it works like a charm (I don't need the download link feature, but they also can be configured to send a "Thanks for your purchase!" email with the Registration Key in it, which was the core feature I needed. $5 a month saves me from having to hack together a perl script to accomplish the same thing.)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
http://www.tuneflow.com/ is what you want