better than iTunes

[symbioidlj]

Brent(and anyone else of my friends curious about alternative music distribution models)

This is an interesting "shareware" model of music distribution. Not completely unique, but looks like it may go somewhere.

Robin Storey from Zoviet France has some stuff under his "Rapoon" nom de muzique... So at least one "established" artist is there already.

A lot of it looks like good electronica/world beat type stuff. I'm gonna check it out more and if I find something I like, you know what? I think I will help support this.

The artist get a 50% cut! Unlike iTunes(sorry Brent)...

Comments

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

Independent artists who use CD Baby as their distributor for iTunes get a 60% cut.

The major label artist are still being fucked over though.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

actually, that's kinda cool. But this thing I noticed actually isn't 50% profit... it's 50 percent *revenue*(I didn't realize that), which makes it that much better than, I'm willing to bet, CD-baby/i-tunes. Anyways, as long as people are trying new things, that's the most important.

hope the cabs going well.later...

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

Isn't profit better than revenue? I thought profit was revenue minus expenses. Though maybe that's not it. I didn't do very well in my accounting class. Either way, I just think it's good when artists get as much money as possible for their work. I can understand paying for distribution, but the cut the major lables get over the artists is sickening.

As for the cab, it's going well. Just updated my progress page. Lots of computer work to do right now.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

you are correct. profit is revenue MINUS expenses...

so, say revenue is 8 bucks, and expenses is 2 bucks.

Profit is then 6 bucks.

So, half of revenue is 4 bucks, and half of profit is 3 bucks. which would you prefer?

heh anyways.

I definitely think something needs to change. and I don't think there's any model out there now that's perfect... But through trial and error, I think we can find it. I'm just not to pleased about the way the industry seems to really fight progress.

I saw the dimensions last night. I'll see the page in a mo'...

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

I see what you mean. I guess I only know CD Baby's policy. Songs on iTunes cost $0.99. Apple gets 34 cents. CD Baby gets 65 cents. CD Baby's cut is 9% or 6 cents. The artist gets 59 cents for each song they sell.

The expense in this case is $40. You pay CD Baby a one time fee of $40 to do the encoding and paperwork to get you on iTunes (or any digital distribution system you choose actually).

Though I guess there's the expense of recording the album and whatnot as well.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

hey, btw, did you wanna hear the one CD i have of Tony and I jamming? I could mail you a copy or maybe encode it as mp3 and somehow trade it with you over AIM or something...

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

YES!! I'll take it anyway you'd prefer. You could just upload an mp3 to your server and give me a link of you want.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

alas, my server doesn't allow mp3s(i know, dumb policy, but somewhat understandable, at least)... i can make it an ogg and upload it, if you want... I don't know if there's good ogg support for the mac.

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

Can't do ogg, but can't you just zip it up? Surely they allow zip files on your server?

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

ah ha! good idea...