Moderators MrKnobs Posted June 19, 2012 Moderators Share Posted June 19, 2012 Most of the buying public thinks music should be free. That's because the marginal cost of producing another mp3 copy of a song is perceived (correctly) by the public as being vanishingly close to zero. What they fail to realize, or choose not to think about, is that if everyone does this, millions of dollars can be lost. It's the classic problem perfectly illustrated by this picture I have over my desk: Terry D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted June 19, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Selling music via iTunes - RequirementsContent Requirements:- At least 20 albums in your catalog. - UPCs/EANs/JANs for all products you intend to distribute. - ISRCs for all tracks you intend to distribute. So you fullfil this and you are a direct content provider to iTunes? I don't provide the content directly to iTunes - we do it through an aggregator. CD Baby, Tunecore, Bandcamp and many others are all aggregators who will submit independent music to iTunes and other digital services, and will obtain UPC and ISRC codes if you don't have them - for a very nominal fee. They are not record labels, just an outside service who can submit independent albums in bulk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Okay, i forgot the word "direct" (to iTunes) in my post. CD Baby and Tunecore does not work with ISRC codes. Means they provide your music to all sort of funny portals and streaming radios which don't pay you fair royalties. I don't care, but it was you who posted the article where it says that artist don't get payed fairly, for example by Simfy wnoch payed one undependent record label $3.50 for 50.000 streamings, and don't forget, when Sinfy pay your royaltoes to Rinecore, they even dedict something from this $3.50 so who is out of touch, you or me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Aggregator are nothing else then a "digital record company". In the case of TuneCore, the artist gives them the music worldwide and exclusive, and this even thus most of this funny service only deliver the content to some other funny services, possibly all those funny aggegators like CD Baby, TuneCore and so on are one and the same person with a little office in the Ukraine, Finland or somewhere else out in the woods. Not saying that serious aggregators work differently, and really deliver to all about 500 serious sales portal worldwide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted June 19, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 What the hell are you talking about? Tunecore doesn't get any exclusive rights to anything - musicians retain all rights. They do get ISRC codes. And they and the others I mentioned "really deliver" to iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody and dozens of other sales portals. They are not record companies, digital or otherwise. If you want to change the definition of a record label just so you can "win" an argument, have at it. The point is, any indie artist can distribute their music and sell it on all the major download services, without owning a record label. You were trying to deny that this was possible as proof that I "don't know how the music business works." You also said David Lowery was a professor who's never worked in music. You're simply dead wrong about all this. Again, while I respect what you're doing in your corner of the biz, and it's interesting to hear your perspective as it relates to your own niche, you seem to think your experience applies to everybody, and it's not even close. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 TuneCore - Terms and Conditions(b) By clicking the "I Agree" button, you irrevocably grant to Company, throughout the world and during the Term (as defined in Section 7 below), the non-exclusive right:(ii) to collect all income deriving therefrom; and... "all income" means exclusive. This idiots can't even write a clear Terms and Conditions. And forget the the word "Worldwide" in their contract, it's not even 0.5% of the world they deliver to. If you want to sell worldwide, then there are only the serious aggregators, but since you are not smart in music business and are a knowing all, I don't tell you who those are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted June 19, 2012 Members Share Posted June 19, 2012 Sure, he'd have been able to make a living. Would he have? How? Playing his own music and travelling around singing it? How many people were able to make a living doing that prior to 1960? Any more than are able to do it now? Lowery benefited by being able to succeed in the system such as it was in the 80s/90s. But the truth is there were thousands of guys as talented. He, for a bunch of reasons, was able to break through in a system that precluded every guy with the same level of talent and ambitions from doing so. Good for him. But the system has changed. In many ways, it's more equal. All those other guys who never got as far as he did now have an equal shot. The downside is that dilutes the pool and makes everyone seem much less unique. Is that a good thing or a bad thing overall? Well, it's a bad thing for Lowery, that's for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 And now the most important question, since you all seem to work with some of the funny services which position between you the artist and the sales portals: How many songs did you sell last year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted June 20, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 Would he have? How? Playing his own music and travelling around singing it? How many people were able to make a living doing that prior to 1960? Any more than are able to do it now? What's so magic about 1960? People were making money in 1960 the same ways they were in 1970 and 1980 and 1990 - through touring, record sales and songwriting royalties. They weren't making quite as much as they would in those decades when the baby boom swelled the population, so you didn't have superstars who were selling the kinds of numbers the Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, etc. had... but for people on Lowery's level, it wasn't all that different. Sure, labels ripped people off and screwed them out of their publishing royalties and such... but that didn't stop in the 60s either. Lowery benefited by being able to succeed in the system such as it was in the 80s/90s. But the truth is there were thousands of guys as talented. I dunno about thousands, but some, sure. He, for a bunch of reasons, was able to break through in a system that precluded every guy with the same level of talent and ambitions from doing so. Good for him. But the system has changed. In many ways, it's more equal. All those other guys who never got as far as he did now have an equal shot. The downside is that dilutes the pool and makes everyone seem much less unique. Is that a good thing or a bad thing overall? Well, it's a bad thing for Lowery, that's for sure. Actually he's doing quite well compared to a lot of people. He's OK and in fact he used to be just fine with the new paradigm, until he got hold of some hard data where he was able to directly correlate sales of his own records (which he gets from his labels) to download activity on the big pirate sites. The labels do have software to track this stuff, and he has access to it, at least for his own material. So he did his homework and was very disturbed by what he saw and how much it would affect other artists not quite as fortunate. As far as the market being "diluted" by more people having an equal shot, absolutely that's a factor. But I'd say that most of those people, even if they're really talented (as many are), still don't necessarily have the marketing skills to get their stuff heard by a ton of people. Just putting stuff out on the Internet, obviously, doesn't usually amount to much, despite a few runaway success stories. It still takes good old fashioned marketing, advertising and other support infrastructure to establish a viable career. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 What's so magic about 1960? It's an approximate date for the beginning of the singer/songwriter era and for musical artists who focused on their own inner artistic vision rather than just working in the industry to create a commercial product. My point here is that the entire paradigm of "I write my songs and play them how I want and I find enough fans who like it to make a living" is really an anomoly in the history of music-as-a-profession. Yeah, they'll always be superstars. Just like there always have been---Sinatra, Elvis, Katy Perry types who work with the producers and labels to give the public a product they want. And they aren't hurt by the new paradigm. Katy's doing just fine, I'm sure. But the indy artists? Well, those are the ones who are getting hurt the most, right? My point here is the ones who did pretty well in the past did so largely because the system pretty much had a cap on how many artists got ANY sort of exposure at all. If you happened to be one of those, you might find your audience and do OK. As far as the market being "diluted" by more people having an equal shot, absolutely that's a factor. But I'd say that most of those people, even if they're really talented (as many are), still don't necessarily have the marketing skills to get their stuff heard by a ton of people. Just putting stuff out on the Internet, obviously, doesn't usually amount to much, despite a few runaway success stories. It still takes good old fashioned marketing, advertising and other support infrastructure to establish a viable career. Yep. And what we're going to see, I would imagine, is less label interest in "indy" type artists with limited reach and more focus on the potential "superstars" they can control. Which, again, brings us back more to how things were in say....1959 than 1989. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beck Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 Aggregator are nothing else then a "digital record company". Aggregators represent many individual artists as a group, so while a lone artist may not be able to fulfill the iTune requirements on their own, they can through the aggregator that represents the many as one. Artists and bands can also form a group under the umbrella of one account to fulfill the requirements. But Apple isn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 It isn't smart to go thru this services such as TuneCore for financial reasons. And the new offer, lets call it business model, for example by Jango that artist pay the streaming radio money that they play them inbetween the pop hits of the majors, is simply stupid, actually Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 NPR's response Best, Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators MrKnobs Posted June 20, 2012 Moderators Share Posted June 20, 2012 CDbaby only sends your music to stations and sellers you choose. As for ISRC codes, well, have a look. You can bring your own or they can supply. Terry D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators MrKnobs Posted June 20, 2012 Moderators Share Posted June 20, 2012 It isn't smart to go thru this services such as TuneCore for financial reasons. And the new offer, lets call it business model, for example by Jango that artist pay the streaming radio money that they play them inbetween the pop hits of the majors, is simply stupid, actually Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 CDbaby only sends your music to stations and sellers you choose. As for ISRC codes, well, have a look. You can bring your own or they can supply. Where is the list of the station they supply to?Yes yes yes, you must chose: "I need you to assign ISRCs" that's very important !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 get excited when little girls like us, so maybe that's what's really going on that's what the hole music biz is about, at least that you understood Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted June 20, 2012 CMS Author Share Posted June 20, 2012 That's because the marginal cost of producing another mp3 copy of a song is perceived (correctly) by the public as being vanishingly close to zero. What they fail to realize, or choose not to think about, is that if everyone does this, millions of dollars can be lost. The solution is that you sell the first publication for $10,000, $20,000, or $5,000,000 - whatever you think it will be worth over its lifetime. Then all the copies can be cost free and guilt free. People sell patents for that kind of money, why not songs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Philter Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 NPR's responseBest,Geoff Generous calling that a response. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 The solution is that you sell the first publication for $10,000, $20,000, or $5,000,000 who is paying this fee to whom? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JeffLearman Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 who is paying this fee to whom? That was intended as sarcasm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 I have no ear for sacarsm when it comes to music piracy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 The main reason why laws are not execute is that even RIAA knows that we have no jail cells for 7 billion people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JeffLearman Posted June 20, 2012 Members Share Posted June 20, 2012 I did a little more research about Lowery's assertion that contributors to Creative Commons are evil:"These technological and commercial interests have largely exerted this pressure through the Free Culture movement, which is funded by a handful of large tech corporations and their foundations in the US, Canada, Europe and other countries"The link goes to Creative Commons's list of donators. I don't buy that CC is dedicated to undermining copyrights. Lowery seems to have a personal axe to grind with CC's main man, Larry Lessig. Here's an ABA article Lowery cites in a rant about Lessig. Here's an example from that article of Lessig's efforts to do what Lowery thinks of as undermining copyright law:The legislation he proposed in the Times, called the Eldred Act, would re-establish a piece of copyright law--a renewal clause--that disappeared in 1976. Under the Eldred Act, 50 years after something is created, the creator pays a $1 fee or a work falls into the public domain. That way, if no one is interested in using a work or no one renews it, it becomes public domain material. By doing so, the legislation lets companies like Disney keep their lucrative properties without putting unused works under restrictive copyright protections.Seems pretty reasonable to me. The more I learn, the more Lowery seems like a rights-clutching wing-nut. That doesn't undermine his main point in this rather lengthy article, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators MrKnobs Posted June 20, 2012 Moderators Share Posted June 20, 2012 Where is the list of the station they supply to? Here is the list. Always happy to give you more ammunition to be wrong. Terry D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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