Independent artists who sold their music through imeem’s Snocap music storefronts on MySpace and other sites won’t be paid what’s owed even after MySpace Music’s acquisition of some — but not all — of imeem, Wired.com has learned.
MySpace Music bought “certain assets” from imeem, and they do not include imeem’s liability to more than 110,000 independent artists with Snocap storefronts, according to a source with inside knowledge of the deal. Those artists’ contracts mandate they be paid each month if they’re owed more than $20. Some artists have been owed money for more than a year, and the chance of them seeing any money now is, for all intents and purposes, zero, the source says.
Artists attempting to get paid for songs sold through Snocap stores — many or most of which were on MySpace itself — must get in line with imeem’s bank and other creditors. MySpace Music paid less than $1 million for imeem, so it’s doubtful much will remain for the artists.
“MySpace Music bought a limited set of imeem’s assets including the domain name and certain technology and trademarks,” a MySpace spokeswoman said in an e-mail to Wired.com. “The asset sale to MySpace Music was part of a foreclosure process which resulted from the lien certain secured creditors had on all the assets of imeem. MySpace Music did not acquire imeem’s outstanding debts, including the money imeem owed to artists under the Snocap relationship. Upon closing, users trying to access the Imeem website were redirected to MySpace Music. We did not acquire imeem’s contracts or relationships as we have our own in place. MySpace Music has its own distribution platform, which includes relationships with prominent aggregators and indie labels, that provides indie artists ways to monetize their music on our site.”
One source with inside knowledge of the deal said MySpace Music’s rushed purchase of imeem’s assets forced it to “leave behind anything that either had explicit liability or potential liability,” including Snocap and its debts to thousands of independent artists and bands.
Napster creator Shawn Fanning co-founded Snocap in 2002 to let artists sell their music through an embeddable storefront widget. At one point, the service was marketed as the exclusive way for artists to sell music on MySpace. Imeem bought Snowcap last summer. But because MySpace left most aspects of Snocap out of its acquisition of imeem’s assets, all 110,000 or so of those storefronts are gone. The server that hosts them is offline and so is the Snocap website.
Possibly the last band to be paid by imeem for music sold through a Snocap store embedded on MySpace was Javelin, which happens to be my brother’s and cousin’s band. After they inquired about money listed as owed in its online account, imeem sent them a check for about $400 for approximately a year and a half of sales.
That may not be “a princely sum,” as Tim Quirk put it. But for growing bands — many of whose income trickles in from a variety of sources — it matters, especially when you consider that imeem’s payments to major labels helped drive it out of business in the first place.
There’s nothing technically wrong with MySpace Music only acquiring certain assets from imeem, and teams of lawyers scrutinized the deal before it was done. Regardless, in this latest round of digital musical chairs, independent artists who set up music stores in good faith have been left holding the bag.
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Producers Resources & Tools
A collection of links and such to help any aspiring producers out. Some of the things you can grab:
- Bookmarks for musicians, producers & DJ's - Download these bookmarks that are all categorized neatly. Links to many sites that are useful to a DJ, music producer or musician. Simply import this file into your favorites in your browser. You will need to right click over the link and choose 'Save Target As' or the link will open as a webpage.
- Various Contract Templates - This zip file contains 17 various contract templates. Great for Producers, DJ's and Artists. Some of the templates are Remix for Hire, Mobile DJ, Artist Management, Songwriter, Tour Sponsorship, Producer for Hire, Graphic for Hire, and many many more...
Monday, September 28, 2009
Ignoring RIAA Lawsuits Cheaper Than Going to Trial
Jammie Thomas-Rasset and Joel Tenenbaum captured the nation's attention when they were defendants in the RIAA's first two trials against accused online infringers. But here's the mind-warping reality: both defendants would have been far better off monetarily if they had simply ignored the complaint altogether and failed to show up in court.
That counterintuitive logic played out again this week in Massachusetts, where federal judge Nancy Gertner issued four default judgments against accused P2P file-swappers who never bothered to respond to the charges against them. Their failure to appear meant an automatic loss, and though the judge does have some discretion in setting penalties, judges often pick the minimum awards in such cases.
That was true in all four cases, where Gertner accepted the record labels' claims and awarded them the minimum statutory damages of $750 per song. The defendants were accused of downloading an average of ten songs, putting total awards in the $7,500 range, in addition to a few hundred more for court costs.
Having $7,500 in damages assessed against you by a federal court is no picnic, but it pales in comparison to the two twenty-somethings who actually showed up to court, got attorneys, went through a multiyear process and a nationally covered trial, and came out the other side owing far more money.
The chart below illustrates the point by graphing the various damage awards per song:
When it comes to total damages, the disparities are even greater. Thomas-Rasset's retrial ended up with a $1.92 million award, while Tenenbaum faces $675,000 in damages. Those who didn't show up owe around $7,500.
In fact, this might well have been Tenenbaum's fate. He was actually included in a massive complaint consolidated into a single docket, and it was only when he showed up to a court hearing that Gertner stopped the default judgment proceeding against him and actually helped find him a lawyer—Harvard Law prof Charles Nesson. Now, Tenenbaum faces a life-altering damage award and the prospect of bankruptcy if not reduced or overturned on appeal.
Update: I was interested more in what happens within the federal court system for this article, but several commenters rightly point out that "not showing up" isn't the cheapest way out of such situations. Settling with the RIAA usually leads to payments of between $3,000 and $5,000, lower than the default judgments issued here by Judge Gertner. Convincing a jury that you're innocent could be cheaper still (if you find a pro bono lawyer), though it comes with certain obvious risks.
That counterintuitive logic played out again this week in Massachusetts, where federal judge Nancy Gertner issued four default judgments against accused P2P file-swappers who never bothered to respond to the charges against them. Their failure to appear meant an automatic loss, and though the judge does have some discretion in setting penalties, judges often pick the minimum awards in such cases.
That was true in all four cases, where Gertner accepted the record labels' claims and awarded them the minimum statutory damages of $750 per song. The defendants were accused of downloading an average of ten songs, putting total awards in the $7,500 range, in addition to a few hundred more for court costs.
Having $7,500 in damages assessed against you by a federal court is no picnic, but it pales in comparison to the two twenty-somethings who actually showed up to court, got attorneys, went through a multiyear process and a nationally covered trial, and came out the other side owing far more money.
The chart below illustrates the point by graphing the various damage awards per song:
When it comes to total damages, the disparities are even greater. Thomas-Rasset's retrial ended up with a $1.92 million award, while Tenenbaum faces $675,000 in damages. Those who didn't show up owe around $7,500.
In fact, this might well have been Tenenbaum's fate. He was actually included in a massive complaint consolidated into a single docket, and it was only when he showed up to a court hearing that Gertner stopped the default judgment proceeding against him and actually helped find him a lawyer—Harvard Law prof Charles Nesson. Now, Tenenbaum faces a life-altering damage award and the prospect of bankruptcy if not reduced or overturned on appeal.
Update: I was interested more in what happens within the federal court system for this article, but several commenters rightly point out that "not showing up" isn't the cheapest way out of such situations. Settling with the RIAA usually leads to payments of between $3,000 and $5,000, lower than the default judgments issued here by Judge Gertner. Convincing a jury that you're innocent could be cheaper still (if you find a pro bono lawyer), though it comes with certain obvious risks.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Jury Awards $675K in Boston Music Downloading Case
A federal jury on Friday ordered a Boston University graduate student who admitted illegally downloading and sharing music online to pay $675,000 to four record labels.
Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., admitted in court that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs. The only issue for the jury to decide was how much in damages to award the record labels.
Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful. The maximum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum's case was $4.5 million.
Jurors ordered Tenenbaum to pay $22,500 for each incident of copyright infringement, effectively finding that his actions were willful. The attorney for the 25-year-old student had asked the jury earlier Friday to "send a message" to the music industry by awarding only minimal damages.
Tenenbaum said he was thankful that the case wasn't in the millions and contrasted the significance of his fine with the maximum.
"That to me sends a message of 'We considered your side with some legitimacy,'" he said. "$4.5 million would have been, 'We don't buy it at all.'"
He added he will file for bankruptcy if the verdict stands.
Tenenbaum's lawyer, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, said the jury's verdict was not fair. He said he plans to appeal the decision because he was not allowed to argue a case based on fair use.
The Recording Industry Association of America issued a statement thanking the jury for recognizing the impact illegal downloading has on the music community.
"We appreciate that Mr. Tenenbaum finally acknowledged that artists and music companies deserve to be paid for their work," the statement said. "From the beginning, that's what this case has been all about. We only wish he had done so sooner rather than lie about his illegal behavior."
Tenenbaum would not say if he regretted downloading music, saying it was a loaded question.
"I don't regret drinking underage in college, even though I got busted a few times," he said.
The case is only the nation's second music downloading case against an individual to go to trial.
Last month, a federal jury in Minneapolis ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, 32, must pay $1.92 million, or $80,000 on each of 24 songs, after concluding she willfully violated the copyrights on those tunes.
The jury began deliberating the case Friday afternoon.
After Tenenbaum admitted Thursday he is liable for damages for 30 songs at issue in the case, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that the jury must consider only whether his copyright infringement was willful and how much in damages to award four recording labels that sued him over the illegal file-sharing.
In his closing statement Friday, Nesson repeatedly referred to Tenenbaum as a "kid" and asked the jury to award only a small amount to the recording companies. At one point, Nesson suggested the damages should be as little as 99 cents per song, roughly the same amount Tenenbaum would have to pay if he legally purchased the music online.
But Tim Reynolds, a lawyer for the recording labels, recounted Tenenbaum's history of file-sharing from 1999 to 2007, describing him as "a hardcore, habitual, long-term infringer who knew what he was doing was wrong." Tenenbaum admitted on the witness stand that he had downloaded and shared more than 800 songs.
Tenenbaum said he downloaded and shared hundreds of songs by Nirvana, Green Day, The Smashing Pumpkins and other artists. The recording industry focused on only 30 songs in the case.
The music industry has typically offered to settle such cases for about $5,000, though it has said that it stopped filing such lawsuits last August and is instead working with Internet service providers to fight the worst offenders. Cases already filed, however, are proceeding to trial.
Tenenbaum testified that he had lied in pretrial depositions when he said his two sisters, friends and others may have been responsible for downloading the songs to his computer.
Under questioning from his own lawyer, Tenenbaum said he now takes responsibility for the illegal swapping.
"I used the computer. I uploaded, I downloaded music ... I did it," Tenenbaum said.
Associated Press writer Jeannie Nuss contributed reporting from Boston.
Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., admitted in court that he downloaded and distributed 30 songs. The only issue for the jury to decide was how much in damages to award the record labels.
Under federal law, the recording companies were entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement. But the law allows as much as $150,000 per track if the jury finds the infringements were willful. The maximum jurors could have awarded in Tenenbaum's case was $4.5 million.
Jurors ordered Tenenbaum to pay $22,500 for each incident of copyright infringement, effectively finding that his actions were willful. The attorney for the 25-year-old student had asked the jury earlier Friday to "send a message" to the music industry by awarding only minimal damages.
Tenenbaum said he was thankful that the case wasn't in the millions and contrasted the significance of his fine with the maximum.
"That to me sends a message of 'We considered your side with some legitimacy,'" he said. "$4.5 million would have been, 'We don't buy it at all.'"
He added he will file for bankruptcy if the verdict stands.
Tenenbaum's lawyer, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, said the jury's verdict was not fair. He said he plans to appeal the decision because he was not allowed to argue a case based on fair use.
The Recording Industry Association of America issued a statement thanking the jury for recognizing the impact illegal downloading has on the music community.
"We appreciate that Mr. Tenenbaum finally acknowledged that artists and music companies deserve to be paid for their work," the statement said. "From the beginning, that's what this case has been all about. We only wish he had done so sooner rather than lie about his illegal behavior."
Tenenbaum would not say if he regretted downloading music, saying it was a loaded question.
"I don't regret drinking underage in college, even though I got busted a few times," he said.
The case is only the nation's second music downloading case against an individual to go to trial.
Last month, a federal jury in Minneapolis ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, 32, must pay $1.92 million, or $80,000 on each of 24 songs, after concluding she willfully violated the copyrights on those tunes.
The jury began deliberating the case Friday afternoon.
After Tenenbaum admitted Thursday he is liable for damages for 30 songs at issue in the case, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that the jury must consider only whether his copyright infringement was willful and how much in damages to award four recording labels that sued him over the illegal file-sharing.
In his closing statement Friday, Nesson repeatedly referred to Tenenbaum as a "kid" and asked the jury to award only a small amount to the recording companies. At one point, Nesson suggested the damages should be as little as 99 cents per song, roughly the same amount Tenenbaum would have to pay if he legally purchased the music online.
But Tim Reynolds, a lawyer for the recording labels, recounted Tenenbaum's history of file-sharing from 1999 to 2007, describing him as "a hardcore, habitual, long-term infringer who knew what he was doing was wrong." Tenenbaum admitted on the witness stand that he had downloaded and shared more than 800 songs.
Tenenbaum said he downloaded and shared hundreds of songs by Nirvana, Green Day, The Smashing Pumpkins and other artists. The recording industry focused on only 30 songs in the case.
The music industry has typically offered to settle such cases for about $5,000, though it has said that it stopped filing such lawsuits last August and is instead working with Internet service providers to fight the worst offenders. Cases already filed, however, are proceeding to trial.
Tenenbaum testified that he had lied in pretrial depositions when he said his two sisters, friends and others may have been responsible for downloading the songs to his computer.
Under questioning from his own lawyer, Tenenbaum said he now takes responsibility for the illegal swapping.
"I used the computer. I uploaded, I downloaded music ... I did it," Tenenbaum said.
Associated Press writer Jeannie Nuss contributed reporting from Boston.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Making the Most Out of Online Resources
Written by Daylle Deanna Schwartz
Author of "Start & Run Your Own Record Label" and "I Don’t Need a Record Deal!"
© 2009 All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission
Indie artists often complain about not having the budget they’d like to market and promote their music. Nowadays, digital marketing offers a plethora of opportunities for marketing yourself and your music that doesn’t cost anything in dollars. But, it can be hard to know where to begin—and end. While much of it is good for those of you with small to no money budgets, there’s still a big expense for taking advantage of so many opportunities—TIME.
The good AND the bad news: the cost to break an independent act can be more in time than in dollars. It’s great to have free tools! But you could spend all of your waking hours going onto all the different social networking sites and other avenues of promotion and still not make a dent. With all the artists and labels vying for online attention, you must work to make your music stand out.
It’s important to brand your name online. The more people see it, the more curiosity can be generated, which leads to potential fans or clients checking you out. The more you respond to fans who write to you, the more loyal fans you’ll have. But so much of the efforts to find fans is one by one, which accounts for a lot of the time you need to put into it.
It’s not enough to just register on all the websites. While there’s unlimited space for everyone online, you can get lost in it all and not make any constructive progress. I know. I’m always getting links to sites I “should check out.” People email me both to my server and on the social networking sites. It gets overwhelming. Another day ends and I haven’t done any writing. So I must get tough with myself in order to function.
Time isn’t FREE when it costs you your sleep, your personal life and even your sanity. But you can take control of online activities to make the most of the best opportunities. Here are so DOs and DON’Ts for getting the most out of your online resources.
DON’T jump around to everything that seems interesting or the new flavor of the month.
DO force yourself to stay on track. Put aside things you want to check out for when you have some time or accept you can’t look over everything. Learn the benefits of hitting DELETE.
DON’T immediately answer emails when they come in or click when you get a link.
DO: Prioritize what most needs to be done at this point. I have a NEED TO ANSWER folder and put personal emails and those asking questions into it. Have a block of time set aside when all you do is answer emails. When time is up, leave the rest for the next block!
DON’T jump from one site to another and register with every one you can.
DO plan your direction carefully and prioritize your needs to work them properly. Social networking sites allow musicians to seek fans out and interact with them. But working one or two hard is strongly advised as opposed to doing a little bit on many. If you have too many, you don’t work anything well and you can spread yourself too thin. Decide which sites are best for you and concentrate your energy to build up relationships with fans on them.
DON’T try to do everything yourself. DO mobilize fans to help. Get volunteers to assist you in following up with online activities. Ask them to tell other musicians on the site about you, use your music as their default on their MySpace page and drive potential fans to your sites. If you have a budget, hire an online marketing specialist to direct your efforts and do some of the legwork.
DON’T register with any social networking site that you’re not prepared to follow up with.
DO answer every email and make your presence known. Respond to comments. Nowadays, when people hear an artist they like or see you perform, they’ll leave a comment on your MySpace page. It’s important to respond. Musicians who keep in touch with their fans religiously build the strongest communities and get the most support.
DON’T focus just on MySpace and Facebook.
DO diversify. While pure social networking sites are great to exploit, get your music in places where people can find it. Do as many things as you can that don’t require constant attention that give your music potential exposure. Create iMixes up in the iTunes music store. Get your music into streaming radio sites, such as Last.fm, Pandora, Launch, iLike, etc. Send it to MP3 bloggers who review your genre of music. Post videos on YouTube. And get yourself on wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. These efforts often just require doing something once and can drive people to find your music.
DON’T think that selling and promoting your music online is all you need.
DO everything you can in real life too. Touring is still important for creating a strong connection with fans. People do live a good part of their lives off the computer so follow traditional promotion routes too.
DON’T put all your energy into inviting people you don’t know to be your friend or worry about having big numbers of them.
DO be more concerned with connecting to real fans. Successful artists say they don’t worry about how many friends they have on MySpace. What’s important is that they’re real fans who care about reading bulletin posts and getting invitations to your gigs. Of course you can invite people to be your friend if you want to know them. But do that with an email to introduce yourself so they know who you are and why you’re requesting them as a friend. Just inviting for the sake of upping your numbers is a waste of time these days. I don’t have thousands of friends on MySpace but every one of them came to me. I like that better! www.myspace.com/Daylle
Before you begin, make sure you’re ready to commit the time. Even with limits, you’ll spend hours a day keeping up. Find sites that are the likeliest to reach your audience and work them with a vengeance. Take advantage of every function they offer. Join relevant communities. Interact on them as much as you can so people get to know you. Eventually some will come to your page and hear your music.
Being online can be a full time job and you might only have a limited amount of time to devote. ReverbNation www.reverbnation.com has many helpful tools that can save you a lot of time and maximize your online reach. Some people hire a promoter to do it for them. If you don’t have a budget, I highly advise that you put aside time every day to work this new model for marketing and promoting music online, with a real plan.
Author of "Start & Run Your Own Record Label" and "I Don’t Need a Record Deal!"
© 2009 All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission
Indie artists often complain about not having the budget they’d like to market and promote their music. Nowadays, digital marketing offers a plethora of opportunities for marketing yourself and your music that doesn’t cost anything in dollars. But, it can be hard to know where to begin—and end. While much of it is good for those of you with small to no money budgets, there’s still a big expense for taking advantage of so many opportunities—TIME.
The good AND the bad news: the cost to break an independent act can be more in time than in dollars. It’s great to have free tools! But you could spend all of your waking hours going onto all the different social networking sites and other avenues of promotion and still not make a dent. With all the artists and labels vying for online attention, you must work to make your music stand out.
It’s important to brand your name online. The more people see it, the more curiosity can be generated, which leads to potential fans or clients checking you out. The more you respond to fans who write to you, the more loyal fans you’ll have. But so much of the efforts to find fans is one by one, which accounts for a lot of the time you need to put into it.
It’s not enough to just register on all the websites. While there’s unlimited space for everyone online, you can get lost in it all and not make any constructive progress. I know. I’m always getting links to sites I “should check out.” People email me both to my server and on the social networking sites. It gets overwhelming. Another day ends and I haven’t done any writing. So I must get tough with myself in order to function.
Time isn’t FREE when it costs you your sleep, your personal life and even your sanity. But you can take control of online activities to make the most of the best opportunities. Here are so DOs and DON’Ts for getting the most out of your online resources.
DON’T jump around to everything that seems interesting or the new flavor of the month.
DO force yourself to stay on track. Put aside things you want to check out for when you have some time or accept you can’t look over everything. Learn the benefits of hitting DELETE.
DON’T immediately answer emails when they come in or click when you get a link.
DO: Prioritize what most needs to be done at this point. I have a NEED TO ANSWER folder and put personal emails and those asking questions into it. Have a block of time set aside when all you do is answer emails. When time is up, leave the rest for the next block!
DON’T jump from one site to another and register with every one you can.
DO plan your direction carefully and prioritize your needs to work them properly. Social networking sites allow musicians to seek fans out and interact with them. But working one or two hard is strongly advised as opposed to doing a little bit on many. If you have too many, you don’t work anything well and you can spread yourself too thin. Decide which sites are best for you and concentrate your energy to build up relationships with fans on them.
DON’T try to do everything yourself. DO mobilize fans to help. Get volunteers to assist you in following up with online activities. Ask them to tell other musicians on the site about you, use your music as their default on their MySpace page and drive potential fans to your sites. If you have a budget, hire an online marketing specialist to direct your efforts and do some of the legwork.
DON’T register with any social networking site that you’re not prepared to follow up with.
DO answer every email and make your presence known. Respond to comments. Nowadays, when people hear an artist they like or see you perform, they’ll leave a comment on your MySpace page. It’s important to respond. Musicians who keep in touch with their fans religiously build the strongest communities and get the most support.
DON’T focus just on MySpace and Facebook.
DO diversify. While pure social networking sites are great to exploit, get your music in places where people can find it. Do as many things as you can that don’t require constant attention that give your music potential exposure. Create iMixes up in the iTunes music store. Get your music into streaming radio sites, such as Last.fm, Pandora, Launch, iLike, etc. Send it to MP3 bloggers who review your genre of music. Post videos on YouTube. And get yourself on wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. These efforts often just require doing something once and can drive people to find your music.
DON’T think that selling and promoting your music online is all you need.
DO everything you can in real life too. Touring is still important for creating a strong connection with fans. People do live a good part of their lives off the computer so follow traditional promotion routes too.
DON’T put all your energy into inviting people you don’t know to be your friend or worry about having big numbers of them.
DO be more concerned with connecting to real fans. Successful artists say they don’t worry about how many friends they have on MySpace. What’s important is that they’re real fans who care about reading bulletin posts and getting invitations to your gigs. Of course you can invite people to be your friend if you want to know them. But do that with an email to introduce yourself so they know who you are and why you’re requesting them as a friend. Just inviting for the sake of upping your numbers is a waste of time these days. I don’t have thousands of friends on MySpace but every one of them came to me. I like that better! www.myspace.com/Daylle
Before you begin, make sure you’re ready to commit the time. Even with limits, you’ll spend hours a day keeping up. Find sites that are the likeliest to reach your audience and work them with a vengeance. Take advantage of every function they offer. Join relevant communities. Interact on them as much as you can so people get to know you. Eventually some will come to your page and hear your music.
Being online can be a full time job and you might only have a limited amount of time to devote. ReverbNation www.reverbnation.com has many helpful tools that can save you a lot of time and maximize your online reach. Some people hire a promoter to do it for them. If you don’t have a budget, I highly advise that you put aside time every day to work this new model for marketing and promoting music online, with a real plan.
43 Places to Promote Your Music - February 2009
This month's newsletter features the listings that were submitted to me this past month. The contacts listed are sorted into FIVE sections.
- Publications that will REVIEW your music
- Radio Stations/Shows that will PLAY your songs
- Labels, Vendors and Promotional Services that will help you to SELL your CD
- Sites where you can UPLOAD your band's MP3s or videos
- A wide range of Helpful Resources for recording artists
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Beatport Imposes New Rules That Hurt Indies
Indie artists are getting a real surprise from Beatport. They have increased their sales quota to a mandatory $500.00 quarterly in sales. This means many artists will be cut and dropped from Beatport.
The explanation is as follows:
That is about 300 to 400 songs per quarter, per artist. If I was selling that many tracks a month from just 1 site, not including making that from iTunes and so on, I would be selling it all myself from my own site. I only use these places for exposure. Not profit.
I have always felt with Beatport, it was all about the money. They never cared about the artists. They have the money to dominate the market, so they can set the rules as they please.
I do not think that Beatport should dictate who "indie artists" are by the amount of money they have or make. What they are saying is that you are not an artist that creates unless you have money.
It is no surprise to me in this world. For a long time, many talented artists have been silenced and kept down because they had no money. The Internet leveled that playing field giving indies a more affordable way to promote.
I know a quote that says, "It is a flawed society that causes art to be created within a financial means..." - the author is unknown.
So the Beatport fad will end and most probably the site will lose out. I think it is a major mistake to turn your backs on the indies.
There is always iTunes and the other 1000 digital shops to sell your stuff on...
www.504productions.com
The explanation is as follows:
The reasoning behind this new, higher benchmark is for several reasons. We wantI am an indie artist that does every thing by myself plus this is my profession and how I make my money. I am not a hobbyist. I also though am not a machine.
to keep the quality and the relevancy of content available on Beatport as high
as possible. We acknowledge and understand that labels do take some time to
build a brand, but we also feel that a higher income minimum serves to separate
the ‘hobbyist’ from the serious professional (or aspiring professional) producer
and/or label manager.
That is about 300 to 400 songs per quarter, per artist. If I was selling that many tracks a month from just 1 site, not including making that from iTunes and so on, I would be selling it all myself from my own site. I only use these places for exposure. Not profit.
I have always felt with Beatport, it was all about the money. They never cared about the artists. They have the money to dominate the market, so they can set the rules as they please.
I do not think that Beatport should dictate who "indie artists" are by the amount of money they have or make. What they are saying is that you are not an artist that creates unless you have money.
It is no surprise to me in this world. For a long time, many talented artists have been silenced and kept down because they had no money. The Internet leveled that playing field giving indies a more affordable way to promote.
I know a quote that says, "It is a flawed society that causes art to be created within a financial means..." - the author is unknown.
So the Beatport fad will end and most probably the site will lose out. I think it is a major mistake to turn your backs on the indies.
There is always iTunes and the other 1000 digital shops to sell your stuff on...
www.504productions.com
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
iTunes Success in 12 Steps
How Indie Artist "Making April" Systematically Went from 0 to 1,000 Sales a Week on iTunes in One Year
by Ariel Hyatt, Ariel Publicity
© 2009 All Rights Reserved
I recently was having lunch with my dear friend, music attorney extraordinaire Dan Friedman, who was in town to showcase a band he represents who he mentioned was selling 1,000 singles a week on iTunes.
My jaw almost hit the table. 1,000 singles a week on iTunes?
Who is this band? And how are they doing this? And he coughed up the answer (and luckily for me their phone number).
A few days later, I cold called Greg from "Making April", who it turns out are an emo/piano rock band (kind of like Ben Folds Five), and we spent an hour and a half on the phone. Greg generously spilled the beans as to how Making April got to where they are today: selling 1,000 CD singles a week on iTunes and signed to a record deal.
How They Did It…
Greg explained that they decided to make a full time business out of their band. Everyday at 9 AM, three of the four members met in what they called "The War Room," which was a room reserved in one of their homes. They took it seriously, just like a job, and every day they would set simple goals.
“In the beginning we really did not know what we were doing,” Greg recalls. “The daily goal was to make the maximum amount of friends on MySpace, which is 400 a day. Between three of us, that was 133 each.” Here’s how it went from there.
Step 1: Find sound alikes – famous bands similar to you. - They started by looking at similar bands in their genre that had large friends lists at MySpace. Dashboard Confessional, for example. They would go and they would ping each and every friend in Dashboard Confessional's friends list…
Step 2: Ping each person. And then they would go to the comments and post:
"Hey if you like Dashboard Confessional, you're probably going to like Making April. Would you please come check us out and leave a comment?" Then, people would check them out and leave comments.
Step 3: Get personal. The band would then personally respond and personally thank everyone that left a comment. And they always signed their name using a sig file, which included their IM address.
Step 4: Instant Messenger bonanza. Then they would get their new fans’ information through Instant Messenger, and they would sit all day long on Instant Messenger chatting back and forth with their new friends, and according to Greg it was crazy. They actually couldn't turn on their IM because the minute they would open it up, they’d get thousands of people trying to ping them. So they had to post their status as “Away” on their IM because their buddy list was insane.
TIP! Give your music away. The whole time, they were giving away their music for free to build their audience.
Step 5: Run contests. After several months making thousands of personal contacts, a new marketing idea struck them: Making April decided to create a contest to run for their fans. They asked fans to add them to their “Top 8” friends. This success of the contest manifested in the band getting even more MySpace traction.
Each of the 20 people in the contest got points for convincing others to add their video and/or song. According to Greg it got completely out of control.
After this successful contest, a company called Brickfish took notice and offered to help them launch a second contest. Entrants had to design a T-shirt, and in return the band would write a song for the winner.
So, out of a well planned T-shirt contest they got an additional 100,000 hits to their page in two weeks, and the winner got a shirt, a personal call from the band, and an original song written about them. “It was unbelievable.”
Step 6: Engage your audience consistently. Another of their strategies was to send out a bulletin every single day. Not a hypey bulletin pushing themselves, but a simple one that would engage their fans by asking a question like, “Should we get chunky peanut butter or smooth”
They felt that there was no reason to blog because they weren't really on the road, and they didn’t have a lot of news to report, so they just kept asking questions on their bulletins, day in and day out. And they had a call to action: They would ask everyone on the bulletins to comment back on their pages. They would get hundreds of responses from people, which then would add a track play and a front page hit to their MySpace page. Just due to the question, they would get 500 messages instantly, and 600+ comments a day.
Step 7: MTV action. After their wildly successful Brickfish contest, they got a song placed on MTV’s “Laguna Beach.” They don't really know how they ended up on that show – they think a fan probably e-mailed the track to MTV – but the episode aired three times, and all of a sudden they noticed people started to buy the download.
Step 8: Get ready to charge for tracks (after a solid fan base is built). It was only after all of this traction and attention that Making April started pushing their iTunes page. This was after a full year of solid online promotions. They took the free MP3s off of their MySpace page and they started seeing their sales pick up.
Step 9: Repeat and repeat and repeat… and repeat. They put a big wall-mounted dry erase board on the wall of the war room, and every day they each had a goal to make 150 friends and comment back personally.
Step 10: Measure your goals and write them down. Then they laid out a weekly plan to hit their goals and numbers at iTunes, which were 200 plays and 400 friends a day. They also went after the friends of another a band called Secondhand Serenade (who blew up after becoming the number one unsigned artist at MySpace).
Step 11: Be masterful at one thing. I asked Greg if they did blogging, podcasting, Twitter, or other social networking sites, and to my surprise, he said “no.” They did this all on MySpace alone. The goal for MySpace was to consistently add 200 friend requests and 400 plays to the traffic they were already generating.
Step 12: A record deal. Because of all of their solid dedicated focus, Universal Republic Records took notice and offered them a deal. The moral of the story and the end result of all this work: Making April got a deal.
Was this process easy? No. It took solid dedication, trial and error, and a hell of a lot of time invested, but Making April managed to be one of the top selling bands at iTunes in 2007 and they beat a vast majority of artists signed to major labels.
I think this is a phenomenal and an inspirational story and one that teaches us lots of lessons. From my experience, musicians tend to give up too easily and lose focus, and then become defeated and give up. Making April proves that with a plan and some dedication, you can get very far with the tools available to anyone who wants to give it a go.
Check them out here: www.myspace.com/makingapril
by Ariel Hyatt, Ariel Publicity
© 2009 All Rights Reserved
I recently was having lunch with my dear friend, music attorney extraordinaire Dan Friedman, who was in town to showcase a band he represents who he mentioned was selling 1,000 singles a week on iTunes.
My jaw almost hit the table. 1,000 singles a week on iTunes?
Who is this band? And how are they doing this? And he coughed up the answer (and luckily for me their phone number).
A few days later, I cold called Greg from "Making April", who it turns out are an emo/piano rock band (kind of like Ben Folds Five), and we spent an hour and a half on the phone. Greg generously spilled the beans as to how Making April got to where they are today: selling 1,000 CD singles a week on iTunes and signed to a record deal.
How They Did It…
Greg explained that they decided to make a full time business out of their band. Everyday at 9 AM, three of the four members met in what they called "The War Room," which was a room reserved in one of their homes. They took it seriously, just like a job, and every day they would set simple goals.
“In the beginning we really did not know what we were doing,” Greg recalls. “The daily goal was to make the maximum amount of friends on MySpace, which is 400 a day. Between three of us, that was 133 each.” Here’s how it went from there.
Step 1: Find sound alikes – famous bands similar to you. - They started by looking at similar bands in their genre that had large friends lists at MySpace. Dashboard Confessional, for example. They would go and they would ping each and every friend in Dashboard Confessional's friends list…
Step 2: Ping each person. And then they would go to the comments and post:
"Hey if you like Dashboard Confessional, you're probably going to like Making April. Would you please come check us out and leave a comment?" Then, people would check them out and leave comments.
Step 3: Get personal. The band would then personally respond and personally thank everyone that left a comment. And they always signed their name using a sig file, which included their IM address.
Step 4: Instant Messenger bonanza. Then they would get their new fans’ information through Instant Messenger, and they would sit all day long on Instant Messenger chatting back and forth with their new friends, and according to Greg it was crazy. They actually couldn't turn on their IM because the minute they would open it up, they’d get thousands of people trying to ping them. So they had to post their status as “Away” on their IM because their buddy list was insane.
TIP! Give your music away. The whole time, they were giving away their music for free to build their audience.
Step 5: Run contests. After several months making thousands of personal contacts, a new marketing idea struck them: Making April decided to create a contest to run for their fans. They asked fans to add them to their “Top 8” friends. This success of the contest manifested in the band getting even more MySpace traction.
Each of the 20 people in the contest got points for convincing others to add their video and/or song. According to Greg it got completely out of control.
After this successful contest, a company called Brickfish took notice and offered to help them launch a second contest. Entrants had to design a T-shirt, and in return the band would write a song for the winner.
So, out of a well planned T-shirt contest they got an additional 100,000 hits to their page in two weeks, and the winner got a shirt, a personal call from the band, and an original song written about them. “It was unbelievable.”
Step 6: Engage your audience consistently. Another of their strategies was to send out a bulletin every single day. Not a hypey bulletin pushing themselves, but a simple one that would engage their fans by asking a question like, “Should we get chunky peanut butter or smooth”
They felt that there was no reason to blog because they weren't really on the road, and they didn’t have a lot of news to report, so they just kept asking questions on their bulletins, day in and day out. And they had a call to action: They would ask everyone on the bulletins to comment back on their pages. They would get hundreds of responses from people, which then would add a track play and a front page hit to their MySpace page. Just due to the question, they would get 500 messages instantly, and 600+ comments a day.
Step 7: MTV action. After their wildly successful Brickfish contest, they got a song placed on MTV’s “Laguna Beach.” They don't really know how they ended up on that show – they think a fan probably e-mailed the track to MTV – but the episode aired three times, and all of a sudden they noticed people started to buy the download.
Step 8: Get ready to charge for tracks (after a solid fan base is built). It was only after all of this traction and attention that Making April started pushing their iTunes page. This was after a full year of solid online promotions. They took the free MP3s off of their MySpace page and they started seeing their sales pick up.
Step 9: Repeat and repeat and repeat… and repeat. They put a big wall-mounted dry erase board on the wall of the war room, and every day they each had a goal to make 150 friends and comment back personally.
Step 10: Measure your goals and write them down. Then they laid out a weekly plan to hit their goals and numbers at iTunes, which were 200 plays and 400 friends a day. They also went after the friends of another a band called Secondhand Serenade (who blew up after becoming the number one unsigned artist at MySpace).
Step 11: Be masterful at one thing. I asked Greg if they did blogging, podcasting, Twitter, or other social networking sites, and to my surprise, he said “no.” They did this all on MySpace alone. The goal for MySpace was to consistently add 200 friend requests and 400 plays to the traffic they were already generating.
Step 12: A record deal. Because of all of their solid dedicated focus, Universal Republic Records took notice and offered them a deal. The moral of the story and the end result of all this work: Making April got a deal.
Was this process easy? No. It took solid dedication, trial and error, and a hell of a lot of time invested, but Making April managed to be one of the top selling bands at iTunes in 2007 and they beat a vast majority of artists signed to major labels.
I think this is a phenomenal and an inspirational story and one that teaches us lots of lessons. From my experience, musicians tend to give up too easily and lose focus, and then become defeated and give up. Making April proves that with a plan and some dedication, you can get very far with the tools available to anyone who wants to give it a go.
Check them out here: www.myspace.com/makingapril
43 Places to Promote Your Music - January 2009
This month's newsletter features the listings that were submitted to me this past month. The contacts listed are sorted into FIVE sections.
- Publications that will REVIEW your music
- Radio Stations/Shows that will PLAY your songs
- Labels, Vendors and Promotional Services that will help you to SELL your CD
- Sites where you can UPLOAD your band's MP3s or videos
- A wide range of Helpful Resources for recording artists
Friday, February 13, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Are You Wired for Tomorrow?
The information age is at hand. This is a great video that has some really interesting facts. These facts can be considered and used to help advance your art. Call it a better understanding...
Monday, January 12, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Digital Boom Creates Music Sales Record
British music sales are booming as young fans increasingly buy songs online rather than illegally downloading them, the country's industry body said Wednesday.
The BPI, formerly known as the British Phonographic Industry, said big-selling releases by artists including Leona Lewis, Coldplay, the Killers and Take That also helped drive sales to record levels last year.
The industry has struggled in recent years to adapt to rapidly changing technologies, and has been hit hard by illegal downloading of music via peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing websites.
But download sales grew by 33 percent last year, while 2008 was the biggest sales year on record in terms of singles sales in all formats, with 115 million single tracks sold.
The deepening recession has hit some retailers -- notably Woolworths and high street music retailer Zavvi, formerly Virgin Megastore -- but in other ways it could even be helping the industry, said BPI boss Geoff Taylor.
"Every business and consumer in the UK is having a tough time, and these difficult trading conditions make the resilience of the UK's music market all the more notable," he said.
"During a recession, people look for purchases that are excellent value for money and bring a lot of enjoyment, and music does just this," he added.
While downloads of single tracks have soared, the market for albums has also been helped by growing online sales: some 10 million albums were sold, a 65 percent increase on 2007.
Kim Bayley, head of the Entertainment Retailers Association, said traditional high street music sales were also holding up. "Music performed better in UK stores in 2008 than anyone had expected.
"The big lesson of 2008 is that if the music is strong enough and retailers work well with suppliers to get that product in-store, music fans will respond and buy in their droves."
The upbeat British music news came a day after US technology giant Apple said that every song in its iTunes library will be available without anti-piracy software by April.
The BPI, formerly known as the British Phonographic Industry, said big-selling releases by artists including Leona Lewis, Coldplay, the Killers and Take That also helped drive sales to record levels last year.
The industry has struggled in recent years to adapt to rapidly changing technologies, and has been hit hard by illegal downloading of music via peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing websites.
But download sales grew by 33 percent last year, while 2008 was the biggest sales year on record in terms of singles sales in all formats, with 115 million single tracks sold.
The deepening recession has hit some retailers -- notably Woolworths and high street music retailer Zavvi, formerly Virgin Megastore -- but in other ways it could even be helping the industry, said BPI boss Geoff Taylor.
"Every business and consumer in the UK is having a tough time, and these difficult trading conditions make the resilience of the UK's music market all the more notable," he said.
"During a recession, people look for purchases that are excellent value for money and bring a lot of enjoyment, and music does just this," he added.
While downloads of single tracks have soared, the market for albums has also been helped by growing online sales: some 10 million albums were sold, a 65 percent increase on 2007.
Kim Bayley, head of the Entertainment Retailers Association, said traditional high street music sales were also holding up. "Music performed better in UK stores in 2008 than anyone had expected.
"The big lesson of 2008 is that if the music is strong enough and retailers work well with suppliers to get that product in-store, music fans will respond and buy in their droves."
The upbeat British music news came a day after US technology giant Apple said that every song in its iTunes library will be available without anti-piracy software by April.
Free PHP Script That Sells Your Beats and Music!
504 Productions (www.504productions.com) will help you install this script for 25 bucks.....customization is extra though! But check it out if you want to sell your tunes. They have a mini flash player plus many many many more features.......
Maian Music
Introduction:
Music is my first love, so its a surprise its taken me so long to develop something music based. I had the idea for this script in 2006 when someone mentioned adapting Maian Cart into an .mp3 system. This script enables you to preview and sell your music in .mp3 format. In the live demo you`ll find some of my own music from a few years ago. Some of you may remember it from M-Dream a while ago. Enjoy the script!
Script Features:
- Easy to use mp3 music store to sell/preview mp3 tracks
- Add unlimited albums
- Group tracks into albums
- XHTML/CSS public layout
- Premium Beat flash music player for mp3 previews
- Store mp3 files outside of web root for security
- Store album mp3 files in their own folders
- Expiry limits for downloads and download page for track protection
- Built in check to prevent linking to download page
- Option for discount if whole album is purchased
- Supports 15 currencies
- Paypal IPN test mode available via Sandbox
- Optional mod_rewrite for search engine friendly urls
- Structure albums as parent/child association. ie: Sub categories
- Optional SMTP send mail option
- RSS feed to show latest albums
- Option to include artwork download link with full album purchase
- Graphical stats to view most popular track/album purchases
- Search engines for both public and admin interface
- Simple cart system
- Option to add smaller mp3 file for previews
- Template driven for easy HTML editing
- Auto installation file
- Public interface contact option
- Option to contact buyers from admin interface
- View sales in admin area with album/track purchase details
- About and Licence pages updateable via settings
- Option to re-send download link to buyer
Requirements/Testing Environments:
PHP v4.3.0 or higher.
Paypal Business or Premier Account
CURL support enabled for Paypal IPN system
GD graphics library with Freetype support for captcha
Browser Testing: IE7, IE6, Opera 9.2.5, Firefox 3.0
Local Server Testing: Apache server (2.2.4) running PHP v5.2.5, MySQL v5.0.45-nt
Production Server Testing: Apache server running PHP v5.2.4, MySQL 4.1.22-standard
Error Reporting Level for Development: E_ALL
http://www.maianscriptworld.co.uk/free-php-scripts/maian-music/free-mp3-music-store-system/index.html
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