Online Distribution
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 9:49 am
Hi all,
Apologies if this is the wrong area for this, if the mods could move it if so it would be appreciated!
Whilst this isn't something directed straight at production, I think it's something some people will be interested in and something that I wouldn't mind starting a discussion about. I'm sure most peoples dream job would be to sat at home in your own studio, banging out tracks for a living; I know it would be mine! Obviously, times have moved on and with the Great Vinyl Debate happening today and the following video by DJ Hype - it's clear that things are moving away from vinyl (sadly) and more into the digital realm.
[DJ Hype - Is Vinyl Dead? The Great Vinyl Debate]
As technology goes on and more and more people are producing music at home, there's a vast range of net labels and music spurring out from everywhere. Most people are able to produce a track from ground up, master (to an extent) and now release their own music through commercial online outlets themselves, operating completely independent from a record label if they so wish. There's two links below, to two different digital distro companies which I'd specifically like to look at, however if anyone has any more that they wish to bring into the discussion I'll welcome it as it's always good to get a comparison on. I'd also like to know about your experiences.
I've been procrastinating at work this morning looking for 'resources', and whilst I already knew of 'TuneCore', I somehow came across 'DistroKid'.
http://www.tunecore.com
This is the first online distro company I ever came across. I originally believe their pricing to be quite reasonable. You pay ~$10USD per year for a single to be distributed, while you pay ~$30 for the first year and then ~$50 for every year after for an album. It says that you get 100% of your sales (assuming this is after the relevant store takes their cut), you keep all of your copyright and get monthly/daily reports on sales. They also distribute ringtones(?!) and you can buy yourself a publishing contract for $75 which I think is an interesting concept, as they apparently pitch your music as well as seeking your songwriting royalties.
TuneCore covers the main stores, iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and GooglePlay. They also include a myriad of others, some I've never heard of or would think to use, maybe they're more globally local ones or something.
http://www.distrokid.com
This is my find from this morning resource hunt. So, you get 1 free track upload, before you even put it any kind of credit card information. You get the same main places of distribution as with TuneCore, however you don't get the other random ones you get (boohoo, no MySpace store!) You're promised to be on the iTunes store within 2-4 hours, you keep 100% of royalties (after the stores cut), and there's no per single/album cost which I think is most interesting about this. There's a significant difference in the cost, in that with this service you pay a flat $19.99USD per year for the service. Which begs the question, why so cheap? One thing that I've found is there's no specific T's & C's given on the website itself, and there's no mention of ownership of copyright once the songs have been uploaded - which I think is a bit iffy. From what I've read on the link articles on the site, it is an entirely automated service that has been created to drive traffic to the owners main site, Fandalism (a musicians networking space), however there's no direct advertising on his site which I think is strange. So from what it looks like, he is considerably lowballing TuneCore and not cashing in as much money as they are albeit he is a smaller (lesser known?) business. I've emailed their support to ask specifically about the copyright amongst a few other things, and I'll post their reply once I get it but I think the yankee doodles are asleep at the moment, right?
Quite a long post, but as I said at the beginning I think this sort of stuff is important to know, as producers wanting to achieve a career in songwriting/production.
So, questions/thoughts/opinions?
Apologies if this is the wrong area for this, if the mods could move it if so it would be appreciated!
Whilst this isn't something directed straight at production, I think it's something some people will be interested in and something that I wouldn't mind starting a discussion about. I'm sure most peoples dream job would be to sat at home in your own studio, banging out tracks for a living; I know it would be mine! Obviously, times have moved on and with the Great Vinyl Debate happening today and the following video by DJ Hype - it's clear that things are moving away from vinyl (sadly) and more into the digital realm.
[DJ Hype - Is Vinyl Dead? The Great Vinyl Debate]
As technology goes on and more and more people are producing music at home, there's a vast range of net labels and music spurring out from everywhere. Most people are able to produce a track from ground up, master (to an extent) and now release their own music through commercial online outlets themselves, operating completely independent from a record label if they so wish. There's two links below, to two different digital distro companies which I'd specifically like to look at, however if anyone has any more that they wish to bring into the discussion I'll welcome it as it's always good to get a comparison on. I'd also like to know about your experiences.
I've been procrastinating at work this morning looking for 'resources', and whilst I already knew of 'TuneCore', I somehow came across 'DistroKid'.
http://www.tunecore.com
This is the first online distro company I ever came across. I originally believe their pricing to be quite reasonable. You pay ~$10USD per year for a single to be distributed, while you pay ~$30 for the first year and then ~$50 for every year after for an album. It says that you get 100% of your sales (assuming this is after the relevant store takes their cut), you keep all of your copyright and get monthly/daily reports on sales. They also distribute ringtones(?!) and you can buy yourself a publishing contract for $75 which I think is an interesting concept, as they apparently pitch your music as well as seeking your songwriting royalties.
TuneCore covers the main stores, iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and GooglePlay. They also include a myriad of others, some I've never heard of or would think to use, maybe they're more globally local ones or something.
http://www.distrokid.com
This is my find from this morning resource hunt. So, you get 1 free track upload, before you even put it any kind of credit card information. You get the same main places of distribution as with TuneCore, however you don't get the other random ones you get (boohoo, no MySpace store!) You're promised to be on the iTunes store within 2-4 hours, you keep 100% of royalties (after the stores cut), and there's no per single/album cost which I think is most interesting about this. There's a significant difference in the cost, in that with this service you pay a flat $19.99USD per year for the service. Which begs the question, why so cheap? One thing that I've found is there's no specific T's & C's given on the website itself, and there's no mention of ownership of copyright once the songs have been uploaded - which I think is a bit iffy. From what I've read on the link articles on the site, it is an entirely automated service that has been created to drive traffic to the owners main site, Fandalism (a musicians networking space), however there's no direct advertising on his site which I think is strange. So from what it looks like, he is considerably lowballing TuneCore and not cashing in as much money as they are albeit he is a smaller (lesser known?) business. I've emailed their support to ask specifically about the copyright amongst a few other things, and I'll post their reply once I get it but I think the yankee doodles are asleep at the moment, right?
Quite a long post, but as I said at the beginning I think this sort of stuff is important to know, as producers wanting to achieve a career in songwriting/production.
So, questions/thoughts/opinions?
