Was wondering if anyone has done this?
Basically bypassing distributor charges from CD Baby (9%)or Tunecore (a bit more complicated to work out depending how many stores that you sell to!)
Anyone also sold through Tunetribe, thought this was good, can sell MP3's, but dont know what their pricing structure is yet, am finding out...
cheers

With Itunes and most of the other download companies you do need to use an agregator and I don't know of a way round this.

So as far as I know that is what you will have to do.

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www.sounds-and-images.co.uk
http://twitter.com/soundsandimages

About 3 years I did try approaching iTunes direct, they had a standard application form- but all I got back was 'you're in the queue' then ' f off you're label's too small'- so went with www.iodalliance.com who are very good aggregators, and got lucky- they'd only just kicked off, so took me on, I think they're a bit more picky these days.

Worth going with a good aggregator because they'll get you up on a lot more sites and net radio stations than you'll ever sort by yourself; there's only so much you can do running your own label if you ever want to make any music to put out on the thing, and that's the whole point, after all. The % you give away will come back many times compared to just getting your tunes up on one or digi retailers, which is probably all you might manage on your own.

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http://anotherfineday.bandcamp.com/ http://anotherfineday.co.uk http://apollomusic.co.uk

I am with CDbaby and I am currently on 38 download sites and I could not have done all that by myself.

It takes the work out of the equation pretty much. and lets face it 9% is nothing really.

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www.sounds-and-images.co.uk
http://twitter.com/soundsandimages

I'm with CDBaby and 9% is a pretty good deal - in fact, i'm surprised they don't raise their commission, because they put on 40+ sites so that's a lot of hard work for them.

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Songwriting and music recording blog

cheers, some more places to look at..

reading articles like these doesnt exactly instill confidence.
Have you guys consulted solicitor's before signing up with a distributor?

http://www.mosesavalon.com/digidist.html

http://www.mosesavalon.com/mosessupposes/monthly.htm

I'm also with CD Baby, and my album is on 49 sites. I think it's a good deal.

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Birthday Song 4 U. Personalised Birthday Songs

Quote tel1:

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reading articles like these doesnt exactly instill confidence.
Have you guys consulted solicitor's before signing up with a distributor?

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Moses was ripped to shreds on the Velvet Rope by a bunch of lawyers over that CD Baby article. You need to understand that Moses is always trying make some noise for his business... as well as raising some interesting points. His objections to digital distributors are entirely theoretical and don't hold water. Where was he when The Orchard were actually dreadful? Not a peep... but then everybody knew about that, except him.

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www.bemuso.com

Quote stuart churchill:

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I'm also with CD Baby, and my album is on 49 sites. I think it's a good deal.

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Stuart, hope this isnt a naive question, for all i know you are well known, i duunno.

But do you sell much? I am listening to the cd baby selections of your WYSIWYG record, it's really good quality stuff. Do you sell many?

Hope you don't mind me asking.

Quote Rob C.:

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Quote tel1:

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reading articles like these doesnt exactly instill confidence.
Have you guys consulted solicitor's before signing up with a distributor?

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Moses was ripped to shreds on the Velvet Rope by a bunch of lawyers over that CD Baby article. You need to understand that Moses is always trying make some noise for his business... as well as raising some interesting points. His objections to digital distributors are entirely theoretical and don't hold water. Where was he when The Orchard were actually dreadful? Not a peep... but then everybody knew about that, except him.

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As someone completely new to this I'm looking at as many articles as I can find, I dont have any thing else to rely on. Is this comparison sheet of digital distributors useful do you think?

It's a summary of some popular aggregators, and it would be useful if Moses didn't have his own agenda. He has his own business writing, speaking, running seminars and advising artists about this stuff. Everything except his comments you can get from the sites themselves, I'd advise you do that because these things change frequently.

His own touch is the comments, and I don't agree. The way TuneCore charges is so different from the way CD Baby charges you can't say one is generally better than the other. And TuneCore is recent whereas CD Baby has years of reputation in fact... so to highlight the reputation of TuneCore is perverse in my view. Nothing against them, I just don't agree those comments.

Last, I don't see the point agonising about many of these things, although I might have a different view if I charged by the hour. If you go with CD Baby and then change your mind it's hardly rebuilding the Roman Empire. The important thing is to understand the music business enough, realise nothing is one-size-fits-all, and make the decisions you need to make - rather than every decision you possibly can.

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www.bemuso.com

Can you go with both CD Baby and Tunecore?

Normally, an aggregator will ask you to be exclusive to them for the sites they supply. CD Baby certainly did last time I looked.

You can imagine how tricky it would be to pay different suppliers for sales of the same song.

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www.bemuso.com

Hi,

Is it about songs or albums ?

Can you release a cd or ep with cd baby, and
then release some of the tracks on an other album (cd with other title )with tunecore ... even with the same isrc number ... is this possible with cd baby ?

thanks

CD Baby say album

It's NON-Exclusive, but...

Just like in the physical world, there can't be more than one distributor bringing the same album to the same store. Otherwise, when the album sells, how would the store know which distributor to pay?

We will never prevent you from doing anything you want with your music.

For YOUR sake, please note : If you sign two digital distribution deals with two companies that will both be sending the same album to iTunes, Rhapsody, Yahoo, Napster, etc - this will hurt you, because the retailer will usually remove the album completely until you decide which distributor has the exclusive right to be selling that album through them.

But if you have overlapping albums and tracks just so you can use more than one aggregator I think you'll piss off more fans than you gain.

Have you compared the sites they supply? They're mostly the same sites.

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www.bemuso.com

Quote tel1:

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reading articles like these doesnt exactly instill confidence.
Have you guys consulted solicitor's before signing up with a distributor?

http://www.mosesavalon.com/digidist.html

http://www.mosesavalon.com/mosessupposes/monthly.htm

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CD Baby's Digital Distribution Agreement is available here, so you can see how this guy's article is wrong.
http://cdbaby.net/dd-contract

In my account I have the option of dictating exactly which companies our material gets sent to.

Quote:

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... their software makes it virtually impossible to use them in conjunction with other companies.

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This is wrong. I have a drop-down box with a list of companies on it. I can choose one, or two, or all of them. Their "software" (website) is not at all hard to use, and is very well explained.
What's more interesting is that on this list is region specific iTunes. I could, for example, only choose for CD Baby to send my material to iTunes USA.

There are also quite a few other mistakes in this article if you compare it to the details on the CD Baby website.

regarding viewing the terms of the distribution agreements, I tried to see Tuncore's but it aint on their web site as far as I can see. I emailed them a few days ago but they haven't got back to me..

Quote tel1:

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regarding viewing the terms of the distribution agreements, I tried to see Tuncore's but it aint on their web site as far as I can see.

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http://www.tunecore.com/index/t_and_c

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www.bemuso.com

Aggregators are a mixed blessing in my eyes.

From the perspective of indie music, they are the easiest way to get on iTunes. If you are looking for a simple way to get onto a lot of shops then that is your best bet.

I've dealt with a number of aggregators and have mixed opinions, though this is not the place to start listing who I like and don't like.

On the up side an aggregator allows you to access a vastly wider range of online retail outlets than would be financially viable to deal with all directly without some form of automated system. For this purpose most aggregators are good.

However, where I feel there is an issue with aggregation is that they are effectively the go between you and the shops which gives you as a label limited control over how well you are pushed (if at all). This is not a criticism of the aggregators, many who have several thousand labels on the books, it would be impossible to act in the interests of all of these.

I personally work with both aggregators and many of the main shops directly. I think the direct rapport is great if you can put the time into it and pays much more than the cut the aggregator would have taken.

Rob is right that anggregators contractually gain exclusivity to the people they supply, but most aggregators allow shops to be excluded from there list of deliverance. That said a lot of aggregators are trying to now include certain non-excludable shops in the contracts as they account for too big a part of there income stream.

Anyway I'm drifting slightly OT here. The short answer to the original post is "no" iTunes only deal directly with large scale labels.

Quote:

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However, where I feel there is an issue with aggregation is that they are effectively the go between you and the shops which gives you as a label limited control over how well you are pushed (if at all).

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Why?
What's to stop you going to the shop and talking to the manager?

All these indie distributors are just that. Distributors. It is their job to make your record available to the world, not to promote it.

It is the record label's job to promote the record. If a shop has good reason to stock your record than it will.

So, in the case of an indie label, where you ARE the label, I would say you have total control over how well the record is pushed.

Fair point Jim, and theoretically what you say is absolutely right; however, in practice I don't see this as the case always.

First off certain larger shops only wish to deal directly with contract holders (the aggregator), some aggregators get very twitcy when you start dealing with shops.

For me the great value of CD Baby is that they take some of the 'burden'. As an independent artist you need all the help you can get. There's so much to do and think about in arranging gigs, writing music, recording, getting the product out, promoting yourself, getting reviews, updating websites, looking for opportunities, networking... did I mention making music?

$40 or so to have CD Baby take some of the jobs off your shoulders is money well spent in my view.

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I've just finished recording an album (still needs artwork, mastering, and duplication, so there's a few stages to go yet), and CD baby was pretty high up in the list of options I was considering for distributing it. Moses's article was therefore quite uncomfortable reading, although I can't imagine many of its nightmare scenarios happening in my case, as I'm not looking for a record deal or mass circulation.

The issue that does bother me is the suggestion that if I sign with CD baby I might be assigning them an interest in my actual compositions, not just the recorded performance. As Moses puts it,

Quote:

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Many
clauses in the CD Baby contract tie up rights exclusively for a minimum of three years, and some clauses attempt to grab rights to the artist's "underlying compositions" themselves ("songs," for those who don't speak legalese.) This turns
the CD Baby contract into an EXCLUSIVE publishing and distribution deal fused together.

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I can't see that this is the case, since the CD baby agreement that I read doesn't mention a three-year term, and includes a clause that says all rights are owned by the artist. Does anyone know if this is true or not?

Quote Ivories:

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I can't see that this is the case, since the CD baby agreement that I read doesn't mention a three-year term, and includes a clause that says all rights are owned by the artist. Does anyone know if this is true or not?

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Yes. Moses is talking cock.

Among the people who bombed him over this on the Rope were two very good music lawyers.

He should have updated the article to remove all the points that were shot down. I don't think he changed a word of it. If I was Derek I'd sue his pasty white ass.

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www.bemuso.com

Thanks.

CD baby???

good... ...
but where can i buy them ???
could anypne give me suggestions???

Quote gamequeen88:

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CD baby???

good... ...
but where can i buy them ???
could anypne give me suggestions???

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You don't 'buy' CD baby, you 'sign up' to CD baby's service.

read all about it here : http://cdbaby.net/

if you decide to sign up you'll need your credit card ready!

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wow, I just noticed some of my tracks on iTunes and napster. Some cheeky bastard has put them on an album with some other library trax they probably nicked! The bastards.

Quote The Nags Head:

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wow, I just noticed some of my tracks on iTunes and napster. Some cheeky bastard has put them on an album with some other library trax they probably nicked! The bastards.

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So what are you going to do about it? Report it to ITunes or what? Let us know the outcome...

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Tell the publisher first Glyn - see if they've made any deals. But it just looks like some dude has taken a load of library tracks, bunged em on a CD and is selling it as a Chill out CD! It's on Napster and all over the f*cking place.

Thieving Bastards.

hey nags - i sent you a PM - cheers paul

PM sent, cheers.