Sell your music online? Buy music online? Is it viable?

[anonymouse]

Please also comment if you sell your own music online - Would you regard it as a success or has it been a waste of time?

I'm thinking of trying to sell music online, but am wondering if it is just a myth that it can actually work out. Might be better just trying to make hard copies and distributing the old fashioned way.

[spiderprod]

i am investing a lot of money in an mp3 download site , it's in the designing process at the moment ,your question comes just on time for me .
for myself i haven't bought a single cd or record for at least 3 years .everytime i want something i just download it , some companies like itune have some stupid ways so i try to avoid using it ,they give you copy protected wave or stupid mpeg4 ,but i record the tracks on a separate audio cdr to have them in wave format .

[MrYellow]

Think the major thing is when building a site like this.... I think you *must*
have the top-40 licenced....

There are a few different aspects to the market....

Garageband.... The members are mostly musicians who have registered
and had to vote on bands to get upload access..... Thus the user ratings
are somewhat off joe public.... Making it harder for A&R people to actually
get a good idea of what the public thinks of these indie bands.

If you want people to upload their music, and if you want to offer them
money each time it's downloaded, give them exposure to A&R, and charge
members a monthly/per-download access fee, then there are a few
issues.... If offering just single tracks then you won't make much off the
downloads without joe public.... To get joe public you'll need top-40. If all
your members are musicians then you might want to focus more on selling
remixable multitrack stuff (such as Live files), which take more bandwidth,
but then you could also charge more.

You have options of charging per month for many different artists posting
each month, like a CD club with unlimited downloads, or on a per-download
basis. You have to work out average downloading habits and bandwidth
costs. You also have to see how u can license the pop music and see if the
costs become prohibative based on either of those methods.

If you're offering musicians upload space and have zero marketing budget
then it's going to be harder to get the volume of sales needed as most of
your surfers will be musicians just wanting to upload their stuff.... You need
to go where the surfers are.... which unfortunately is top-40... They are
searching for that stuff.... not something they have no idea about.... Draw
them in with top-40, make a few cents there (after paying the record
companies) then on the side get them the indie stuff for a higher profit
margin....... or come up with a different model and get stuff up that
uploading musicians will be interested in buying/subscribing too.

-Ben

[MrYellow]

btw.... I can't find the link now.... but there is an interesting page
somewhere under the garageband about page that shows how many
millions of dollars they are losing.

Here it is...

The new company is privately funded. Although as yet unprofitable, we
have narrowed our operating losses significantly, and hope to reach break-
even in 2004.

With online stuff..... It's best to have profit in your short-term business
plan, otherwise you can be waiting a loooong time between drinks.

This is interesting too....
Showing 7 surfers online atm....
While showing 52 free-loading bandwidth chewing musicians....
http://www.garageband.com/news/stats.html

-Ben

[anonymouse]

I don't really want this to go in the direction of a discussion about the ideal business model for an online music store.

Inevitably big business will own 90%+ of the market. Throwing a few million down the drain using gorilla tactics to scare off the competition is small change to someone like Apple or Sony.

But I'm sure that we will see the little guy can just as viably set-up his own site with paypal downloads - and do quite nicely, if he has the talent to create consistently appealing audio for his followers.

So moreso, I'm interested in people's personal experiences. Particularly in selling their own music online.

[innerdreamrecords.com]

Please also comment if you sell your own music online - Would you regard it as a success or has it been a waste of time?

I'm thinking of trying to sell music online, but am wondering if it is just a myth that it can actually work out. Might be better just trying to make hard copies and distributing the old fashioned way.

As a label owner my advice is sell your music wherever you can - online in every outlet you can and get it in brick and morter stores if you can.


When you have time check this out:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/music/

[tomperson]

I'm thinking on this very same approach myself, but rather than starting up an mp3 sales site, I want to do that with my own music, having a "paypal" link in my site, more like "if you like the music, donate".

I think internet is leveraging the field. Now everyone can reach a wide audience without needing a zillion dollars of publicity, if you know what I mean.

Internet, collaboration, democratization is the way to go.

[mikemc]

I've been putting up music online since mid-2004. I joined Garageband, I'd agree with most of Ben's observations, but it is a pretty good and diverse musician's community and they are attracting more non-musicians.

I put together a CD, put it out for sale through CD Baby http://cdbaby.com which also has a digital distribution program.

I did this primarily because I've been in bands off and on for years, I've had training in music and recording technology, I love music, it's fun, I've put some time and effort into it and I wanted to at least do *something* with it.

Through CD Baby, I'm on MP3tunes, http://mp3tunes.com/utenzil and iTunes, and have been delivered to several other OMD companies. Somehow I've been among the top 10 Experimental Electronic artists on MP3tunes (taken realisitcally, having a listen there are some really good stuff and some loonies among that top ten as well, but it's still kinda neat .

MP3Tunes lets you put tunes into a online locker for download from multiple locations, there is no DRM-- lower prices than iTunes, but not the big names.

I have not sold a lot of CDs. It is the case I'll likely sell more playing live than online, but of course with much more effort. The OMDs seem to report on a kinda sorta quarterly basis, I was available online towards the end of February and did not sell a lot of downloads in the first quarter.

But: it's more than I would've sold without the CDBaby hookup to the online outlets-- also, it's not so much about the sales, it's about feeling a part of things and giving something new to someone. Yeh, it's maybe "vanity publishing" but I'm following up a bit on a dream and it's creating new sounds, I live in a sort of isolated area near a larger metropolitan area, it's a way make music in my own time and another way to be heard without lugging equipment and driving long distances.

I've also joined Amazon's Advantage program, which is kind of a rip ($30 a year) but it's nice to have a presence on that online store.

So it's an experiment, I'm learning, and there is progress.

[MrYellow]

Just re: the general "do you pay and download music" thing.....

I find it annoying when people provide only 1min samples of their music
and stuff..... The way I see it you should be able to download at least a few
complete tunes to get a feel for an artist.

Think of it this way.... Roger Waters "Amused to Death" or "Pros and Cons
of Hitch Hiking" 1 song of any of those solo albums is nothing on it's
own.... u go "wow that's a great tune" and you want to hear more..... but
they are concept albums, without the whole album a tune on it's own means
nothing...... You need to listen to the whole album heaps of times to get
the subtle messages.... Then when you get more of his stuff you can see
how he links melodies back to The Wall and thus links the message in one
tune with that of another..... Downloading 1 mp3 of this would just give you
a taste.... If you liked it you'd really want to buy 3-5 albums to get the real
picture.

So generally online, I'll download a few tracks from an artist, even if I have
to do it illegally..... Then I'll buy their CD.

-Ben

[computo]

naturally, this conversation has many of you shooting yourselves in the foot.

You download music illegally, hoping to get a feel for the artist? give me a fucking break, no one buys cds of artists they've never heard of. You dont need to download illegal tunes to get a feel for an artist. That is just stupid. If you know of an artist that you want to buy, you likely have heard that artist MANY places before buying, not just a couple tunes that you downloaded. Therefore, why do you need free tunes from an artist you've never even heard of? you likely will not be able to find any free tunes illegally from artists who you've NEVER heard.

Stop being a cheap ass, and setting a bad example for those who you'd like eventually to buy your cd. This whole Musicians fighting for free music is like race car drivers telling corporate sponsors to fuck off, because they can race on their own. None of us has the wherewithall to make a big difference in this fight, unless you START buying music from companies like cdbaby, and other none mainstream corporations. NOT buying music is putting air in your own veins.

[hacktheplanet]

I usually download mp3s to see if I like the album. Then if the album is good enough, will first go to the used CD store and see if they have it for like $4. If they don't I'll usually wait until they do. That doesn't work for underground dance music because it's usually released on vinyl only, and it's fairly hard to find a new release on vinyl second-hand.

In that case, I'll check out www.beatport.net to see if I can download it from them digitally since I don't really play records anymore anyway. It costs %10 of the price, and the quality is perfect.

I refuse to set foot in music stores that specailize in top-40 shit, especially until they drop the price of CDs all around to 1994 prices. Tower has the new NIN album for $11. That's a good price. I won't buy a CD for more than $13 unless it includes a lot of extra shit. The new Trail of Dead CD was like $22 for the special edition with a DVD and a bunch of extra shit. That was well worth the price.

So until the music industry drops the price of CDs again, I will refuse to buy anything new. Used CDs are the wave of the future, baby. I'd rather get a CD from an artist and send them $10 instead of giving 90% of it to the record company. That's bullshit.

[computo]

if everyone becomes a cheap bastard and buys only used cds, then no one will be have new cds to sell as used. And new artists will never get anywhere.

way to set us back further

[suburbanbather]

if everyone becomes a cheap bastard and buys only used cds, then no one will be have new cds to sell as used. And new artists will never get anywhere.

way to set us back further

There is the exception of out of print CD's when buying used. There is tons of great music out there that you can ONLY buy used.

[innerdreamrecords.com]

if everyone becomes a cheap bastard and buys only used cds, then no one will be have new cds to sell as used. And new artists will never get anywhere.

way to set us back further

The CD is dead.

[Pheek]

I'm surprised no one talked about Netlabels who give music for free... probably something a bit too underground but it's quite revolutionary. Check these out:

http://www.textone.org
http://www.thinnerism.com
http://www.epsilonlab.com
http://www.archipel.cc