Tunecore: Better Distribution And Royalty Management For Musicians

November 17, 2007

There is a great new service available to musicians that offers a way to permeate the digital marketplace with their music. It is called TuneCore.

What makes TuneCore so fantastic is the centralization of the distribution of digital music, making it much easier for musicians to market their songs and albums. Best of all, you get centralized payment collection and distribution to go with that.

What that means is that you can upload an album in once location and have it sold on iTunes, Rhapsody, GroupieTunes, Napster, MusicNet, eMusic, Sony Connect, and Amazon MP3. Payments from each service are consolidated through TuneCore.

It is not a free service, charges a tiny fee for hosting your album. You chose which services you want to sell your music on ($0.99 per song, per service), so you can sell through just one or through several. Check out the TuneCore FAQ for complete details.

The only negatives I perceive with the service are: (1) they do not offer Ogg Vorbis formats for your music and (2) a vendor might sell your music for a higher price and keeps the additional money rather than passing it on to the artist(s).

However, for those musicians who can be satisfied with the standard fee paid for their downloads, it is a fantastic opportunity to get your music spread through the digital marketplace and reach more potential fans.

You can sell music videos through the service as well. That, combined with the distribution and payment centralization may make this service an indie music standard in the near future. Check it out and see what you think. I would love to hear from any musicians who have tried the service.

Now, if you’ll excuse me…I think I’ll go record some music.

Entry Filed under: Business, Careers, Computers, Economics, Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, Everything Else, Global, Internet, Marketing, Music, News, Publishing, Software, Tactics, Thoughts, Tools, eBusiness, eMarketing. .

2 Comments Add your own

1. Peter Wells | November 17, 2007 at 6:41 pm

Thanks for the kind words. I think I can even answer some of your points:

1) We take most formats, and it’s up to the stores how they want to sell them. While we don’t take Ogg Vorbis at the moment (stay tuned), we take lossless (.FLAC and .WAV), so they can ultimately be compressed by the stores into anything they want, including Ogg Vorbis.

2) Hey, it’s wholesale, so in the end, the market will decide what vendors can sell your music for. iTunes and the other stores we deal with are very, very stable, rarely charging more than $0.99 per track, some less. But they always pay you the pay rate, so hopefully this isn’t a worry.

Thanks again for the kind words! If you’ve any questions about our service, feel free to drop me a line.

–Peter
peter@tunecore.com
2. Sean Wilson | November 18, 2007 at 12:49 am

Peter, thanks for dropping by to read and share some insight into the company and how it works.

The Ogg format is sort of a personal thing, as I’m an open source advocate who happens to prefer anything that moves away from Windows, MP3 patents and proprietary software when possible. For the majority of musicians and music fans, it is probably not that big of a concern, I concede. I was merely thinking out loud as a guy who likes taking the indie ethic to heart.

You are likewise correct that the market will decide what any music will go for. All in all, as I mentioned in the post, I think your service presents a tremendous opportunity. The ‘negatives’ I mention are—in the grand scheme of it all—relatively minor. I wish you and your company great success…especially since that will mean more musicians are meeting with success and getting discovered.

Thanks again for your insight. I would be enthused about your company for no other reason than the fact that you are on top of traffic/logs and have demonstrated a personal touch in your marketing efforts. Kudos for that—it’s such a rarity to find that sort of marketing excellence being practiced these days.

Good luck and have a great weekend!

Sean

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