Crenk

Im not too sure if this article will apply to the majority of our readers, but I thought I would run through a list of music distribution companies and work out who is worth using and who is not. All these companies are digital distribution companies, so they take music from artists all over the world and then distribute that music to the worlds largest online stores. All these companies take a cut for providing this service in some form or another.

We are also going to run through an example of how each site will work in terms of revenues for the artist. We will place 1 album per year for 2 years on each site. Each album will have 13 tracks. The artists actual sales were $0.99 per track and sold 1,000 tracks.

Cdbaby - Cdbaby is one of the old companies in this market and they provide some great services, even though the website they use seems to be outdated approx 5 years ago. The prices are as follows:

Setup: $35 one time fee

Cut for Distributor: 9% of all income

Partners: You dont have a choice at which online stores your music goes to, except for a very small list of selected retailers. The Cdbaby service is completely non-exclusive and doesnt tie up any of your rights. Their distribution partners include iTunes, eMusic, Hear Music, Last.fm, MusicNet, Napster, Rhapsody and others.

Example: The artist has to pay $35 upfront for first album and then another $35 for second album, totally $75 in initial outlay. Sales would be $0.99 x 1000 tracks sold, which equals $990, and the artist would receive $900.90. Profit equals $900.90 less $75 costs = $825.90

Tunecore - Tunecore is the new player on the block who has been getting a lot of press attention for their business model, while at the same time they have been signing some very big album distribution deals.

Setup: $19.98 Per Album Per Year Storage. Plus $0.99 per store per album. Plus $0.99 per track.

Cut for Distributor: Nothing in terms of income

Partners: The choice is yours, you can send your music to one or all of their partners. Partners include, iTunes, Amazon, Lala, Napster, Rhapsody, Music.com, eMusic and GroupieTunes.

Example: Costs would equal $19.98 x 2 for two years ($59.94), plus $0.99 per album for 5 stores ($9.90), plus 13 tracks on both albums at $0.99 each (25.74). Overall costs equal $95.58. Profit equals $990 less $95.58 in costs = $894.42

The Orchard - The Orchard is currently one of the worlds largest online distributors, they have over 350 retails partners in a variety of areas. Im not going to run through their sections because they are very straight forward. The Orchard as far as Im aware dont charge for inclusion into their catalogue, they also have a huge list of retail partners, but the big down side is that they are known for taking a very large percentage cut. Plus, everytime I rang them, I could never actually get to speak to a person with a little bit of intellegance that atually got back to me on time with information about what they can provide. The worst service I have seen in the industry.

RouteNote - RouteNote is the new player on the block. They have a very basic distribution model and a growing list of retail partners. Since they are new on the block they dont have as many retail partners as their rivals, but look for this to grow.

Setup: Free

Cut for Distributor: 10% of income

Partners: The choice is yours, you can send your music to one or all of their partners. Partners include, iTunes,  eMusic, Limewire and Audio Lunchbox. They are also in talks with Amazon and Rhapsody to add their options to the RouteNote service.

Example:$990 is sales and the artist would receive = $891 (with no upfront costs)

After this analysis it shows that Tunecore is the best option for artists to retain the most revenues. However, that being said the artist will have to pay a cost of $95.58 upfront and tasks the risk of having to make sure they sell 1000 tracks to make the correct money. RouteNote is a new service but the results speak for themselves. Their service brings is nearly as much money as Tunecore, but the artist doesnt have to pay anything upfront at all!

Disclosure - Im currently CEO of Insomnia Ltd which owns RouteNote.

Crenk has long been a part of the Insomnia Media Group, which today is launching our music initiative.

RouteNote is a user driven music distribution service, allowing indie artists to get access to major online retailers and make their music available to film, radio and other media producers for quick, easy licensing.

The site is launching into public beta which involves our distribution section. Distribution through RouteNote will allow unsigned artists and independent labels from all over the world to sell their music in some of the worlds largest online stores. RouteNote is a completely non-exclusive music distributor that has some of the best rates in the industry. Artists are able to sign up for FREE, uploading as many tracks as they would like and being able to keep 90% of the revenues from download sales.

What RouteNote offers:

• Retain 100% Ownership of your tracks
• Non-exclusive
• Worldwide Exposure
• No Signup Fees
• Receive 90% from all download sales
• It wont stop you from signing up to a record label in the future
• Forward looking partnerships and marketing expertise

RouteNote is a unique service that can help hundreds of thousands of artists all over the world. So why not signup today.

Stay tuned for more features to also launch over time.

A while ago digital distribution company CD Baby started to sell their artists Mp’s direct from their own site. This has proved amazing popular and Derek Sivers reports that the company’s direct mp3 sales have exceed the revenues from most of their partners.

CD Baby sold $600,000 in mp3 downloads in the last few months, with NO marketing or announcements at all. Therefore, CD Baby sold more than emusic, Yahoo Music, Sony Connect, Verizon, MSN and Snocap.

The digital distribution space is just about to open up. CD Baby has been one of the leaders in the market, because they offer artists the ability to keep more money in their pockets. CD Baby will soon have a new competitor, RouteNote. RouteNote is a digital distribution company quite similar to CD Baby, but they will have an additional feature of licensing music. Allow artists to also have their music available to be licensed for TV, radio, games, etc, all while selling their music to the worlds largest online stores. Make sure you head over to their site and get a private beta invite.

Disclosures: Steven is currently CEO of Insomnia Ltd, which own and operate RouteNote.  

RouteNote is the new product by Insomnia Ltd, in which im currently CEO. RouteNote has just launched a new weblog which will discuss all the happenings are the music industry as well as profile artists and partners that sign to the RouteNote.

About RouteNote

RouteNote is an online music licensing and distribution service providing artists instant access to a large proportion of the online market, and delivering an innovative licensing service to the creative media industry. Designed and built to take advantage of the shift towards independent and self-publication through online and mobile music outlets, and the consumer switch to online purchasing as outlined by the success of iTunes, Myspace and Pump Audio, RouteNote is partnered with some of the biggest retailers on the web to give artists massive and immediate availability for their tracks.

Onsite, artists can upload tracks to the RouteNote catalogue and enter into a non exclusive agreement permitting us to offer their music for licensed use in media projects like films, TV shows, games and websites. They then select partnered retail outlets that they wish their music to be available through (e.g. Napster, Snocap, Samsung Mobile) and within moments their songs are earning money as part of a world wide, web wide, distribution network. Our rates for providing a distribution service are currently the best in the market, and our ever expanding catalogue gives us increasing muscle with which to negotiate deals from which everyone, artists, clients and distribution partners included will all benefit.

Creative media clients wishing to license music through RouteNote for use in their projects can use our intuitive browse and search facilities to quickly find the tracks they need and generate a license individually tailored to their purpose within minutes. Our teams experience of media production gives us first hand knowledge of the way clients source music, meaning the site is designed to let users find appropriate music efficiently and intuitively. Users have the ability to create and save shortlists of search terms, tracks and license terms for multiple projects making our service easy to use for first timers, and even more helpful for repeat customers.

I have been reading various articles this week about CDBaby and how they broke their deal with Snocap. I have actually seen all of the CDBaby figures on how much their artist were selling on Snocap and the figures weren’t too bad. However if you are a music aggregator and trying to work with Snocap it is a little more difficult than just providing distribution to online stores. The issues with Snocap is the amount of time it takes to implement a widget store and which songs will need to be selected.

CDBaby is now offering for their artists to sign up with Snocap individually and receive the first year free. If however this doesn’t work for you then make sure you head over to RouteNote which will be launching in a few months and already has Snocap signed as a founding partner.  RouteNote will also not charge any signup fees and can license your music for TV, Radio and Advertising at the same time.

Imeem, the service that offers a widget for sharing your music playlist, has reached a deal with Sony BMG to legally offer their music to users. In exchange for allowing Imeem users stream Sony BMG music in their widgets, the record label will get a cut of the advertising revenue. Imeem previously signed a similar deal with Warner Music, after the record company first tried to sue them.

Imeem has already signed with RouteNote. RouteNote has a private beta test launching next month, so make sure you signup.