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Topic History of: For musicians, an online alternative (from Boston Globe)
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DJones |
By Jonathan Perry, Globe Correspondent | March 1, 2006
The clash between a musician's creative impulses and the commercial imperatives that drive record companies is as old as recorded sound itself. Artists make the music and labels sell it, promoting and marketing it to the masses and reaping the lion's share of the profits.
The online music revolution has begun rewriting that equation. Many musicians are getting their music directly onto the Web, in many cases without a label to promote them. Yet most digital music distributors still perpetuate the record company business model, grabbing a healthy chunk of an artist's online sales.
Brookline native Jeff Price, 38, has come up with a different model. He recently launched a new service called TuneCore that, for a small fee, helps musicians get their songs uploaded onto popular websites such as iTunes, Napster, and Rhapsody, but allows the artists to retain control of their publishing and master recording rights.
''Technology, for the first time in the history of the music industry, has the ability to offer channels of music distribution that can get your music into the same [online] stores as Madonna, Radiohead, Ludacris, R. Kelly, Death Cab for Cutie, Arcade Fire, you name it," Price says on the phone from New York. ''Bands can get access to the same channels, but [with TuneCore] can do it in a way that's never been done before: without giving up any rights, and in a way that gets them 100 percent of the revenue that's generated from the sale of their music."
In just the few weeks that TuneCore has been up and running, Price says that hundreds of artists have joined, including Pixies frontman Frank Black, whose other band, the Catholics, records for Price's record label, spinART Records. Last month, Black's new compilation with the Catholics, ''Snake Oil," was the first digital album to be uploaded by TuneCore and shipped to iTunes for sale.
''It's great for me because I have a built-in audience, and I can say, 'My B-sides album is coming out and it will be available,' and there's a place where my fans can find out about it," Black says. But he counters, ''For the anonymous bands that are now going to be posting their music on iTunes, it's not going to sell you. It's just a place to store digital information. But I think it will be good for the hard-working bands who have a following. And I think the more places there are for people to post their music, or put it up for sale, the better."
While artists may be excited to maintain control of their recordings and their profits, TuneCore isn't free. Musicians can have their songs placed at a variety of online digital music outlets for a one-time-only delivery charge of 99 cents per song (placement in the Apple iTunes US store is always included free). Placing an album, EP, or single at an array of online stores, such as Rhapsody, Napster, or MusicNet for example, is optional, and each extra service costs an additional 99 cents. Other costs include an annual TuneCore maintenance fee of $7.98. In addition to keeping their publishing rights, artists keep all the money that Internet music stores such as iTunes pay on music sales, about 70 cents per song or $7 per album. Moreover, unlike other digital distributors, TuneCore does not require clients to sign exclusive multiyear contracts, Price says.
''People keep trying to figure out the catch, and there is no catch," Price says. ''We make money off the delivery fees."
Other online distributors are more circumspect about how groundbreaking TuneCore is, or how effective it will be in the long run.
''No, I don't think it's revolutionary," says Greg Scholl, president and CEO of The Orchard, a distributor of digital music that works with thousands of artists and labels from 73 countries. Scholl says his company's focus of working with labels and marketing big-name artists is very different from TuneCore's mission of providing a platform for independent artists -- hence The Orchard's higher fees and exclusive contracts. ''I think it's another flavor of what a lot of people are doing. It's an interesting flavor. [Price] is a very creative, successful entrepreneur, but I don't think it's this totally new thing. It's not no-cost."
Price cofounded New York's spinART Records 15 years ago and is acknowledged as the first label owner to put his entire catalog up for sale as legal digital downloads in 1998. He estimates that 17 percent to 25 percent of spinART's annual revenue comes from iTunes sales, and he does not expect those numbers to decrease soon. Record labels won't go away, he says, but he predicts that eventually they will have to redirect their business toward digital downloads and away from CDs.
For his part, Black says record companies will always have a role to play -- if only more of them operated like Price.
''Of all the record company people that I have worked with, he has been the most generous and the most honest," Black says. ''I don't think that record companies are ever going to be totally unnecessary because it's not just about having the physical CD. It's about people getting on the phone, working it. And that's what record companies are. That's what they do." |
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