Digital Distribution And How it Applies to Indie Artists

[Kevin Rivers]

Hello everyone,

For those who do not know who I am. My name is Kevin Rivers, Founder and CEO of WaTunes.com, the new digital music service that enables music artists, record labels, music distributors, and social communities to get an open-door access to music outlets such as iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, and eMusic.

Now I'd like to ask most of you this question: What is digital distribution to you? And how should you be able to gain access to music retailers? Do you believe you should pay per album to get on iTunes? Do you believe a certain percentage should be taken from your sales? I'd like to hear all of your input on such a great topic.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Sherie Amore]

I will like to say it depends on the situation of most indie artist. Resting on the fact that most people are starters and paying for everything can get pretty expensive sometimes .Taking out percentages is kind of a way of solving such a problem. On the other hand,i wouldn't mind paying long as the rates aren't too high.

R&B Artist: Sherie Amore.

[Kevin Rivers]

I can't remember if I heard of such a service. My take on digital distribution is that it should be a much more low-cost way to gain entry to the music store retailers. Although charging a fee creates a stable business, I believe that no artist shouldn't be charge a fee per release but rather for an account setup and then allow them to upload as much albums and songs at they want. Its also good to enable the artists to have a huge portion of their proceeds like 90% or even 100%.

[Poa` & The Band of Queens TM.]

The digital retail of music, "mostly in MP3 format"; is a great way for an artist or group to get their sound to a wide audience across the world market. However at the end of day, from a business stand-point, i.e. "marketing, promoting, product-placement and target market development"; in order for an artist or group to have a sense of longevity and maintaining said generated target audience; one must have a clear sense of the nature of doing music business and how human nature plays a role in that relationship.

It is merely human nature to feel the need for something tangible! Something we can hold physically in our possession and cherish over time and maybe even pass on to the next generation, so that one's legacy or at least a collective movement of belief can live on.

Thus, the entire concept of Digital Distribution is totally relevant but ONLY as a means too generate interest in an act and too obtain marginal amounts of income to fuel the acts machine. A physical and everlasting bond between artist & consumer still has too be made and can only be achieved through the distribution of actual hand-to-hand product both audio and visual. It is what you will be remember by and both politics, religion and social bureaucracies are based off of this simple concept.

Cd's unlike records will never go out of fashion because of the nature and relationship of it. Disc replaced vinyl but the ends are still, "Tangible and high quality product". Now on the scope of MP3's replacing Disc well, among the audio quality issues mp3's are only (file-formats) which are unstable and will fail &/or become corrupt over time-a disc is a hard format yes digital but tangible, higher- sound quality and stable never the less.

As far as these online-vendors like Itunes and the fees and charges are concerned. Going with an annual fee will ONLY do an artist any good if the artist has an extremely large amount of sales. Because as, "business as usual goes", signing for an annual fee would more in likeliness be far too expensive to justify a starting artists' budget. (( "It takes money, precise & concise-planning, unconditional sacrifice and time-time-time to break an indie artist.")) A small flat-rate or flat-percentage across the board would be a better option and everyone would be able to eat booth healthy & fully.

Lets face it the online-vendors should not ask for more, regardless of what they say their overhead is minute and by going with plan ( B ) they would generate a rush, "an immense amount of acts that would sign up and with the provided avenue to the artist of no-stress-point-of-sales; the online-vendors would make a killing through high volume sales;" so long as they are on top of their business on their end that is.

Poa`
Poa` & The Band of Queens TM.
Star On Eye Records & Productions LLC.
Americas

[ABIOGENESiS]

Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the info!
We will shortly be releasing an Independent album so please advice.
Regards,
Moa
Abiogenesis
www.abiogenesis.altpro.net
www.cdbaby.com/abiogenesis3
www.myspace.com/abiogenesis8

Saramati Tears, Aeon Spell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUEsyA-uSDw
Live at the Blue Frog, Right Direction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9-dad3GVUk
You’re Breaking Me. Live at the Blue Frog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNjihgPR0Gc

[Kevin Rivers]

Hi Abiogenesis,

Please visit our website at: www.watunes.com to learn how to sell your music digitally to iTunes. I look forward to working with you. - Kevin