[FMC] DIY Online Distribution Models: Licensing and Selling your Music Online – Friday Oct 6th

NOTE: Some of this content comes from the Future of Music program. Shoulda been properly cited but it wasn’t so consider this your official heads up.

Friday afternoon at the Future of Music Summit, Sarah covers the DIY Online Distribution panel

Lindsay Lynch – Operations Manager, MapleMusic.com
Brian Camelio – President, ArtistShare
Shannon Coulter – Director of A&R, Magnatune.com
Nathaniel Krenkel – Label Head, Team Love
Lindsay Lynch – Operations Manager, MapleMusic.com
Jamie Perlman – Director of Business Development Retail Partners, Snocap
Derek Sivers – President and Programmer, CD Baby, cdbaby.com
Moderated by Dick Huey – CEO, Toolshed Inc.

Team Love is a 50/50 profit share record company which has put out out 10 records so far, Nate is the manager of Bright Eyes.

Maplemusic.com is an online store through which Canadian artists can sell their music and merch. They take $3.25/item and sometimes less.

Magnatune.com allows filmmakers to buy music for their movies on a sliding scale depending on their budget. A quick, no fuss form is available online.

People are encouraged to visit tunecore.com, cdbaby.com and soundexchange.com and to learn more about creative commons.

The model that many of these people offered was a much more humble approach to the music biz than the traditional one and the general conclusion seemed to be that there’s no one way to guarantee the successful marketing of one’s music online. However, everyone seemed confident that the quality of an artist’s work and their commitment to that work definitely plays a role in selling their music.

Shannon of magnatune.com, a company which gives half of all sales to their artists and also allows them to retain the rights to their music for use and sale elsewhere, spoke about the notion of sliding scale prices online.

In the case of independent artists everyone spoke about how when one is buying a piece of music from an artist that they love they’re not necessarily thinking so much about the price and are often willing to pay more than the lowest suggested cost. Additionally, the panel spoke about how one of the advantages of having a sliding price scale is giving fans with more income
the option of helping to actually fund the record and thus have a direct influence on the career of their favourite artist.

Generally, everyone was urging all the artists in the room to be realistic about what kind of money they could make through online distribution. Some even spoke about how the expectation to break even was more than enough.

Ultimately the commitment of the artist was held as paramount.