Apple changes the rules again.....

Very soon we are due to launch a new feature for TuneCore customers. If you sold music in iTunes you will be able to log in and see weekly trending sales data showing how many songs and/or albums sold the previous Monday – Sunday, the zip code/postal code, country and city of the buyer. In addition you also see the date of the sale and the projected money you have earned.

Apple has released this data to TuneCore and we built the system to ingest it and split it up between everyone’s account.

I wrote a press release about this and sent it to our publicist. They wanted to see if we could get some big press out of it by offering it as an exclusive to a news source. Good idea. The news source gets the exclusive (meaning they get to write about it before anyone else does) and in return they commit to running a feature story. After the first two outlets passed on picking up the story, a third one showed interest and asked this simple follow up question.

“So itunes doesnt offer this type of report to artists directly?”

My answer (kept very bullet point and staccato as it was a factual press inquiry) was:

“To have access to this info you have to be in a direct deal with iTunes

iTunes does do not do direct deals with most artists. The artists need to go via middlemen (the aggregator)

Most aggregators do not do deals with most artists, they filter whom they choose to work with by varying degrees. Most aggregators try to do deals with labels.

The aggregator has access to the Apple data, but in addition to access, it needs to build the technology to ingest the reports and then the tech to splinter it out to the different labels in a deal with the aggregator.

The labels would then need to build the same system - ingest these daily files, splinter them out by artist, title, song etc and then create the technology to deliver these files to the artists outside of the royalty accounting periods.

Labels account to bands either quarterly or bi-annually - usually 30 to 90 days after the end of each quarter or bi-annual period. Labels do not provide this level of detail to a band (take it from a guy that ran one for 20 years)

So the short answer is no, artists have NEVER had access to this information before - Apple is the FIRST retailer on the planet (as far as I know) to release the zip codes/postal codes of its buyers to the supplier.

And TuneCore is the first "supplier" to hand this information to the artist”

I clicked send and about two minutes later realized the magnitude and importance of this.

For the first time a “retailer” (Apple) is allowing people to know extremely detailed information about its customers, down to the zip codes of its buyers.

This would be the same thing as Tower Records supplying the Zip Code of each buyer of CDs at Tower to the record labels.

It just did not (and does not) happen. This information is usually very highly guarded by the retailer (not to mention very hard to collect). And Apple released it. Kudos to them!

Because the release of this data is so new and no one has ever released this it before, there really weren’t pre-existing systems set up to ingest it all. And even with these systems built, there was still a barrier between the company that received the information and handing it out to the musicians.

In other words, record labels just do not send daily or weekly information at this level of detail to the actual artist. Sure, there is something called Soundscan, a third party company which trys to provide this data, but it is not 100% accurate nor does it have this level of detail. And although anyone can buy this information from Soundscan, the price is quite high (thousands of dollars for access to it). However, Soundscan does compile all the sales information from all the stores into one report. The reports in TuneCore are only from Apple.

That being said Apple is the number one seller of music in the US (if not the world).

Now, for the very first time, musicians can have very detailed information about who their fans are, where they live, what songs are being bought, how often, what country, how much money they have coming to them when the accounting statement shows up the following month and more from the largest seller of music on the planet.

With this information, musicians have the ability to plan a tour to where their buying fan are as well as promote themselves to local radio, TV, newspapers with hard proof that they should be covered. In addition, for TuneCore users, artist have a pretty good idea of how much money is coming down the pipeline and when.

Planning out cash flow, buying things, tour support issues all become a lot easier.

The most interesting thing to me is, the entities that control this data do not release it as many are concerned it could hurt them if they let it out, seems to me, it just makes things more robust and healthier. With more information, there is more reason to pursue your passion which can only be better for us all.

Comments

[Ethan Bauley]

Hey Jeff, will this info be available for historical sales (e.g. sales in 2007?)

[Jeff Price]

I am just psyched Apple released the data! I am just sorry it has taken us so long to build the technology to ingest the reports and get them splintered out into your accounts!

[Chris Cowan]

Fantastic news, Jeff and kudos to you for giving us transparent access!

I remember specifically asking reps from a large company that does data collection, some aggregators, and a large subscription services about this two years ago (all of whom will go nameless), at a SxSW panel. My question went over about as well as a fart in church.

[Fernando Gelbard]

Thanks for the great news. I am delighted with Tunecore.

[The Ambient Society]

...''and we built the system to ingest it and split it up between everyone’s account.''

Impressive!

...''With this information, musicians have the ability to plan a tour to where their buying fans are as well as promote themselves to local radio, TV, newspapers with hard proof that they should be covered. In addition, for TuneCore users, artist have a pretty good idea of how much money is coming down the pipeline and when.''

Awesome!

[Jeff]

Each customers information is only released to them. You can not buy or view someone else's information.

[Brian London]

I'm very pleased to read this on the one hand but can think of a fair few privacy issues on the other.

Has the release of this data been included in the T&C's for all customers on iTunes? Apple probably have done this.

What about non US jurisdiction, especially Europe which is continuously trying to pick a fight with the US over privacy issues. I can see this being grounds for a huge fight!

On the whole, very welcome, but a few things to think about!

[JeffCore]

Soundscan does attempt to collect digital sales data - its not accurate, particularly at the individual song level

It also do not display the information down to each individual zip code of each individual sale nor does it include information on sales outside of the US.

And is very expensive.

[Mike]

This is great news for digital sales, but Apple isn't the first retailer to supply detailed reports like this. They maybe the first digital retailer to do this, but the information flow already exists for physical sales in a pay-to-play form. Nielsen Soundscan (soundscan.com) collects, compiles and distributes weekly sales data for physical sales. A big difference though is that there is a high wall to conquer to participate in the system. Labels, artists and other companies that want to use the data have to pay a subscription fee to receive the reports, labels have to be approved and register each release and retail stores have to apply for the right to send their sales data.