TuneCorner

Guess How Much Money You Made. Seriously, You Need To Guess.

By George Howard and Jeff Price

(Follow George Howard on Twitter  /  Follow TuneCore on Twitter)

In order for a business of any kind to succeed you must have metrics.  You must, at minimum, be able to calculate both how much the business is spending and how much the business is making.  The music industry today, in many respects, requires and rewards the artist who views herself as a business-owner/operator.  Artists can (and we’d argue, should) be their own label, songwriter, and publisher.  As such, artists can develop multiple revenue streams for their business.  Downloads of the artist’s records generate income; usages of the song/master in film/TV generate income.  Both of these streams of income are fairly easy to quantify.  A download of a song generates roughly $.70, and income from usages in a movie/ad, while negotiated, are clear and precise. 

Adapting To The New Music Industry

They say one year on the Net is like five years in the “real world,” in regards to the music industry, one year sure feels like 15.

When we launched TuneCore half a decade ago (sounds more impressive than five years) we built a system to change the music industry and empower and serve artists.  Since then, the industry has changed and evolved: new stores have popped up, others have shut down; more music is being released, bought, streamed and shared as major labels downsize, release less music, consolidate, put themselves up for sale or get taken over by banks.  Music sales by unit are up another 1.5% in 2010 (around 1.6 billion units).  With the rumored forthcoming “cloud” services from Google, Apple and Amazon and Spotify entering the US, the concept of over a trillion units being streamed or bought per year is no longer fantasy. Over the past 28 months alone, TuneCore Artists have sold over 300 million units generating over $150 million in gross music sales.  Most of these TuneCore Artists are also the songwriter, the publishing company, and the performer, earning them over $100 million more in additional revenue from each of these additional income streams (more on the six legal copyrights that drive the music business can be found here).

The Emergence of The New Music Industry - It's Global, Generates A Lot Of Money & Is Based On Six Copyrights

By Jeff Price

There have been six fundamental changes to the music industry that have revolutionized and transformed the business.  It is vital that artists are fully aware of these changes in order to make the most money and pursue their passion on their own terms.

These six changes are:

1)   Music fans now buy and listen to music from digital music stores and services.

2)   There is unlimited shelf space where everything can be in stock at no detriment to anything else. 

3)   For no up front cost, there is unlimited inventory always available on demand as a perfect digital copy.

4)   With the launch of TuneCore, there is no gatekeeper to placing a song on Apple, Amazon’s etc store or hard drive.

5)   Distribution of a release is now global and not restricted to just one country.

6)   Artists can market directly to their fans.

Music Survey Results

TuneCore Artists and music advocates weighed in on last week's poll.  Check out what everyone had to say about copyright, the value of a record label, iTunes access, and much more...

(To view results larger, as a PDF, click here!)

The New Music Thieves: Stealing from Artists

There's a lot of new fraud out there hurting artists, and it’s our job to let you know about it.

We're lucky. Back in 2005, we built something game-changing, turning the music industry on its head by removing all gatekeepers and allowing every artist to have access to distribution while keeping their rights and getting all the money form the sale of their music.

But when you change the game, you encounter new kinds of scam artists and cheaters: with new technology and new business models come new thieves and new kinds of fraud. These are people who'd do anything to make at buck, no matter who or what they might damage. So here's a heads-up:

Stealing Someone Else's Song

From time to time, someone will knowingly steal someone else’s song and try sell it and pass it off as their own. I do mean stealing: if you want to give away your music, that’s fine, you have the right to do anything you want with music you control. But you should have the choice, and no one should be able to make that choice for you, either ahead of time or after the fact. 

For example, we had a customer steal someone else’s song, sell it on iTunes and not pay the person who wrote it. iTunes then got a legal notice from the songwriter, they in turn sent TuneCore a legal notice claiming copyright infringement (under the law, TuneCore can now be fined up to $150,000 per willful infringement).

Once this happened, we had to hire our lawyer at hundreds of dollars an hour to respond. This person paid TuneCore $9.99 and then stole another person's song, used it and did not pay them, but told TuneCore he did. We did call him to let him know what someone else was accusing him of and to defend him if necessary. He stated he knew he stole the song and demanded that TuneCore send him money or he would write articles and blog postings attacking TuneCore’s credibility (making it more insane was the fact that we did not have this money to give him, it had already gone to the actual songwriter whose work he stole). To top all this off, it became possible for TuneCore to get sued. 

In addition to these legal problems, threats and costs, there is also the damage done by this person with iTunes. We had to call up Apple and try to repair things, as this one person's actions might have screwed everything up for all other TuneCore customers.

True to his word (at least he is honest about one thing), this person began posting articles on the Internet accusing TuneCore of anything he could think of.

Frankly, it’s our job to deal with this kind of ridiculousness, but his actions also put iTunes, TuneCore and every TuneCore artist and label in jeopardy. 

Here’s what’s troubling: it’s not about a new-age techno-bully’s attempts to shakedown TuneCore. It’s about the damage being done to other artists whose work is being stolen. Songwriters and artists work hard, and yet they have to contend with RIAA board members calling their music “crap” and claiming they should not be allowed to have distribution. The last thing they should have to worry about is others stealing their song to make a quick buck.

To anyone stealing, we ask, why cheat the artist? Don’t they have it hard enough out there? If you thought their work was good enough and important enough to use, why steal?

There’s nothing wrong with using other peoples’ work, there’s dozens of ways to use it fairly. Wouldn’t you want someone to pay you for your work, if they used it? Artists are not the enemy. They’re trying to look out for themselves in a very complicated industry, they need help from their fellow artists and from their digital distributor.

The idea is to arm everyone with the knowledge that enables artists to make informed decisions, control their rights, make money and pursue their passions on their own terms. That’s why we created so many free guides, or our Ustream video broadcasts:  and our most recent Free .PDF, How Not To Get Screwed – The Six Legal Rights That Drive The Music Industry. These are free for anyone, even those who decide not to use TuneCore.

If someone stole your music, you bet we’d be there to make sure you got your money. And if it ever happened to you, we’d be there for you. If someone reaches out to TuneCore artist and accuses one of our artists of stealing, we’re going to notify you, fast. We’re going to help you reach out to this other party and find out what’s going on. This is the kind of honesty and protection artists deserve.

If It’s Too Good to be True, It Is!

Sometimes scammers use fraudulent credit cards to buy gift cards, and then they try to sell those cards to unsuspecting artists. Please, be careful!

If someone is trying to sell you an iTunes, AmazonMP3 or any other store’s gift cards or gift certificates of any kind below cost, it might be a scam, watch out. Even if you legitimately buy a gift card, Apple may see the purchases as fraudulent and not pay out any money from these sales. Things to look for: asking for cash, super low prices (like, five cents on the dollar), and using semi-anonymous selling venues (Craigslist and its clones)

So to fraudsters, scammers, thieves and others like them, if they want to reach out to TuneCore or our artists and make good, they can write us, we here, and we've always been here.

If you have any questions or concerns, reach out to us, we’re here and can get you pointed in the right direction or provide information.

It pains us when people stick their heads in the sand, lash out at TuneCore because they don’t want to face the consequences of their actions. They’re hurting artists, making it even harder for us to keep helping, keep opening doors, and keep changing this industry for the good.

In the meantime, here’s a great list of free resources:

 

U.S. Based Performance Rights Organizations

ASCAP: http://www.ascap.com

BMI: http://www.bmi.com

SESAC: http://www.sesac.com

 

Where To Register To Collect Digital Transmission Money

SoundExchange: http://www.soundexchange.com

 

Where To Register Your Copyrights

United States Copyright Office, Library of Congress: http://www.copyright.gov/

 

Where To Get More Information

ArtistHouse Music: http://www.artistshousemusic.org/

Future Of Music: http://futureofmusic.org/

Other TuneCore Music Industry Survival Guides: http://www.tunecore.com/guides

 

Find Us Online

TuneCore’s Twitter account: http://twitter.com/tunecore

TuneCore on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TuneCore

TuneCore's YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/tunecore

 

--Peter & Jeff

 

Reach us at:

[email protected]

 

 

Arrested (Artist) Development

By Jeff Price

Sometime in the 90’s, “artist development” for rock and alternative bands, got turned on its head.  Gone were the days of a major label aspiring to propel an artist over many years to “rock legend” with multiple releases, tour dates, interviews and in-store appearances (Led Zep, Rolling Stones, Springsteen, The Byrds etc). Instead, new artists were given six weeks from the street date of their debut album to have a radio/MTV hit.  If the first single from the album failed, the artist would typically get dropped; their career effectively over before it even began.

How the Shift to a Singles Market Impacts Writer’s Income

By George Howard

One of the interesting unintended consequences of the trend away from albums and back towards singles is that there is now less mechanical income being generated for writers.  Remember, a label must pay the copyright holder of the song (i.e. the writer and/or publisher) for the right to “mechanically” reproduce the writer’s song on the label’s release (be it on CD, vinyl, download, etc.). 

The current rate, as set by statute, is nine point one cents ($.091) for songs under five minutes in length.  Labels often insert a clause into recording contracts that reduces this amount when the artist signed to the label is also the writer; this so-called controlled composition clause reduces the mechanical royalty that is paid by the label to the artist by as much as 25%. 

How Radio Works

By Mike King

In a perfect world, radio stations across the country would play songs based simply on the merits of the songs themselves. In a perfect world, a major radio station in a major market could be solicited in the same fashion as a publicist solicits Rolling Stone, for example: by sending a package, making a follow-up call, and if the “deciders” (in the case of radio, the program directors) like what they hear, they would promote the record by playing it on air. Unfortunately this is not how large traditional radio stations work.

Watch: Negotiating and Signing a Band Agreement

Agreements Between Band Members: Dealing Fairly with Members Who Don’t Write Songs

By George Howard

In many bands there is either a single songwriter or a songwriting “team.”  This archetype was established early — Jagger/Richards, Lennon/McCartney, et al. — and persists to this day.  Whether it’s a single songwriter or songwriting team who come up with the necessary elements to create a copyright in a song, there are often others in the band (drummer, bass player, etc.) who have no claim over this copyright.