Make Your Music Available at Downloadable Music Stores

by Chris Florio

It is unlikely that anyone reading this is unaware of how digital downloading of music has revolutionized the music industry in the past few years. This was originally considered a problem by the industry and a source of free music by a large percentage of college students. With the introduction and success of Apple’s iTunes and other legal download sites, and the popularity of the iPod and other digital music players, downloadable music is now a legitimate, serious and very promising factor in the music industry’s uncertain future.

For the independent musician downloadable music opens up a world of possibilities. Many downloadable music sites offer opportunities for independent musicians to sell their music directly on the store. Other sites including most of the largest sites do not accept music from independent artists but will take independent music that is affiliated with services like CDBaby, the Independent Artists Alliance, The Orchard, and the Digital Rights Agency.

Below is a short description of these four services as well as basic info and URLs for some of the best and most successful online music download stores.

The Services

CD Baby

www.CDBaby.net/dd

CDBaby is a terrific service that many musicians already know about and use. For a cost of $35 an album CDBaby offers a wide range of services including selling and shipping physical copies of the CD from their site. Posting samples of the music as well as band information and link and offering many resources for musicians

While CDBaby offers no downloadable songs for sale from their site, members of CDBaby can sign up for their free digital music distribution service. When you sign up, CDBaby will save your music in the appropriate digital files and send it to all of the digital music services that they are affiliated with, including Apple’s iTunes music store and most of the other stores listed below. CDBaby manages all of the sales and pays the artist whatever they receive from the music stores minus nine percent. This is an excellent and easy way to get started selling songs online without a major investment. CDBaby’s digital distribution deal is exclusive: you cannot sign up to sell your songs on iTunes or any of the digital stores CDBaby uses and also sell them to those stores through CDBaby. The CDBaby digital distribution contract can be canceled at any time.

Independent Online Distribution Alliance

www.iodalliance.com

Independent Online Distribution Alliance is a service which allows small labels, publishers, musicians, and songwriters to negotiate licensing agreements with digital music outlets, including streaming and download services. IODA's collective bargaining power enables independent rights holders to get on some of the services that would normally require major label affiliation. The service is free to sign up for and IODA takes a percentage of each sale.

Digital Rights Agency

www.digitalrightsagency.com

The Digital Rights Agency is similar to IODA except that it is for independent labels (even tiny ones) to leverage their collective bargaining power when dealing with the music stores. Like IODA there are no upfront fees just a percentage of income.

The Orchard

www.theorchard.com

Unlike the other services listed above the Orchard offers distribution of both digital downloads at online music stores as well as distribution of CDs to stores. There is a sign up fee of $49 per album for digital distribution only or $99 for digital and physical distribution. The Orchard is affiliated with nearly every major digital service in the world and has alliances that make it possible for its members to get their music into nearly any music store that is interested in carrying it. The Orchard pays 70% of the money it receives and keeps 30%. The Orchard’s contract is non-exclusive which is good, but difficult to cancel which is not as good. With all of these services and any agreements with the music services listed below be sure to read the terms and agreements extremely carefully before signing up.

The Stores

Apple iTunes Music Store

www.apple.com/iTunes/store

By far the most popular and successful commercial site for downloading, the iTunes music store has sold over 350 million downloadable songs since its launch and has been a huge success for Apple and the legal download business in general. It currently accounts for about 70% of all legal music download purchases.

The music store works with both Macintosh and Windows computers using the free iTunes software as it’s portal. Songs from the music store are downloaded in the AAC format (which is much better quality than similar sized MP3 files but still compressed). AAC is supported by iTunes, iPods, QuicktimePlayer, and many other applications but not by all mp3 players. Downloaded songs can be burned to CDs. There are separate iTunes stores for the US, Canada, the UK, Europe, and Japan.

The Apple music store has over a million songs available with more than 100,000 by independent artists or small labels. Apple accepts small labels on its music store but unsigned artists best bet for getting onto iTunes is to go through CDBaby or the other services listed above. iTunes pays the artist or label 65 cents per song and an average of $6.50 per full-album.

AudioLunchbox

www.audiolunchbox.com

One of the first all-independent music download sites. An easy site for independents to submit to with a straightforward non-exclusive contract. They charge $25 per CD and once they receive it they do all of the work to convert and post it for download. They pay the artist royalties of 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

CatchMusic

catchmusic.net/catchweb

A downloadable site that focuses on independent music and makes it easy for indies to join and send in their music on CD. They also provide space for posting text and images and promotional materials on the artist. CatchMusic pays 50% to the artist through Paypal or with an annual payment by check.

Emusic

www.emusic.com

A Website that members join for a monthly fee and can download up to 50 MP3 files per month. They pay based on their total monthly income divided among all artists based on their percentage of downloads. Emusic accepts music from labels only but is accessible to independent artists through CDBaby and The Orchard.

MP3tunes

www.mp3tunes.com

This online store sells MP3 files and pays the artist 65 cents per song and about $6 per album. MP3 tunes gets its catalog of independent artists exclusively from CD Baby’s Digital Distribution program and joining the CDBaby program automatically gets your music on MP3tunes.

Mperia

www.mperia.com

A good website that is focused on selling the music of independent artists. All of their services are free. Music is sent to them by uploading over the internet. Mperia offers space to post bios, gigs, links, and to create a discussion board for your fans. They take 30% of the profits and pay the artist the rest. One of the most artist friendly music services around.

MSN Music

music.msn.com

Microsoft's answer to iTunes. Integrated into the Windows Media Player. Downloaded songs are loaded in the Windows Media Format directly into the player. Independent artists should join through CDBaby or the other services listed above.

Rhapsody

www.listen.com

This Windows-only site, owned by Real Networks, works on a subscription basis. Members can listen to unlimited numbers of tracks or download and burn songs. Rhapsody pays about 65¢ for each song purchased and about 1¢ for each song listened to online. Independents can join Rhapsody through any of the digital services.

RuleRadio

www.ruleradio.net

An online radio station as well as downloadable music store. They charge independent artists an annual fee of $125 to be in rotation on the radio and to upload any number of songs to be sold. Ruleradio pays the artist 55¢ for each song sold. CDBaby digital distribution members can get some extra perks at ruleradio by visiting www.ruleradio.net/CDBaby1.asp.

Sony Connect

www.sonyconnect.com

Sony's new digital download store for Windows only. Artists can join through the services above.

Weed

www.weedshare.com

Weed offers a relatively unique service. Music is stored in their proprietary format that allows anyone to listen to a song three times for free after that it is must be purchased for 99¢. Weed offers it services to independent artists for free and give the artist 50% of sales. The process of creating the weed files from your music must be done by a weed provider; this free encoding service is a bit cumbersome since you can’t do it on your own machine, but the benefits of getting paid when played are significant. Weed files that have been purchased can then be traded to other listeners, and your fans benefit financially from serving as the host and sharing your music as well as you.