Comments on: Would someone please fix the music business?

By: amy

amy — Sun, 22 May 2011 17:19:43 +0000

this was a fantastic read . thanks, eric!

i have to reiterate what a few folks have said about bandcamp : it's revolutionizing how us artists can remove the middle man and sell directly to fans .

it's the best artist-to-fan platform out there in terms of ease of use : bandcamp's aesthetic is clean & minimal (what a breath of fresh air after the muddled disaster of myspace!) & gives artist has complete control over all design elements .

and here's the most stellar part : the artist sets their own prices and fan purchases are instantly deposited into the artist's paypal account .

as far as artist earnings go : i used topspin in the past, but found that with their 'fees' they were taking approx. 26% of my sales . whereas bandcamp takes 15% to start with, then lowers that percentage when you reach a certain amount in sales (an achievable number, in my opinion ) .

i hope more artists will discover it and jump on board!

By: Jenny Lasserton

Jenny Lasserton — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:58:33 +0000

I'll just stick with my indie artist friends who produce their own cds. At least I know where the money goes when I pay them.

By: B1G

B1G — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:51:46 +0000

http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/

By: Is this a bad Apple? | Life of db

Is this a bad Apple? | Life of db — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:20:46 +0000

[...] read this great article that Eric Karjaluoto wrote regarding this very thing He states: ________ The problem with [the [...]

By: Ana

Ana — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:31:51 +0000

A lot of the aforementioned services are great but I'd like to add one more: http://audiolife.com/

Essentially Audiolife offers artists a platform to sell all their physical/digital CDs, ringtones, merch, etc for NO upfront costs. They simply sign up, create products to place in their store (a widget) and then embed the widget anywhere and everywhere they can to sell on-demand and directly to their fans. Audiolife only takes a small cut when a sale is made. This allows artists to get as creative as they'd like with their products and make it as custom or standard as possible.

By: Mary M

Mary M — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:44:25 +0000

Check out DiscRevolt.com

It was started by former musicians who also believe the musicians should get the money. Bands buy cards for cheap with download codes on the back. The bands then sell the cards for whatever they feel their music is worth. Cash goes straight to their pocket. (That's the really short version. The website has more detail.) Also, cards make cool momentos for shows or your favorite bands.

Very worth checking out. More popular bands are starting to pop up on the site. They have some other cool features and bright ideas in the works. Keep an eye out for it!

By: Karl

Karl — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:03:42 +0000

From my understanding Topspin is still in the process of rolling out their services and really only have the resources to work with a select group of artists. Long term they will use their data mining as a tool to cross promote artists, so their service platform will get more potent as more artists use their service. Their revenue model is intended to work off the longtail - the middleclass of artists. First things first.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:37:40 +0000

I checked out TopSpin and it looks cool. Only problem is it only seems to be for artists that are some what established. I'm still looking for a good tool for bands that are unknown and don't have a huge network setup. However, they have the drive to do so.

By: Karl

Karl — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:05:42 +0000

I can't believe it took so many posts for someone to mention Topspin. Peter Gotcher (former CEO of Digidesign who led the creation of Pro Tools), Ian Rogers (former Yahoo! Music GM), and Shamal Ranasinghe (former MusicMatch product strategy executive), have been working on such a platform for 2 years now.

Their intention is to bring “record label administration” into the grasp of the average artist, just as Pro Tools brought the “professional recording studio” into any space equipped with a computer.

I think you'll find this presentation quite refreshing.
http://www.topspinmedia.com/2008/11/grammy-northwest-musictech-summit-keynote/

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:38:37 +0000

Great post and direct-to-fan marketing is most certainly the future of the music business; and ultimately best for artists.

Topspin Media (www.topspinmedia.com) has a platform that facilitates a bunch of what you lay out.