Magnatune Song of the Song
p2pnet.net News:- “Customers want to support the artists.”
That was quote from Magnatune’s John Buckman back in a 2005 p2pnet story.
We went on, “Buckman is running a ragingly successful music business by ‘Splitting all album and licensing sales with musicians 50-50, letting artists maintain the rights to their music, and allowing customers to hear an entire album before purchasing it’.
“Try before you buy? Heresy!” Downloadable albums at $5 to $18, with the buyer determining the exact price.
But Buckman was, and still is, On. His Magnatunes is still there, and still innovating, the latest idea being his Free Song of the Song feature.
“The Free Song of the Day is a mp3 download of a song from a magnatune album, one different song for free every day,” he told p2pnet. “The goal is get people to sample more and diverse music, and perhaps they’ll hear something they like, listen to the album and buy it.”
Here’s how it works on Magnatune:
- 50% of the sale price of each album goes directly to the artist.
- 50% of any commercial sub-licensing (ads, web sites, trade shows, films, etc) goes directly to the artist.
- 50% of merchandise profits goes directly to the artist.
What got Buckman started?
“When my wife was signed to an Indie record label, we were really excited,” he posts on the site, going on:
In the end, she sold 1,000 CDs, lost all rights to her music for 7 years (even though the CD had been out of print for many years), and earned a total of $137 in royalties paid (some of it paid to her as CD copies of her own CD which she then gave away for promotion).
The record label that signed her wasn’t evil: they were one of the good guys, and gave her a 70/30 split of the profits (of which there were few).
The label got screwed at every turn: distributors refused to carry their CDs unless they spent thousands on useless print ads, record stores demanded graft in order to stock the albums, and in general, all forces colluded to prevent this small, progressive label from succeeding.
So, ” I thought: why not make a record label that has a clue? That helps artists get exposure, make at least as much money they would make with traditional labels, and help them get fans and concerts.”
(Cheers, Sally)
Also See:
p2pnet story – The Magnatunes success, August 4, 2005
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February 2nd, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Magnatune is the model upon which all other record labels will eventually have to model themselves after if they don’t want to become obsolete. We have already reached a stage where distribution is so rampant that we effectively don’t even need record labels anymore. In fact, the only reason I see the need for a label to exist in this day and age is to promote music, and that can now be done directly by those who actually make the music.
The majors know this. I have reason to believe that they figured this out before anyone else did. That’s why they are so protective of their old methods; it’s all they have left.
February 2nd, 2007 at 5:53 pm
There’s LOTS of money to be made if you eliminate the middle-man.
Technology is helping us with that.
February 2nd, 2007 at 10:12 pm
This is one of the reasons I love P2Pnet. I see news articles that I would normally miss when using the more mainstream news sites. I’m actually listening to the current song of the day right now as I type this comment, and am really loving what I’m hearing. It is entirely possible that they have just gotten themselves two more customers today (the other being my wife).
I have to agree with the other two comments on this. I think Matt made a good point especially. Most assume, including myself, that music industry is blind, preferring to hide their collective head in the sand. But perhaps that isn’t the case at all. Perhaps they saw the writing on the wall a long time ago, long before anyone else did, likely as far back as the mid to late 90’s. Their actions are certainly of an industry gone completely mad. They go after your perfectly average family, most of whom can’t afford to defend themselves little alone pay a settlement fee, yet rarely bother going after big businesses and large for-profit piracy rings, where they could be making some real money and an actual difference. This has never made any sense to me, especially if greed is supposed to be their primary motivator as everyone claims it is. Leads me to believe that something more may be going on behind the scenes than we all realize.
February 5th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I think:
The reason they only hit the little people is because they are certain they really have NO case – and a bigger organization with money will call them on it.
The little people just pay the $3750 each and go away confused but happy thinking that they avoided a substantially larger judgment.
It is a hail-mary money grab as they lose control of the distribution.
And it acts as a fear tactic to make sure the public doesn’t feel good about wandering far from what they have laid out for us.
These guys have big lawyers and they know exactly what they are doing. If all of us on this type of website can figure it out, they can too.
They will keep it up as long as they are permitted to.