iTunes Music Store?
 

Hey Guys,

Does anyone have their music, (or music they've recorded) on the iTunes Music Store?
USA, UK, Canada, wahetever.

I've seen that automated form at Apple's site for trying to get on. And I've read about their Producer program.

I've got some quick questions, and I can't find anyone to contact at Apple about it.

Anyone?

Thanks

Re: iTunes Music Store?
 

I haven't tried them yet, but you may want to check this out:

http://www.theorchard.com/

$50 per release isn't bad, though you do take cut on potential profit. I'd read up on it for sure. I'm interested.

rockrev

Re: iTunes Music Store?
 

Just a heads up about The Orchard for distribution... you might want to have a good lawyer to negotiate with them if you are going that way caus they sneak in a lot of un-nessecary clauses that will tie up your works good. If you are looking for good distribution and to get out to somewhere like Itunes and others, I would highly reccomend doing your cd pressing through Oasis which does it for free with your order, or just go over to cdbaby.net which includes all of your tunes in the online download stores like Itunes, Napster, Rhapsody, AOL, Music Match...etc... Its about $30 and you keep all creative control rights and what not.

You will have to go a different rout all together for hard copies in stores and what not though as cdbaby.net doesn't handle that, and neither does Oasis. You would also have to be registered with Sound Scan in order to get into distribution for hard copy stores like Best Buy..etc.. Goodluck with your producing.

Charlie

Re: iTunes Music Store?
 

Thanks Charlie. I just read their entire website - seems like a great service. As soon as I finish this album and get some copies pressed I'm heading right to them.

As well as hard copies through their store, I'm interested (my first post) in getting on the US & Canadian iTMS. I'm emailing them now about some nit picky technical questions, like if I can choose where in the song the 30 sec preview is, and more importantly what settings they're encoding at. I've previewed some songs and they sound like complete sh*t. Must have been like 128 K/sec with a codec from the mid-90's. Anyways..

Any other tips on digital distribution, rights conflicts, any other 'heads-up' Charlie?

I haven't visited the CDDB database online, but is that easy to get your album info on to?

Re: iTunes Music Store?
 

Hey Charlie... I search for your record in the iTunes store by searching "Charlie Naebeck" and no results are found.

I'm just wondering if it takes a while for CD Baby to create all of the access you listed above.

I'm being asked for advice from an indie client about how to get songs specificly on iTunes, and just looking around for her.

Re: iTunes Music Store?
 

There's a l o n g waiting list to get on the iTMS. Regardless if you do it on your own, or through a service like CD Baby.
When I talked to them (CD Baby) today, they estimated 3 months - but it could be longer.

I think Apple have 2 people in a room and send them 5000 submissions a day.

Re: iTunes Music Store?
 

Soliton: I don't know off hand if you can choose where the preview is, but with mine they coded 2 min. worth on the streams... Not a big deal in my case as I am doing most of my tunes to shop to music libraries, TV, and Film really, but I believe they are coded at 32k if I recall which does not do the sound true justice. I have heard a lot of other artists on cdbaby before and they all sound the same... The best I could advise is that if you sell your cd on your website, maybe do up some of your own samples and code them correctly under a link for listening, and then just direct your audience to cdbaby for purchasing your cd in hard copy form.

Kingfish and Soliton: for digital distribution, yeah you are correct that it takes a while. My album was submitted to them a couple weeks back as its release date was March 25th (even though I am hosting a release party on April 24th) and they got the hard copy stuff up on their site in time, but it said they are just now sending out my music to the Digital stores. Here are the stores that they work with:

Straight from cdbaby.net:

"With CD Baby Digital Distribution, your music would be available for sale on the following services - and MORE to come soon! Money amount shown below is what they pay us for music sold. The amount paid to you would be 9% less.

Apple iTunes Downloadable program for Mac and Windows. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

AudioLunchbox One of the first all-independent music download sites. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

BuyMusic A la carte downloads for 79 cents for anyone with Windows IE browser. 59 cents per song. $5.90 per full-album.

CatchMusic Site that offers a la carte downloads and focuses on independent music. 55 cents per song.

DigiPie Website that offers a la carte downloads. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

DigitalKiosk DKT places digital kiosks in independent music stores in Indianapolis. Users can purchase tracks from the kiosk and then create a CD with those tracks (soon customers will be able to export songs to portable devices). 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

EMEPE3 Website that primarily targets Latin America, USA and Spain. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

Emusic Website for Mac, Windows, Linux where members can download up to 40 tracks per month of high-quality MP3 files. Total subscriber income divided among total download activity. Ends up being about 50 cents per song.

Etherstream Website that offers a la carte downloads. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

iTunes-Canada Downloadable program for Mac and Windows.

iTunes-Europe Downloadable program for Mac and Windows.

iTunes-UK Downloadable program for Mac and Windows.

MP3tunes Online music store that allows purchase of regular MP3 files, for maximum compatibility with all computers and players. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

Mperia Website that offers a la carte downloads and focuses on independent music. Mperia's services are available worldwide. 75 cents per song. $7.50 per full-album.

MSN Music Microsoft's music store is integrated into Windows Media Player, so people who use

Windows Media Player can purchase music from their desktop. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

MusicIsHere Site that offers a la carte downloads - based in the Latvia. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

MusicMatch A popular audio jukebox program for Windows that recently added this service built-in to their player. 60 cents per song. $5.50 per full-album. Varies for streams.

MusicNet AOL's bundled service, right now for AOL members on Windows only. Will be working with Tower and Virgin's download services. 60 cents per song. $7.00 per full-album. $.002 per stream.

MusicNow Website that offers a la carte downloads. MusicNow plans to launch a streaming service and also provide music services for other retail companies. 67 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

Napster Downloadable program for Windows. Yes it's now legal and paying. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album. Varies for streams.

NetMusic Digital download and streaming service. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

OnlinePromo Website that offers a la carte downloads and focuses on independent music. On-line Promo's services are available worldwide. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

Puretracks Canada-based service that offers $.99 downloads. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

QTRnote Website that offers a la carte downloads. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

Rhapsody Downloadable program for Windows, based more towards playing/streaming/listening than downloading. Rhapsody is owned by Real Networks. 65 cents per song for non-subscribers, 60 cents per song for Rhapsody subscribers. $6.50 per full-album for non-subscribers, $6.00 per album for subscribers. 1 cent per stream.

RuleRadio Online radio and download store. 65 cents per song. $6.50 per full-album.

Sony Connect Sony's new digital download store. 65 cents per song. $6.55 per full-album.

We also have optional (OPT-IN) services you can choose to be included in your distribution
To opt in, log into your members account.
Bitmunk Bitmunk is a digital marketplace where you set the amount of money you want to receive for each sale of your music, then different sellers can sell it for whatever price they want on top of that. Initially set for 65 cents per song, $6.50 per full-album.

Ruckus Ruckus is a subscription download service designed exclusively for colleges and universities. Participating schools pay a monthly subscription fee to provide their students with all-you-can-eat "tethered" downloads. Subscription service - artists receive a percentage of the total subscriber income that is proportional to the amount of times their music is streamed.

Weed Weed protects your audio file so that anyone anywhere can listen to it 3 times for free. After 3 listens, they must purchase the file for 99 cents to continue listening. 50 to 85 cents per song, depending on how many other affiliates are getting paid for the sale. (See Weed's website for a description of how this works.) "




As for CDDB, all you want to do is go to amg.com and submit your album if it is available to the public. For soundscan you just need a bar code and these stores will get you your sales reported to sound scan. you can get one through the place that prints your cd or through cdbaby.net for cheaper. You will also get ISRC codes to report to the RIAA through cdbaby.net if you sign up for digital distribution which you need to count your sales also.

Well, if you guys have any other questions, please feel free to e-mail me. My address is on my site and I would be happy to help where I can. peace

Charlie