Song Contest Blog » TuneCore

TuneCore To Serve MySpace Music

Lior Shamir — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:29:32 +0000

Tomorrow, MySpace Music will open its gates to TuneCore artists, Wired.com reported. TuneCore’s artists will be able to distribute their music through MySpace and benefit from streaming royalties, though the company has not commented on how much. Probably very little.

TuneCore ? $30 Million in Music Sales in 2009

Lior Shamir — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:27:42 +0000

By the end of this year, the TuneCore Artist catalog will have earned over $30,000,000.

This means that there is a song selling by a TuneCore Artist on iTunes every second.

Currently, TuneCore distributes between 150 – 250 releases a day.

I went head to head with Jeff Price, President of TuneCore, to find out how he created the world’s largest distributor of music in only four years.

“Music distribution is what we do, and we do it better than anyone else”, Jeff started. “We are the first place music stores come to get the music and we pride ourselves on this. When we launched four years ago, we got to change the world: For the first time in the history of the music industry, anyone could ‘sign themselves’ and get worldwide distribution of their music while keeping all their rights and 100% of the money from the sale of their music. That was a game changing paradigm then – and still is today!”

TuneCore recently announced a partnership with Universal Distribution (Interscope, Universal Republic, Island Def Jam, Motown, Geffen and more), bridging the independent music market with the most sought-after music catalog in the world.

“This was a deal I did solely to provide artists with more options.” Jeff comments. “In a nutshell, in addition to regular old TuneCore.com, we will also be hosting and serving websites for Universal labels that provide artists with distribution while taking none of the artists’ rights or revenues. If an Artist chooses to get their distribution via one of the label portal sites (as opposed to TuneCore.com), they will have a direct line into that label. This means the label will be aware of you, have heard your music, be up to speed on the success you are having, etc. The label can reach out to you to offer more marketing, promotion, physical distribution and anything else. If they do, the artist can choose to talk with them, tell them no, tell them yes, tell them they will get back to them or simply decide to continue to do what they had been doing to that point in time. All the options. No strings.”

From physical distribution via 215 Guitar Center stores to media widgets that distribute TuneCore customers’ content across the social web, TuneCore has made a name for itself by providing dozens of opportunities centered on the most accessible and competitive music distribution model of our time: Flat Fee. No Commission.

Not distributing your music with TuneCore? Start now with a 30% discount!

CreateSpace

Lior Shamir — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:43:26 +0000

By distributing your music through Amazon’s CreateSpace, you can sell both your digital downloads and CDs on Amazon without ever having to finance and ship-in your physical stock. Simply upload your digital assets (i.e mp3s, album artwork, discface graphics) and CreateSpace will set you up with a store, make your mp3s available for download, and print CD’s and ship them to your customers on demand. Although Amazon’s commission for this service is high, duplicating CDs per pre-paid order may save you a tidy sum in the long run.

TuneCore recently partnered with CreateSpace which adds a much needed physical dimension to its one-stop, fixed-price digital distribution service. CD Baby already offers physical and digital distribution and, since its acquisition by Discmakers, can fulfill the printing process too. How will ReverbNation respond?

TuneCore partners with Musicnotes.com

Lior Shamir — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:37:30 +0000

TuneCore, the indie-friendly digital distribution company which secured $7 million in venture capital in October 2008, has partnered with Musicnotes.com to offer lead sheet music transcription and retail services for TuneCore artists selling more than 25,000 songs per quarter, Musicnotes.com announced on their blog yesterday. Since its inception in 2000, Musicnotes.com has sold over five million sheet music downloads at an average of $4.95 per transaction.

“The music industry began in many ways with the selling of sheet music. The irony of the intertwining of digital downloads with sheet music is not lost on both companies,” said Jeff Price, founder and CEO of TuneCore.

TuneCore Raises $7 million

Lior Shamir — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:10:00 +0000

TuneCore, the do-it-yourself digital music distribution platform, landed $7 million in a recent round led by Opus Capital. The company offers immediate access into stores like iTunes, and poses serious competition to existing indie distribution companies like CD Baby.

Artists can distribute their albums or individual tracks across a number of digital music stores for under $30, and keep the royalties, a model that has yet to be tried and tested by the major digital distributors on behalf of long tail clients.

TuneCore: A New Digital Distribution Model

Lior Shamir — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 13:07:00 +0000

TuneCore, a digital music distribution company with a front door, fixed fee revenue model, may have conceived of the very solution independent artists have been seeking to get their digital tracks on major, online music outlets. Unsigned artists often rely on CD Baby for digital music distribution as they specifically cater to individual, burgeoning artists. More established artists and labels turn their catalogues over to the major digital distributors including The Orchard, IODA, IRIS and INgrooves. Without exception, digital distributors have been servicing their clients’ catalogue for a percentage of the proceeds paid to them from the retailers (i.e. iTune, Napster, Rhapsody) and pay the artist or label the remainder in monthly or quarterly intervals. 20% to 30% from the top, depending on who you are and the size of your catalogue is a standard distributor cut.

TuneCore, in contrast, charges its artist and label clientele upfront: 99 cents per song and 99 cents per store for each album and an annual $9.98 charge per album, instead of dipping into any backend percentage of proceeds due to the artist or label from downloads. It’s a simple and rather refreshing plan – certainly affordable – and, in my mind, challenges the services that the other distributors are offering. More importantly, it promises individual artists with a low profile and small or fledgling labels to access all the necessary portals for MP3 retail.