Digital Music Distribution
January 21st, 2009 by Lior ShamirSuccessful digital music distribution is, first and foremost, gauged by how cheaply and swiftly you can get your music on iTunes and whether your distributor can offer any marketing support, usually reserved for major label clients or independent megastars. Although the current leaders, namely The Orchard, IRIS and IODA, now cater to the long-tail musician community, independent artists (a huge market) are being catered to by new, easy-to-digest digital music distribution models that appear to surpass the existing competition. CD Baby, for instance, the most renowned online CD retailer of independent artists, has leveraged its resources for its target demographic and, resultantly, enjoying exponential growth in the digital music distribution sector. With no start-up costs and just a 9% commission, the indie retailer is an excellent choice for up and coming artists. A relatively new entry in the space, TuneCore, is making a splash with an equally unbeatable offer: $0.99 per track, $0.99 per store per album, and $19.98 per album per year storage or, $9.99 flat per song, all-inclusive. No commission.
Due to sinking CD sales, digital music distribution has become the primary means of placing new music in front of consumers in a variety of online mediums. As the retail options for independent artists increase, so does the value proposition from the digital music distribution service providers.