SONG CONTEST BLOG

Five months ago, I began working with Audiolife, an exciting company at the forefront of the Direct-To-Fan revolution.

Direct-To-Fan is a popular business model adopted by independent artists.  As the name suggests, artists cut out the middlemen (labels, distributors, retailers etc.) and promote and sell their music directly to their fans.

Radiohead’s release of In Rainbows and Nine Inch Nail’s release of Ghosts I–IV are popular examples of the Direct-To-Fan paradigm.

There are many benefits to Direct-To-Fan.  There are many challenges too.  Audiolife provides both the technology tools and the product fulfillment solutions to make Direct-To-Fan possible and affordable.

There are a handful of other companies with a Direct-To-Fan approach, including Topspin, Bandcamp, and Nimbit.

I want to ask you this:

If you’re doing it, is Direct-To-Fan working for you?

If you’re not doing it, what’s stopping you?

Please add your comments here.

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Bandcamp Stats
Bandcamp and Creative Commons
Bandcamp

Bandstats.  I don’t care what it’s for.  I just wanna play with it.  Gimme.

About Bandcamp.

Related Posts: Bandcamp and Creative Commons, Rockdex, Band Metrics

I’ve been following Bandcamp for a little while now (see earlier post) and I noticed today that the company made some revisions to its home page.  Most notably, Bandcamp created a “features” page which lists the entire suite of tools and services.  I was also delighted to learn that Bandcamp now provides Creative Commons licensing designations:

Under the Creative Commons licensing designations, artists who make their music public, in this case via Bandcamp, are providing limited rights to other artists and music fans who wish to remix, share, or use the music in a variety of ways without having to formally ask permission.

Not yet familiar with Creative Commons?  Overview:

Ethan Diamond, the brain behind OddPost, the web mail service acquired by Yahoo! and, more recently, founder of Bandcamp, dispatched a newsletter today announcing the band portal’s new feature-set and recent upgrades.  The free publishing platform boasts nifty and relevant tools for artists and band promoters to optimize their online presence and provide an uber-cool experience for fans and new comers.  Armed with features such as domain redirection to a unique domain name within the site, fan email capturing on transactions, and IP licensing control (courtesy of Creative Commons) associated with the variety of ways to transmit music files, Bandcamp is set to become a popular choice for the brand conscious and online promotion savvy music community.  In addition to Bandcamp’s visual bells and whistles and you-control-your-music ethos, the company focuses on pertinent music file meta-tagging and artist profile-specific search engine optimization for its individual members.  Did I mention that it’s free?  Bandcamp is really quite simple, down to earth, and rather wonderful.

Songlines Magazine
Songlines Magazine covers the world’s most exciting music from traditional and popular to contemporary and fusion, featuring artists from all around the globe, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, from Miriam Makeba to Mariza, from Gilberto Gil to Gogol Bordello.
http://www.songlines.co.uk

Monolith Festival
For today only, Monolith Festival is giving you $5 off your submission. By submitting, you will have the opportunity to share the stage with this year’s amazing line up at the incredible natural amphitheatre, Red Rocks. Monolith alumni include The Flaming Lips, Justice, Cake, Band of Horses and many more.
http://tinyurl.com/6ks6el

Songwriters Circle
The New York Songwriters Circle Loft Series is a monthly gathering designed to support a thriving community of musicians at all levels and abilities through education, information, and peer-to-peer interaction.
http://www.songwriters-circle.com

We Are Listening & MTV
Two months after We Are Listening panelists selected Tim Mahoney as winner of The Singer/Songwriter Awards, We Are Listening, together with Tinderbox Music, secured Tim’s music on MTV’s hit television series, “The Hills”. In addition, Tim closed an attractive digital distribution deal with IODA and is looking forward to additional licensing opportunities currently in the works. “Companies like We Are Listening are the reason why independent artists make it”, Tim wrote to We Are Listening, adding, “Talking with the founder, Lior, and shaping a custom television placement campaign was the best prize I could have ever hoped for. I was impressed.”
http://www.wearelistening.org/about_contest.php?type=ssa

Band Camp
Bandcamp, a free publishing platform for bands, provides artists with the most relevant content management and social marketing tools, with a super clean interface and friendly user management system.  Bandcamp update.
http://www.bandcamp.mu