iTunes

[Kris]

Hi all,

I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this but given that we're all in the business of making music I figured at least some of you might be interested.

I have recently become an official iTunes Store Content Provider for music and music videos. What that means is I have direct access to the iTunes store worldwide, not an easy thing to achieve but I have been working on it for quite a while.

I'm working on expanding that to movies/tv shows and audio books but for now this is a good start. If you know of any unsigned bands or artists or even indie labels that have a good fan base or just plain great music and they would like their music on itunes, then please let me know. There are (small) fees involved and contracts need to be exchanged to keep things all nice and official but it is very simple and I am averaging about 4 weeks from acceptance of the material to "go live" on iTunes. I cover all territories, Aus/NZ, USA/Canada, UK/Europe and Japan. The deal is completely non-exclusive, meaning I do not own any copyrights or recordings. It's purely a digital distribution agreement.

Please feel free to direct any interested parties to: musikwerks at mac dot com.

Thanks.

Kris.

[rick]

for what it worth and from direct experience kris get my endorsement as a guy who keeps his word and honours his arrangements.
so i think this might be something for the right parties to look into further

[heathen]

Thing is, no disrespect at all intended Kris and I think this is a great idea, but getting music onto itunes, cdbaby, snocap and all the others is very easy, it's actually getting people to pay for the downloads, promotion is the hardest part, making people want to buy your music. Will you be promoting artists as well?

I know touring is the way to go to gain support and promote yourselves, but in an online virtual universe which is expanding faster than the "big bang" have you worked out any marketing methods to make people want to go to Musikwerks?

Another thing my music partners and I have found is other options apart from itunes are needed to sell music, for example a guy emailed my mate "Big Tim" and said, "hey my man I wanna buy your album but I won't buy from itunes", Tim signed up with "CD Baby" in which they have a distribution agreement with itunes and others, CD Baby actually keeps hard copies of CD's in case someone wants a hard copy. The guy then downloaded his album from cdbaby. Anyway just thought I'd mention that scenario too out of interest.

I reckon though its a great idea for a band/artists to get everything set up and ready to go online just incase the snowball starts rolling. I'll be keen to check out your site when its up for sure.

Very best of luck Kris.

[Chris H]

Thanks Kris for the offer. I have one or two in mind.

[Kris]

Thanks for the kind words Rick.

Heathen, no offense taken. I like to hear others opinions just in case I have overlooked something. I am not offering marketing services. That would put me in the "label" zone and I am not ready for that yet.

I have been selling CD's on cdbaby for a number of years, and yes, they can hook you up to itunes and a number of other more obscure digital download services. I used them for this a number of years ago. Feel free to visit cdbaby and search for Black Lab or Dreamlab, they're two artists that have enjoyed a good sales run on cd baby (physical cd's that is).

If you do choose to use CD baby for your DD needs, please read the contract very carefully. There is a term in there that should ring alarm bells for most people concerened with the ownership of their recordings and copyrights, and that term is "underlying compositions". What this means is that as long as Derek Sivers runs cdbaby you're safe. Derek is a good man and has a genuine desire to see inide music prosper and I have spoken with him on occasion. But, no one can guarantee that Derek will be in charge of or owner of CD baby forever. And if the day comes when cdbaby changes hands you may well find yourself unable to extricate your music from the contract, which will hand over ownership to the new owners of CD baby. This is worst case scenario of course, but that's what I look for when I'm signing any deal. I ask what is the worst that can happen and if it happens can I live with it. CD baby also take around 3 to 6 months to launch an album on itunes. You also mentioned Snocap. A great service but unavailable outside of the USA.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that CD sales are not going anywhere in the near future, but Downloads are growing too. I never thought I would buy a download but I have dozens of albums now on my mac courtesy of iTunes. ADSL 2 means I can have an album on my computer in under 40 seconds.

Digital Downloads are not for everybody but for those that would like them, I can help.

[heathen]

Hey cool, Kris thanks for that info, in the future if any of the unsigned guys I know want to get things online we'll get onto you about it for sure. Please send me a link when your up and online. I searched yesterday and found the coming soon page was that it?

Cheers
Heath

[Luke Garfield]

Thanks Kris for the very generous offer. I have at least 2 clients I can think of that will be most interested in the offer. Will be in touch.