Jeff’s Postings

New Rules For The Music Industry

By George Howard & Jeff Price

FOR THE MUSIC INDUSTRY:

1) BE TRANSPARENT – No more hiding behind complex royalty calculations. Man up. Be honest. Provide clear and accurate accounting. The digital world makes it easier than ever to do this.

This applies to labels, distributors, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and anyone else you can think of. They can all be transparent if they choose to be. Right now they choose not to be.

2) PAY ON TIME! – No more artificial royalty accounting periods. Returns and co-ops are a thing of the past. Pay out and account on one way no return sales that you have been paid in the same month you get them.

• Jeff's Postings
• Music Publishing
• The Industry

The Many Hands In Your Money

By Jeff Price

In the last newsletter I posted an article about how back-end distributors use a copyright “slight of hand” to actually take a higher % of an artists money then they state. One comment on the TuneCore blog made by someone named Matt stated: “It would be good to have some pie charts showing the different scenarios regarding music copyright and royalties U.S. / non U.S. etc…”

Good idea, Matt. So here you are, a whole bunch of flow charts that show how money is paid out.

• Jeff's Postings
• Music Publishing
• The Industry

Using Complex Copyright Law To Take Advantage Of Artists

By Jeff Price

The last article talked about how the old school music industry found a way to steal money of yours that you never even knew existed. This article describes how some companies use “slight of hand” and complex copyright law to take money from right under the artist’s nose.

• Jeff's Postings
• Music Publishing
• The Industry

(Public) Performance Anxiety

By Jeff Price

Do PROs work for the publishers? How does the shift toward “going direct” for public performance rights effect the PROs, the publishers, and the songwriters? Here’s a perspective on performing rights organizations I just got my head around and I wanted to share.

• Jeff's Postings
• Music Publishing
• The Industry

iCloud: A Music Industry Game-Changing Product

By Jeff Price

Apple’s new iCloud product marries the two disparate ideas of consumer convenience and the monetization of pirated music, providing what could be the “missing links” between consumers, artists, labels, music publishers and the emerging digital music industry. With its launch, the odometer on the music industry is about to reset itself (again).

• Jeff's Postings
• The Industry
• Web/Tech

Behind The (Digital) Music

By Jeff Price & Peter Wells

TuneCore delivers music to iTunes, AmazonMP3, Amazon-on-Demand, Rhapsody, MOG, eMusic, Napster, Spotify and others. It allows TuneCore Artists to pick and choose which stores or distribution points they would like there music to be distributed to. Here’s a look inside the process of adding a new distribution point.

• Jeff's Postings
• Music Publishing
• The Industry
• Web/Tech

The Launch of TuneCore 2.0: The 34 Improvements, Three Years in the Making

On March 22nd, 2011, we quietly rolled out the last of the 34 new TuneCore customer-requested feature sets, improvements and upgrades. It took three years to get them all done, but at last it’s time to blog about them and announce TuneCore 2.0 Here’s the list: • distribution into unlimited stores for every release (as […]

• Jeff's Postings
• The Industry

The Three Licenses Holding Back The Music Industry

By Jeff Price

At first glance, one would not think it would be that complex to get the three licenses necessary to sell or stream music on-line, the reality is it’s not only one of the most confusing things to get a handle on but it is also the bottleneck stopping the music industry from reaching its full potential.

• Jeff's Postings
• Music Publishing

Average Artist Income 1 Bajillion Dollars – Cure Cancer, Bring Peace To The Middle East And End World Hunger

By Jeff Price

In the words of President Obama, ” … if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers…”

This “average income” conversation is the strangest I think I have come across in quite some time. We are sitting in the middle of a transformation of a sector and the conversation is about a silly useless statistic around dividing Lady Gaga’s income into other people’s bottom line?

• Jeff's Postings
• The Industry

Getting A Gold Record By Selling Nothing

By Jeff Price

Some time ago, we had a TuneCore Artist sell thousands of copies of his single every week. The song and sales caught the attention of a major label, the two met and a marketing/distribution deal was struck directly between them. The single went on to break into the commercial radio charts and sold over a million copies within a year. Recently, the label reached out to TuneCore asking for sales info on the single prior to the artist working with the label – they are trying to get an RIAA platinum sales award for the single.

There is something very wrong with this picture

• Jeff's Postings
• Music Publishing