Magnatune’s Answer to the Music Problem

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1. Steven
   

   December 28th, 2005 at 10:47 pm

   Very nice idea and what makes it even more attractive is you can use PayPal for your purchases; which for those of use without credit cards it a a nice thing to see.

2. Alex Ezell
   

   December 28th, 2005 at 10:58 pm

   Don’t forget mp3sugar.com, another Russian grey market mp3 site.

   This Magnatune idea really sounds great. I don’t know that they’ve nailed the business model perfectly, but it’s light-years past anything else currently in the market.

3. Honeycut
   

   December 28th, 2005 at 11:09 pm

   awesome! As a performing / recording artist I agree, this is seriously the future of music sales. It’s the first business model I’ve seen which has the foresight to utilise the music sharing community as a marketing stream - it’s cheaper than most advertising mediums. This is really exciting.

4. Alterion
   

   December 29th, 2005 at 3:39 am

   been using magnatune.com for a while.. no there are no “mianstream” artists. but then becuase you can listen to any track in 128kbps mp3 from thier site it isn;t so important becuase you can pick out the music you like.

5. chronicon
   

   December 29th, 2005 at 7:07 am

   As a longtime supporter of Magnatune I applaud your story, but it also makes me realize that it’s less widely known then I assumed it to be. I had thought by now that the vast majority of online music aficionados already knew about Magnatune. I guess not?

   At any rate, another thing to note about Magnatune is that they offer freely downloadable (by-nc-sa) Creative Commons licensed MP3s of all the tracks they have available. Not 10 second samples, complete tracks. “Try before you buy.”

   It works. I’ve tried & I’ve bought.

6. Erik Schwartz
   

   December 29th, 2005 at 9:22 am

   The question is what does magnatune (or any record label) bring to the table in the modern world?

   In the old days a record label…

   Fronted cash to get a band into a studio at a couple of grand a day.

   Did artist marketing

   Fronted cash to manufacture, package and distribute 1000’s of physical CD’s

   Used clout and money to get good placement and in store plays at retailers

   Managed accounts receivable with notoriously slow to pay retailers (not to mention returns, remember cut-outs?)

   All this, combined with an atrociously bad success rate in choosing who to back, is why CD’s are expensive and why the labes slice was so big and the artist slice was so small.

   In the modern world, where your Mac is your digital console and distribution is electronic, the only task that remains is artist marketing. Blogs and other affinity groups are fast taking the place of traditional music marketing.

   So is Magnatune essentially an affinity group? What exactly do they bring to the table that earns them their 50%?

7. a z
   

   December 29th, 2005 at 9:26 am

   I can get the no DRM, decent quality files from stores like Bleep.com already. Magnatune does offer several additional advantages, but I suspect most people base their choice based on what they like and price primairly. Ethical concerns and conveinence (only a factor in the post-sale) run a distant second. Magnatune’s biggest problem is attracting talent that can be marketed or is well known.

   Unless Magnatune can advertise at iTunes level budgets, there best chance is to have an established artist sign. You’d need somebody with plenty of material and money now. Somebody like the Rolling Stones or David Bowie level. These guys have a lot of money, make most of their money on their back catalog, and could help break a corrupt distribution system with little loss to their overall income.

   If magnatune gets artists similar to what I get elsewhere, I’ll purchase from them. Music fans should have a lot of options and I’m glad magnatune offer these.

8. Erik Schwartz
   

   December 29th, 2005 at 9:55 am

   z,

   What do the stones or bowie get from magnatune other than the chance to screw over the labels that helped build their brand made them rich?

   Magnatune seems more like a retailer than a label. Local record store buyers used to carry local music. This looks far more like that model than the label model.

9. Ben
   

   December 29th, 2005 at 11:15 am

   The idea of “allowing” you to share your music files with 3 friends seems ridiculous to me. Is there a system in place to manage this? Is someone really going to track their 6,000 music files?
   They should just say what they really mean: “We took out the DRM so don’t go overboard on the sharing”.

   Also, for a site that sells obscure music, they do a horrible job of guiding the user and creating a community around their brand. Where’re the user ratings? User Comments? Recommendations?

   On another note, i’m still surprised Apple has yet to implement the “long tail” model for their store, selling niche market songs for less than $.99

10. Adam Teece
    

    December 29th, 2005 at 11:57 am

    I actually heard about MagnaTune a couple months ago but forgot about them.I think they have a great business model and will happily support a label that is like this.

11. NickD
    

    December 29th, 2005 at 4:58 pm

    Check out Fake Science. They sell DRM free music, specializing in electronic and indie rock. http://us1.fakescience.com/

12. David G
    

    December 30th, 2005 at 10:39 am

    I like what Magnatune has been doing. I also like what Project Opus (http://www.projectopus.com) is doing. Their models are similar except where as Magnatune staff act as ‘filter’ (accepting only 2.5% of bands) Project Opus accepts everyone and lets the community filter the content. The site’s still in its infancy, but it is the right direction.

13. Ted Smith
    

    December 31st, 2005 at 1:01 pm

    Wireless World: Feds vacate airwaves
    WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) — The government is getting out of the way of next-generation mobile broadband services — a new niche being developed by cell-phone companies — by preparing to spend $936 million to move its radio communications onto an obscure segment of the spectrum, experts are telling United Press International’s Wireless World.

    “With 90 megahertz of additional spectrum, today’s cellular carriers will be tomorrow’s next-generation broadband providers,” Michael D. Gallagher, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in a statement. By Gene Koprowski

14. Wareen
    

    January 8th, 2006 at 10:07 am

    I use http://www.mp3sugar.net/ .With music downloads of all popular artists at only USD 0.10 a song, this can be the final step for most people to buy music online and not download it using peer to peer software.

15. Quentar
    

    January 22nd, 2006 at 9:52 pm

    Magnatune rocks! I don’t know any other source of creative commons music like manga charta musicum ,which will offer you even high quality like .flac if you ask them to plus they have a large supply of intrumental music, making it just perfect if you are looking for something to put into movie.

16. Sam
    

    March 16th, 2006 at 9:05 am

    I’m still discovering the world of online music buying, having only recently decided that it was unfair to be downloading all my music without the artist ever benefitting at all.

    During my browsing I uncovered an online debate that’s been raging for a few days now. The debate seems to have been sparked by an article on the Creative Commons website which praised the new e-Label Beatpick for succesfully copying the Magnatune business model. The guys at Beatpick seem to have taken this as an affront because a rather defensive statement was issued in response, strongly denying that the Beatpick model had been in any way influenced by Magnatune.

    I started scrutinising the different terms and it seemed to me that Beatpick offered a better deal to its artists because contracts could be broken at any time and artists maintained full ownership of their music.

    Beatpick furthermore gave customers the opportunity to share their music with four friends! (although I do agree I still haven’t understood how that’s possible to control…)

    Here are the main differences I uncovered:
    1. Beatpick’s website and automatic control panel are more user-friendly than Magnatune’s (which insists you already have iTunes to listen to any music)
    2. Beatpick offers customers the opportunity to communicate with the artist; if magnatune does I still haven’t figured out how!!
    3. Beatpick seems to offer a more varied selection of music; sometimes very commercial but other times kind of experimental and weird
    4. Magnatune seems to be aimed at a rather middle-aged, comfortably salaried type person while Beatpick has a more youthful and ‘designy’ appeal (i.e. it looks better)

17. Beda
    

    May 7th, 2006 at 12:26 pm

    I’m agree about mp3sugar.

18. Antuan
    

    May 7th, 2006 at 12:28 pm

    Yep, good idea. This Magnatune idea really sounds great.