Despite our bumpy history with TuneCore, we’re big fans of their business model: they help artists get digital distribution of their music on iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, napster, eMusic and other online music sites without the trouble of going through a distributor. A recent deal with iLike expands their footprint further.
Basically, TuneCore is the place to go if you are unsigned but want people to have access to your music – a sort of CDBaby for the digital world. After a small setup fee, the artist keeps all proceeds from the sale.
This model has also attracted established artists who’ve ended their label deals to the platform, too. Jay-Z, Keith Richards, Public Enemy, Nine Inch Nails, Ricky Skaggs, Paul Westerberg, MGM Studios, Warren G, Bjork, Moby, High School Musical cast members, Ali Lohan, Cirque Du Soleil, Starbucks, Joan Jett, Rockstar Games, David Byrne, MGMT and others use TuneCore today.
The company took $7 million in a venture round from Opus Capital, they are announcing today. Gill Cogan from Opus and Marty Albertson, the CEO of Guitar Center, join TuneCore CEO Jeff Price on the board of directors.
a kick ass name. a name people want to say. sweet.
shitty looking logo and website, business model looks strong though.
Yeah right.
If this is true we have to accept it.
http://www.iboozi.com
What is nice about TuneCore is that unlike traditional digital music distribution, it doesn’t take a a single cent from the sales. Signing up is also very easy
+ TuneCore offers other exciting stuff – like contests & freebies
wow! this is a big help to artist.
It’s probably worth pointing out that CD Baby is also “a sort of CD Baby for the digital age”. They’re one of the world’s biggest digital aggregators, and it’s been quite a long time since they only sold CDs via internet-mediated mail order.
Love TuneCore – but CD Baby’s right up there with services I’d recommend to independent artists who want to get their music on all of the major online retailers – as well as significantly more of the smaller ones than TuneCore will give you access to.
The name’s a great brand, of course – but the CD bit sometimes means that people overlook what it is they actually do these days…
So – CD Baby take 9% of all sales, but with no setup fee, and will get your music to more places. TuneCore take a small setup fee, but take no cut of sales, with distribution to (by my last count) fewer destinations.
Worth doing a comparison and seeing which suits your needs better.
See CDBaby is great, but they still have a signup fee in which http://www.routenote.com doesnt have.
Thus, if you take the Figures based on 2 Albums of 13 Tracks over 2 years, assuming $0.65 revenue per track sale. Then for CDBaby to work for artists over RouteNote, artists would have to sell more than 13,000 tracks in a year!
Additionally, in terms of Tunecore, if we take the same Figures as above, artists need to sell over 3,000 tracks in a year to be better than RouteNote.
The average unsigned or independent artist is not going to sell this many tracks in a year, so why are you even looking at those services when RouteNote is easily the best option!
Congratulations to TuneCore. They started gritty and grassroots so I am happy to see them gain an infuse in what seems to be harsh times.
Now I just need to figure out will they be a good candidate for a client or will I need to look at them as competition.
Either way, I am happy for Jeff and the guys and wish them prosperity.
-Will
Opus Capital should fire its research department. Several other companies do it including ReverbNation. Read “$7M For What?” http://www.hype...tunecore…
After a small setup fee, the artist keeps all proceeds from the sale.
Here we go!!
Bruce is right. This investment comes at a moment in time when even the low flat-fee model for distribution is about to be commoditized down to zero as other players are coming out with the offering – companies that have other business models beyond digital distribution (read: don’t care if it goes to zero, b/c its a way of attracting and retaining a Bands attention for other purposes).
I guess we should assume that TuneCore has some other business lines in the works, but they I don’t think they have expertise in anything other than distribution, so I couldn’t imagine what. I’m not sure what Opus was betting on here, but it better not be growing the footprint of a business whose margins are going to go away completely in the very near future. Maybe there was more behind the scenes going on with this deal in terms of iLike or Guitar Center or something? It just makes no sense, imo.
This is a great site for unsigned indie artists who want to get their music out there, without being dominated by the recording industry. Plus, if you add the word core to just about anything, the street-cred of the company will skyrocket.
This movement has been started 5 years ago with shop solutions like http://www.artists-first.net and http://www.7digital.com , both UK companies. How is tunecore different from orchard or any aggregator?
so what happened to these websites that have been started 5 years ago?
I like what Tunecore can offer, but I think it is too expensive. There are better distribution platforms on the way. Im quite excited about a startup called Record Union (.com), they dont take any start up fees or maintenence costs and they upload your music to loads of music shops simultaneously without at no extra cost. Im gonna wait till they get going in january till I upload my music for online sale. Their site is awesome too.
It took me 8 weeks to get online with tunecore,
I used http://www.dittomusic.com and found them better than tunecore or CDbaby taking only 4 weeks.
They provide you with over 50 sites, and not just the US based ones.
iTunes, Play, Amazon, mobile sites like Nokia and Jamster, iTunes Video, we7, HMV, Virgin and loads more
Also online accounting, a fixed release date, 4 week turnaround and you can become eligible for the UK charts.
They seem to have a wider coverage with about 700 sites including video distribution, ringtones etc
Definitely one to check out
http://www.dittomusic.com