posted 15 November 2005 22:41            

in terms of iTunes. 50/50 is a very standard label/artist split. keeping in mind that recorded cd royalties are usually 12% on cd sales.

the label's 50% is more than just "for uploading the song to iTunes". you're paying the label (or giving up royalty %) for their ability to GET your songs on iTunes and to track, manage and pay for sales. also, the label is most likely paying a % to their digital distributor.

50/50 licensing splits are 99.99% common across the music industry. the idea coming from something like movie licensing where a label will take 50% (or more) of a $40,000 licensing deal. you can think of this as they are getting $20,000 "for only sending a CD to the movie person"... but *without* the label it is unlikely the movie people would have found your track or contacted you. labels use their connections and network to get your music out to places that matter and to lock down things like digital distribution deals that cover not only iTunes but a dozen other online shops.

not that all labels deal fairly (far from it)... but, if your music isn't pop music, then $700 advance and 50/50 split for iTunes sounds totally normal.

also, keep in mind that iTunes sales for anyone else besides the likes of 50 Cent and Gwen Stefani are pretty small. don't expect big $$$. think of it as free money that's not costing you anything to obtain. also, encourage your label to sell their music on eMusic, i see better sales results for independant and electronic music from eMusic than i do iTunes.

i run a couple of labels and deal with a digital distributor and iTunes (and also a handful of other online MP3 shops).. i'd be happy to answer more specific questions if you want to email me at taylor@12k.com

posted 15 November 2005 22:50            

as far as signing over your digital rights. if that's also non-exclusive, it's a no-brainer... however, the deals are often exclusive because Distributor A can't sell an album to iTunes that Distributor B already has up there, ie: you don't see multiple copies of the same album on iTunes.

whereas a traditional record store can choose which distributor to buy and receive CDs from, with iTunes, and other online MP3 stores, once a track is online... it's online. and it can't be replaced by another distributor unless it's removed first and then re-uploaded.

if you're going to sign an exclusive digital rights deal it is most likely only going to be for that one particular track, so it's really no big deal.

the only alternative is to not give them the rights and try to find your own distributor for it (which may be very hard to do unless you have a whole catalog of material to sell and a label to represent that catalog) and you'll lose valuable online time.

if you're looking to sell a whole catalog material to a distributor, find one that deals with the most number of online MP3 shops (iTunes, eMusic, napster, music match, microsoft, Real, audio lunchbox, etc)... and takes only 10% before any label split.

a typical breakdown for an iTunes song, for example:

a 99 cent itunes song:
(call it $1 for simplicity sake)

Apple gets: 40 cents
distributor gets: 60 cents

from that 60 cents:
distributor keeps: 6 cents
label getes: 54 cents

from that 54 cents:
label gets: 28 cents
artist gets 28 cents

posted 16 November 2005 21:10            

quote:

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Originally posted by taylor12k:

from that 54 cents:
label gets: 28 cents
artist gets 28 cents

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