10 Jun 2003 | hurley#1 said...

Good news, and assuming CD Baby provides a fair deal to the independent label-free artists (and doesn't play a gatekeeper role in terms of only submitting artists whose music meets its standards or fits into its categories), this could be a very interesting alternative for artists with a limited market.

I play traditional Irish music on the wooden flute, and I've played on five commercial CDs -- only one of which to my knowledge has paid for itself. There just isn't a huge market for what we call "the pure drop," straightforward traditional music without all the Riverdance, neo-Celtic, rock, or other influences. Lots of people have urged me to do a solo flute album over the years, but I doubt more than a thousand people would buy it so it's not worth putting out a CD. But recording individual tracks and releasing them directly to the Apple Music Store seems like a very viable alternative.

It's a drag, though, that Apple won't allow links to Web sites, and I wonder if that will change. Maybe Web site information could be included in the information on the AAC files so people can go there to get liner notes and more information on the artist.

10 Jun 2003 | pb said...

I don't think Apple necessarily needs to provide links out. I think over time (and once Apple has an affiliate program in place), links *into* the iTMS will be common. Apple qould serve as the digital audio fulfillment service kind of like Amazon is for hard goods. I don't foresee the iTMS being very useful for discovering music you want to buy.

11 Jun 2003 | Michael Spina said...

I'm glad to see they won't accept money for features/ad placement, and indies get the same treatment as the majors. Seems like the start of music making it on its own merits.

11 Jun 2003 | Ben said...

The thing I noticed (and don't understand the ramifications of) is that every album has to have a UPC. If my album is self-released, it's highly likely I don't have a UPC on my product... and being "signed" by CD Baby does not magically make a UPC appear on my product (although, is it necessary to have it, or can it be virtual just so it has a unique identifier?)

11 Jun 2003 | hurley#1 said...

It's pretty easy to get a UPC number, even for self-released albums -- I've played on a few recordings that were released by the artist rather than through a label, and they all had UPC numbers. Whether it's easy or possible to get a UPC number for an "album" or collection of songs/tunes that is never actually released as a CD is another question, however.

I assume that single tracks could also get their own UPC numbers, otherwise this will just perpetuate the "album" mentality. Albums will persist as long as CDs continue to be produced, but online music should be able to be liberated from the album format if the artists want to release individual tracks whenever they want to..

11 Jun 2003 | scottmt said...

I'd like to see what the sign up process is like. What about completely independent artists, maybe those going for a first release, would the merit of their own micro-label be enough to get on iTMS?

17 Nov 2003 | Sam Dylan said...

Can someone tell me if CD Baby puts your CD on iTunes as part of their regular distribution deal? Thanks.

10 Dec 2003 | Tom said...

"Can someone tell me if CD Baby puts your CD on iTunes as part of their regular distribution deal? Thanks."

Yes digital distribution via CDbaby is now FREE, they refunded all artists who had signed up to be part of the program. Hopefully independents will soon be on Emusic, Itunes and other online music networks.