online techno distribution...discuss!

[djshiva]

since the "music is not suppposed to be free" thread has been equal parts contentious and informative, i thought it might be a good idea to let the contention stay there and make a new thread to continue the very interesting discussion about starting techno specific online digital distro.

i'll admit i don't know **** all about the programming end of things, but this idea is VERY interesting to me, and i would love to hear people's ideas (without the debates and namecalling that were going on in that thread).

there were some great ideas started there. let's continue them in a constructive way, shall we? :)

[fresh_an_funky_design]

there are absolutely loads of online mp3 shops already up there. IODA offer online dfistribution with lots of them although the IRS forms are pretty intense

[SlavikSvensk]

i think the best model would be a co-op for labels. make the music cheap enough (like itunes does) and people will pay rather than steal.

[djshiva]

i know there are many online mp3 shops. i was speaking more to the ideas that folks were throwing out in the aforementioned thread. there were some really interesting ideas thrown out.

also, label owners: have you made digital downloads available on your websites? what do you think of doing this? i have been trying to convince several friends who run labels to do this, because most of them are facing money/sales issues. experiences? technical tips? anything?

just trying to make this discussion more productive than anything else. if anyone has experiences with online mp3 shops, all info is welcome!

[dirty_bass]

Yeah the point is that there are loads of online suppliers.
Who cares.
We should have our own online supplier.
A place for techno.
Somewhere that knows and understands the music, with a portal for say party promotion, mixes, blah blah.
A one stop online shop for techno.
It could even have a link to some of the made to order CD companies so you can custom fill and order a CD or whatever.

[SlavikSvensk]

Yeah the point is that there are loads of online suppliers.
Who cares.
We should have our own online supplier.
A place for techno.
Somewhere that knows and understands the music, with a portal for say party promotion, mixes, blah blah.
A one stop online shop for techno.
It could even have a link to some of the made to order CD companies so you can custom fill and order a CD or whatever.

exactly. like i said, a co-op owned by the labels represented

[Sunil]

Yeah the point is that there are loads of online suppliers.
Who cares.
We should have our own online supplier.
A place for techno.
Somewhere that knows and understands the music, with a portal for say party promotion, mixes, blah blah.
A one stop online shop for techno.
It could even have a link to some of the made to order CD companies so you can custom fill and order a CD or whatever.

Couldn't something like this be done through the BOA site? Or as an offshoot site/shop? Obviously it'd take a bit of planning, Mark's consent, and a few people to run the show and possibly invest some dough... but it could make sense.

[dirty_bass]

Well, I think it needs to be independant of BOA really. It`s own thing, rather than tied to one particular label or person.

[tocsin]

Any place could operate in such a manner. And there are numerous places that do. The problem is, they aren't centralized. And, when it comes to shopping, that is a big inconvenience for people to jump from site to site to listen to the tracks and buy them.

The idea here would be to have something exist as nothing more than a virtual window display and checkout counter. Thus, a place like BOA could continue to exist while also taking advantage of the main portal. It also allows for some integration with people who haven't promoted a web presence and such.

But, while I'm keeping this ridiculously over-simplified right now, the idea is to have a central point that doesn't act like your typical distributor/middleman while skimming a fair amount of your profit off the top of each sale. Rather, the sale results in the money going directly to whatever entity owns the music. From a collective approach, we have all the resources to do this. In the end, our only steady costs really stand to be server space and bandwidth. We can likely find people willing to donate some of this (I'm certainly willing to). But, if a good number of the artists in the techno scene can get brought in on this and sell through the site, a significant chunk of the expenses for running the thing could likely be paid with advertisements.

There's just some hurdles we are facing in the code possibly as I have not seen anything like this (doesn't mean it doesn't exist however).
We need the interface to do the following:
a.) Have a user interface for people who have access to add data.
b.) Have a billing system that could handle multiple different credit merchant accounts, while appearing as one purchase for the consumer.
c.) Have a storage interface that allows for data to be sent from servers on which the actual interface does not reside.

Then, after that, there is the monumental task of getting artists and labels to actually agree to use the site and to promote the thing. Without some real promotion, it's pointless. However, this can be kick-started with links to the site printed on record stickers sleeves, on CDs and the booklets/inlays, on mixtapes, on MP3s one may be inclined to make available for free, and as an affiliation next to your name on a flyer when booked. If enough of us really want to see something like this, we could make it happen.

[Sunil]

Well, I think it needs to be independant of BOA really. It`s own thing, rather than tied to one particular label or person.

Ok, well it was just a thought.
Anyway, the idea is there now, and it seems straightforward enough, albeit a bit of work for whoever is interested in doing it. Whoever here is serious in this project should get together, and make it happen. There's not a lot more that can be said now.

[Komplex]

Well, I think the labels and artist that would distribute music through this portal should all chip in a percentage of running costs. That way there's no free loaders while someone is doing all the work behind the scenes...

[Martin Dust]

I've been looking a "download" code for a month or so as I'm very interested in this but it will need a monster server to be any good, in fact I reckon you need 3 servers before you even start. One for the Web services, One for the Music and a third that is a mirror of the music server, this is so it can be backed up with slowing down the services...

[dan the acid man]

and the bandwidth bill could be huge

[MARKEG]

we are working on the d/l section right now.within 2-3 months we will have an mp3 downloads section for the artists we're all talking about here. techno needs a quality control and hey, as long as we have the d/l sections like we have the forums, then i can't see this not working. the d/l's refelct the forums and we're all rockin. we'll have the known artists in the d/l's section for the various forums and then the upcomings in the production forums... i think you can all see what i'm getting at here. we all get paid, we all stay part of the community :)

if anyone relates to this and understands php, please contact me. otherwise i wiill sort this out myself. and believe me i will. we bloody need this.

[djshiva]

yeah, i think it would be great to have blackoutaudio as the "one stop shop" for techno, as it were. we already have a hoppin' community. if we can connect that with the music sales, then people can not only be "consumers" of the music, but a part of the community as well. cheers mark and everyone else here, for all you do for techno!

i *heart* blackout audio!

(please excuse the random cheeriness from me today)

[holotropik]

Sounds perfectly bonza to me!!

[tocsin]

we are working on the d/l section right now.within 2-3 months we will have an mp3 downloads section for the artists we're all talking about here. techno needs a quality control and hey, as long as we have the d/l sections like we have the forums, then i can't see this not working. the d/l's refelct the forums and we're all rockin. we'll have the known artists in the d/l's section for the various forums and then the upcomings in the production forums... i think you can all see what i'm getting at here. we all get paid, we all stay part of the community :)

if anyone relates to this and understands php, please contact me. otherwise i wiill sort this out myself. and believe me i will. we bloody need this.

It could be bigger and more convenient than that though, Mark. Ideally, while you have your own corner of thet here, with your own artists, there could be a central server that taps into your site, along with many others, all while making it appear integrated in the process. From a digital standpoint, this is very doable. The only place where it would get tricky would be with hard tangible mediums (vinyl for example) that are owned by different entities due to individual shipping costs. Still trying to wrap my head on how to get that one to work, aside from having some designated drop points where labels could send records in advance related to the frontend. But, that incurs an additional cost and bookkeeping efforts and starts to resemble the traditional distributor.

As for a PHP script you're looking for to work this, take a peak around over at "hotscripts.com" as there are a number that already exist which work well for storefront purposes.

[Martin Dust]

we are working on the d/l section right now.within 2-3 months we will have an mp3 downloads section for the artists we're all talking about here. techno needs a quality control and hey, as long as we have the d/l sections like we have the forums, then i can't see this not working. the d/l's refelct the forums and we're all rockin. we'll have the known artists in the d/l's section for the various forums and then the upcomings in the production forums... i think you can all see what i'm getting at here. we all get paid, we all stay part of the community :)

if anyone relates to this and understands php, please contact me. otherwise i wiill sort this out myself. and believe me i will. we bloody need this.

You need to do a spread sheet first tho Mark, lets look at the costs:

MP3 = 99p

The Bank will probably charge 35p if you are using a merchant account. The transaction company will charge you a % plus monthly charge, lets say 20p per transaction - so that's 55p + bandwidth/Server and there's still BOA and The Artist to pay, so that leaves 44p for everything else. This kind of thing only works on a large scale or with full EPs/Albums.

Another thing is copyright and reporting, over 12% of releases on iTunes are contested for example - legal nigthmare and when you add all the other rights to this...well....

Don't want to piss on your fire but you'll need to have this covered, hit me on msn if you wanna chat about it...

[djshiva]

martin: got any links about the iTunes copyright issues? i ahd not heard about that, but would be interested in reading up on it.

[holotropik]

I just found an interesting book that discusses these issues.

"The future of music" by David Kusek & Gerd Leonard (through berklee press in the US).

I have just started reading it and it incredibly revealing. It refers to some biggies in the industry and what they forsee is the future. Worth a read.

A web link: http://www.futureofmusicbook.com