We went on, "Buckman is running a ragingly successful music business by 'Splitting all album and licensing sales with musicians 50-50, letting artists maintain the rights to their music, and allowing customers to hear an entire album before purchasing it'.
"Try before you buy? Heresy!" Downloadable albums at $5 to $18, with the buyer determining the exact price.
But Buckman was, and still is, On. His Magnatunes is still there, and still innovating, the latest idea being his Free Song of the Song feature.
"The Free Song of the Day is a mp3 download of a song from a magnatune album, one different song for free every day," he told p2pnet. "The goal is get people to sample more and diverse music, and perhaps they'll hear something they like, listen to the album and buy it."
Here's how it works on Magnatune:
50% of the sale price of each album goes directly to the artist.
50% of any commercial sub-licensing (ads, web sites, trade shows, films, etc) goes directly to the artist.
50% of merchandise profits goes directly to the artist.
What got Buckman started?
"When my wife was signed to an Indie record label, we were really excited," he posts on the site, going on:
In the end, she sold 1,000 CDs, lost all rights to her music for 7 years (even though the CD had been out of print for many years), and earned a total of $137 in royalties paid (some of it paid to her as CD copies of her own CD which she then gave away for promotion).
The record label that signed her wasn't evil: they were one of the good guys, and gave her a 70/30 split of the profits (of which there were few).
The label got screwed at every turn: distributors refused to carry their CDs unless they spent thousands on useless print ads, record stores demanded graft in order to stock the albums, and in general, all forces colluded to prevent this small, progressive label from succeeding.
So, " I thought: why not make a record label that has a clue? That helps artists get exposure, make at least as much money they would make with traditional labels, and help them get fans and concerts."
Also See: p2pnet story - The Magnatunes success, August 4, 2005
Want to subscribe to p2pnet by email with Feedburner? Just click here. - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php || And use our own p2pnet newsfeeds for your site and you're looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
