CD Baby Sold To Disc Makers
Derek Sivers has sold online indie retailer CD Baby to CD manufacturer Disc Makers. According to Sivers’ blog:
"…new projects are exciting me so much that I decided to hand over CD Baby to someone that’s going to make it better than ever for you. I chose Disc Makers as the new owner because their president Tony Van Veen has been one of my favorite people for years…"
"The CD Baby staff, location, name, and everything else
will stay the same, but I think you’ll start to notice more attention
given to improvements that help you sell more music."
Sivers
revolutionized how d.i.y. artists sell music simply by charging then
fairly and paying them weekly. It’s not clear exactly what Part II for Sivers will be, but its sure to be both music related and interesting. There are some hints here. My personal favorite is Muckwork. It’s "Four Hour Work Week" meets the music business and I’m already on the waiting list.
i’m sure derek got a nice check, but let’s not kid ourselves that charge-too-much Discmakers is going to help indie musicians in any way
All critical commentary is being censored from CD baby’s ,org site.
Funny considering everyone loves to go on and on about how transparent Derek is…
Here’s some insight on how Derek really operates:
http://mushrush.com/blogfat/archives/2008/08/an_open_letter.php
I’ll just say that I’ve dealt with Derek on and off for years and have known dozens of bands who use CD Baby and have always found him to be smart, artist centered and a pleasure to deal with. None of us his perfect but he imagined and created a company that has been very good to indie music.
For years now, I’ve been a CD-buying customer of cdbaby.com, having especially been interested in artists who were either dropped or whose albums were declined release by labels in the first place and later found their new distributor in cdbaby. I sincerely hope that rates stay reasonable for artists’ CD releases, because the 128k mp3 file digital download format is of inferior sound quality and not at all interesting for this listener. In fact, I’ve decided not to buy several “download only” items that are distributed by cdbaby’s artists that I would have bought if they were CDs.
Outsourcing the physical side of the distribution to the customer does not result in more music being sold, but less, because individual customers first must invest their hard-earned into gear like computers, iWhatevers and a cable connection to the net. Sales of content therefore suffer from the sales of gear that’s required to enjoy the content. And that’s basically a result of computer manufacturers developing new products for markets they develop, because their “core audience”, bureau machines, has been saturated by now.
Anyway, here’s hoping that lots of great indie CDs come out in the years to come, because in the end, it’s all about the music itself.
Yannick, the GeneralEclectic, music lover and would-be-DJ (read: independent playlist generator)
An alternative to CDBaby since 1999 has been earBuzz.com. earBuzz provided physical CD distribution and high-quality digital downloads by album and song for independent artists. earBuzz is also the only site in the world that returns 100% of the purchase price back to artists. We’re a pseudo co-op that asks artists for $2 per month for membership, or artists can volunteer $3 or $5 per month. It’s $25 to process each CD title as artists release new works. Every CD is reviewed. See my latest blog (9/22/08) for the earBuzz opinion on promotion. If you have any questions, you can reach my direct line at 925-344-4825.
Don Kimenker founder, earBuzz.com