Paying for companies to distribute your music vs. 'DIY' distribution for free

1. "These companies rely on their own affiliates to promote the artists that they have and really don't do anything to promote the artists. As an ex-affiliate for iTunes, I used to sell digital downloads for a five percent commission, so for a ninety-nine cent song that equates to a nickel. The artist in turn gets sixty-nine cents, leaving a twenty-five cent profit for iTunes, who are just an online warehouse cataloging music in hopes that their affiliates are successful in promoting them."

2. CDbaby is a bit similar in that they are also a music warehouse that relies on other distributors, affiliates and the artists themselves to generate the sale while taking $4 for each CD sold to drop it in the mail. I can see artists with a CDBaby Logo on their website or MySpace page to buy their CD. If an artist wants to make $7 per CD sold, then the cost to the consumer is $11 through CDbaby. Why not just sell the CD directly using PayPal, add in their processing costs and sell it for $7.50? An independent artist will probably generate more sales at the lower cost."

3. My own band, the Lime Green Snorkels, distributed our entire recorded live album from a gig on YouTube. In total we have had 237 hits covering 9 songs over a period of 3 months. Our highest number of hits on a single video was 49 on our cover of Sweet Child Of Mine by Guns N Roses

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/666683/new_cd_distribution_channel_for_independent.html?cat=33

iPad falls short

Some of the sting might have been taken out of disappointing retail sales by pre-orders. According to some press reports there were more than a million of these.

However today the Wall Street Journal published a statement from Apple which said that more than 300,000 Ipads were sold on day one. This would be considered great, but if you take into account the fact the figure included all the pre-sales and the hype that said a million would be flogged on Day One that number is dismal.

analyst Gene Munster had predicted Apple would sell 600,000 to 700,000 units

example exam question report

Stewart Ackerley

Rupert Murdoch vs. Google

9. Discuss the extent to which the distribution and consumption of media have been transformed by the Internet

· He accuses the Internet search engines such as Google, Ask.com and Microsoft of stealing journalism from other media outlets. He proposes that pay-walls should be employed with newspaper websites that allow users to view a single paragraph, and then pay a subscription fee to view the rest. This method has already been used on Murdoch’s website for The Wall Street Journal, and for his British newspapers, The Times and The Sunday Times. This way, the distribution has changed so that you will have to pay to read news online, in the same way you pay for a newspaper.

· Murdoch declares the new technological advance known as the iPad to be the saviour of newspapers, in electronic form. The iPad has applications that allow a user to subscribe to various newspapers for a price, and view them at will. This has changed both distribution and consumption in one fell swoop, as a printed newspaper can now be viewed on a handheld gadget at the touch of a button.

· Google’s News Index changes the way news is distributed, in a way that Rupert Murdoch is trying to avoid. Google Search opens the door for websites to chase the same news article. If you’re the only one who has a particular news story, you won’t appear in the Search Index. Conversely, if you’re the first with a major news story, then it’s a matter of seconds before you’re buried under a mass pile of websites copying and pasting your article. This also affects consumption as millions of people worldwide can view the article you wrote, on a vast number of different websites.