Clarifications.

It seems rather ironic that we got ten times more hits to our website yesterday than usual following an article we wrote about the economics of a DIY album release. Hundreds of people visiting our website the day we release our album just to see how much we would earn if someone actually bought it. We are grateful for the attention though.

We only wanted to provide our fans with the facts so that they knew how to best support us based on their music consumption preferences. 

Since the article seems to have gone on a journey around the Twitterland, we thought we should clarify a few things.

First of all, the blogpost was not an attack on Spotify. We don’t have a problem with the concept of streaming music services at all. What we dislike about Spotify, is the lack of transparency in their business model. With Apple, it’s simple. They take 30%. With Spotify, we don’t know if we’re getting a fair deal or not.

With that being said, I personally know people who listen to our music on Spotify and who have purchased a CD, a 12” Vinyl or a PlayButton from us.

So Spotify is not the devil but unless they clarify the situation, I think a lot of independent bands will end up removing their music from the service. 

I read a few comments about things that were missing such as information on eMusic. The album hadn’t been released on eMusic when I wrote the original article but it’s there now so I’ve added eMusic to the original blogpost. We’ve been getting $0.26 per song, or $2.60/album (with 9 tracks) from eMusic.  I don’t have any information on MOG, rdio or Pandora, I don’t even think our music is on there. You need to have a physical CD for sale on Amazon to get your music on Pandora apparently. Maybe one day, we’ll get around to taking care of that!

Someone else mentioned that you can get your CD’s into record stores the DIY way, without a label. Well, we have actually been there and done that and come home without the t-shirt! Directly with a record store and via an indie distributor. It worked but we never got paid!!! Yes, that’s right. They sold our CD’s and kept the money. We could sue them of course. But it would cost more in lawyer’s fees than the amounts they owe us!

Someone mentioned songwriter royalties. We write all of own songs and signed with PRS for Music in the UK several years ago.

We know our music has been played on the radio, on TV, and on various streaming services who are supposed to be paying royalties for this.

We have never received a single dollar or euro, or even a rupee from PRS! Maybe the reason for this is hidden in this article about the Spanish equivalent of PRS.

I saw a comment about how we were paying too much for CD’s! We make 100 CD’s at a time, which is why they cost a little more per unit than when you press 1,000. Remember we’re a micro band, we sell a few hundred CD’s. Why make a thousand when you will only sell a few hundred? It’s a waste of money and plastic!

It’s cool to see how passionate people feel about music and we’re proud to have sparked off a few debates. Our intentions were much more humble.

However, we don’t want to be one of those bands people have heard of for all the wrong reasons. We’d much rather people talked about our music instead!

Thanks,

Uniform Motion