apple invites the indies online

["tobias c. van Veen" <tobias@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Scene 3998 follows:

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The Indies Are Coming (6/6/03)

Hey, great news for independent music fans: not only was yesterday's
invitation-only meeting of indie label reps at Apple's headquarters _not_
a trap dreamt up by the majors to lure their up-and-coming competitors to
a mayonnaisey grave, but it also revealed that Apple is stone cold serious
about ensuring that the iTunes Music Store can offer its users a richer
selection of tunage than just bland prefab stuff manufactured for maximum
consumption.  Oh, don't worry-- if you happen to _like_ bland prefab stuff
manufactured for maximum consumption, the iTMS will still offer it, so
more power to you.  But if your tastes are slightly more off-center, you
ought to be smiling (and
spending) more at the iTMS in maybe six more months or so.

How serious is Apple about signing up the indies?  Serious enough to send
a reality-distortin' Steve Jobs smack dab into the middle of the 150-rep
cluster to prime the pump.  That's right, folks; whereas Stevenotes are
typically more of a stadium show, those lucky slobs got the Jobsian
equivalent of a small club gig-- and judging by one review, at least, the
man brought down the house.
As faithful viewer NEWWAVEDAVE pointed out to us, the rep from CD Baby
took notes at the meeting and appears to be sold, sold, sold.

Even if you have absolutely zippo interest in indie music, it behooves you
to check out those notes, because they include a bunch of nifty iTMS stats
that, as far as we know, have yet to surface elsewhere.  Reportedly the
current sales count is at 3.5 million, with approximately half a million
songs selling per week; not bad, considering there are only "6-7 million
copies of iTunes in use."  Over three quarters of the songs offered have
sold at least once, and nine out of ten sales are made via
One-Click.  (Long live the Impulse Buy!)  And then there's a whole bunch
of interesting stuff about the iTMS from the _other_ side of the
transaction.  You already know that it's ridiculously easy to buy music
from the iTMS, but what it's like to _sell_ it?

Well, apparently, that's pretty darn straightforward, too.  Of particular
note is the fact that Apple isn't playing any favorites,
majors-vs.-indies-wise.  Indies are being offered the _exact same deal_ as
the Big Five: as Steve puts it, "Same deal.
Same agreements.  Same team of people.  Same treatment, all-around."  It
costs nothing for a label to add music to the iTMS.  Every artist in the
store gets artist and album pages, and is listed in New Releases.  Apple
handles all the merchandising, advertising, credit card transactions,
backend infrastructure, etc.; all the labels have to do is encode the
music (using a special Mac OS X Music Store Encoder to be released in a
few months), enter the song/artist/album info, upload it all, and cash the
monthly checks.  Oh, and pass some of the cash onto the artists
themselves, of course.

Now, we're not record execs, but that all sounds pretty attractive to
us.  With any luck, then, plenty of these indies will be falling all over
themselves to sign on the dotted line.
Artists get their work in front of the eyes (er, _ears_) of a much wider
audience than they probably have now, labels get paid, regular shmoes like
us get to broaden our horizons at 99 cents a pop, and everybody lived
happily ever after.

That is, until the flesh-eating space locusts came.

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To see this scene as it was meant to be seen, complete with links to
articles and formatted as originally broadcast, visit:

  <http://www.appleturns.com/scene/?id=3998>

To see the complete, unadulterated episode in which this scene was
originally broadcast, visit:

  <http://www.appleturns.com/episode/?date=6/6/2003>

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As the Apple Turns: <http://www.appleturns.com/>
This Scene: <http://www.appleturns.com/scene/?id=3998>
This Episode: <http://www.appleturns.com/episode/?date=6/6/2003>
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tobias c. van Veen -----------
http://www.quadrantcrossing.org
http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
------------- tobias@xxxxxxxxxxx
---McGill Communications------
ICQ: 18766209 | AOL: thesaibot

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