CD baby
CD Baby is an American online retailer of music CDs by independent musicians without a record deal. Although the main base is the distribution of CDs, DRM- free pieces of music are also distributed in MP3 format. The distribution of CDs via the online store has been discontinued since March 2020.
Company principles
Musician
The company sells CDs by any artist, the CDs are neither selected nor rated. There are no minimum sales quantities, even just one CD sold per year does not lead to exclusion.
The artists receive the earned income paid weekly. The point in time at which the various platforms pay off differs and can take up to six months.
The company expressly does not limit itself to US artists, but the proportion of foreign - especially non-English speaking - musicians is very low.
Sales commissions
The company withholds $ 4 per CD sold, plus a one-time setup fee of $ 35. In addition, a barcode, which can be up to US $ 30, must be purchased as long as one is not already available. The pricing is in agreement with the artists, the CD prices are usually around 1 US dollar per piece of music.
CD pages
For each CD, the company sets up a website that does not contain any external advertising, but only references to categories and similar artists within the CD-Baby websites. It is also categorized according to similarity to well-known and successful musicians.
The individual pages contain audio samples of individual songs of up to two minutes in length; occasionally, sample pieces are also available for all songs on an album. The audio samples are available in two quality levels, on the one hand a lower quality in the form of MP3 files with 32 kBit / s and on the other hand a medium quality in the form of MP3 files with 128 kBit / s.
Buyers
The artists will be given the email addresses of those who buy the CDs. Buyers themselves can rate the CDs they have purchased on the corresponding CD website.
Well-known musicians
These include, for example, Tracy Bonham , who has already released several CDs with larger labels and has toured with the Blue Man Group , for example , as well as Jack Johnson and Regina Spektor , who sold CDs with CD Baby before their record deals . Perhaps better known is Bird York , who has already received an Oscar nomination for a film music for LA Crash .
Company history
The company was founded in 1997 by musician Derek Sivers in Woodstock, New York, and is now based in Portland, Oregon, USA. CD Baby currently employs around 80 people.
To date, the company has given more than 245,000 artists the opportunity to publish CDs on the Internet. More than 4.6 million CDs were sold and around 84 million US dollars were paid out to the musicians.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Kaito Kid: About CD Baby payment / payout. June 5, 2019, accessed June 17, 2019 .