As you can imagine, this has gotten lot of people’s attention-namely bloggers, small site owners and the netroots. For musicians and indie labels this means that the majors can again enjoy an edge by being able to pay to get this preferred access.

This is just an example of businesses trying to figure out how to bring in additional revenue streams to grow even larger. The internet service providers already make money off of you, the internet user, so now they want to make money off of content providers.

This would be like a car company making a car that only drives well, if you’re going to a mall or a certain shopping center, but the car wouldn’t drive as well if you were going to grandma’s house. You, as the car buyer, don’t want that, do you?

Of course not-that’s just stupid. In their quest for higher returns, the ISPs are overlooking the ones that pay the bills… all of you out there in internet land.

Personally, I love when companies like this get greedy; it means one thing…

Innovation is on its way!

You see one of the great things about the internet is that it tends to help “The Man” realignment his perspective when the blind quest for cash makes him do stupid things. It’s amazing how an entire industry can seem to find their soul when they’re staring down the barrel of the next big thing.

Let’s take a little trip back in time shall we…

It’s the late 90s, there’s a lot of great music coming out, and the major labels are rolling in it; and why not. They’re charging a whopping $20+ for their entire catalogs. I distinctly remember this because I learned about a new internet thing in the same week that I bought my copy of Magical Mystery Tour.

I was complaining to a computer savvy friend about how I wanted to buy a bunch of albums that weekend, but the sticker shock resulted in my only buying one. He agreed and mentioned a little service called Napster that let you download music for free. Now, at the time, I commuted to school, I only had a 56k connection and my desktop didn’t have a CD burner – I really couldn’t do much with this info. People on campus, with the school provided broadband connection, did take advantage of Napster.

A few months later, Metallica and the record companies saw their profits shrinking and cried fowl. Their outrage was not met with much sympathy from the public; after all, we were the ones getting shafted.

Napster wasn’t the cause of the problem, it was the result.

When I walked into that record store a few moths earlier I had $40 in my pocket and I was looking to buy two or three CDs at around $12-15 each. I left with one, because it was $21 dollars and that didn’t leave me with enough for another $20 CD. The record companies lost out on $19 of sales, not because of piracy, but because of greed.

The birth of the MP3 lead to the discovery of electronic transfer of music via the internet.It started with piracy, but turned into capitalism when the iPod came out and iTunes (as well as other services) started selling individual songs at a fraction of the price. Record companies had to drop their prices because the masses decided that they didn’t like what was going on.

This is why Net Neutrality will ultimately win out over greed. We don’t want a slower connection to the sites that we want to go to. Broadband companies use their speed as an advertising point, why would they intentionally slow down part of their service?

If they did what they seem to be threatening to do, some ambitious nineteen year old nerd is just going to figure out a way to set things straight and make things better. They’ll get tons of venture capital and start a new, completely neutral broadband company, steal all the customers away from the non-neutral ISPs and make billions – and chances are the new service will have some other innovation that the current crop of ISPs can’t offer.

So I say if they want to kill net neutrality, bring it on. I can’t wait to get net neutral broadband Wi-Fi from cell towers anywhere in the country – god bless innovation.

“Greed is good.” – Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987)

In contributing money, the fan buys a stake in the album; in other words, they buy a chance to invest in the album, and share in the profits from its sale. This would typically be a small-scale investment, and not enough to get rich off of, but fans of a band can contribute with minimal loss to that band if they believe it will help them progress.

There are a lot of stories out there of bands funding recordings and tours in this matter, typically in the punk scene, but it seems that this newer, more formalized version is starting to make some waves.

Earlier this year, BusinessWeek did an article on this new phenomenon, that’s largely been taking place on the internet. This article mentions several crowdsourcing projects that have popped up, however the projects they featured were not musical in nature. About a week ago they published a new article on crowdsourcing, which focused on SellABand.com.

The SellABand.com concept works like this – a band signs up on the site, fans pay in $10 increments to buy piece in the band. The money raised is held in escrow until the amount of $50,000 is raised, at which time SellABand.com will help the band find a producer and fund their recording. After the songs are recorded SellABand.com posts the songs online charging $.50 each, and splits the proceeds between the band, the fans that invested and the site (and even 1/3 each).

The investment aspect, wherein people are paid a portion of the proceeds for their initial funding of the project, is basically what goes on in the music business. Major labels take a large piece of a record in exchange for funding its recording, producing the record and distributing it.

SellABand.com does offer to sell CDs, however, if you want copies for yourself or to sell it shows, you have to buy them at full price from SellABand. You do get a royalty for every CD sold (as do the fans that sponsored the recording), and if you plan to resell the CDs at your shows, you can recoup your loss.

While you are giving a portion of your royalties away, you are getting a high-quality professionally produced recording of your music. You have to weigh the pros and cons with a service like this. Giving away part of your royalties and CD sale profits might sound unappealing to some, but it’s better than giving away a piece of your profit to a record company that will also take recoupable losses out of your end, and erode your piece of the action to nothing.

For all intents and purposes, you could set up this type of arrangement by yourself and offer a piece of the profit directly to the fans. While you would have more control over the record and its handling, you’d also have to be able to organize the handling of the royalties that are issued to your fans. If you stayed with $50,000 in $10 increments that would mean issuing 5000 checks every time a royalty was due. On top of that you would still have to handle the recording and production of your album, as well as its sales and marketing. That can be a lot of work.

Like with every music service, you need to do your due diligence before signing up. If the model seems right to you, you find the terms acceptable, you’ve read the fine print, and you understand the arrangement thoroughly, you should still proceed with caution.

Registration at music forum communities is generally free, however, the more prominent and private communities charge nominal fees for memberships. To find the right forum community for you, we suggest you go to a popular search engine like Google (www.google.com) or Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) and perform a search on “music forums”. Browse the search engine results one by one, and keep in mind that each forum community has its own mission, theme, guidelines, and attitude. After visiting a few music forum communities, you will quickly learn that not all music forums are the same. Taking your time in finding the right community is key because you will want time spent to be an investment and not a waste. To help you find the right music forums for your needs, Artistopia offers the below suggestions. Note that at the end of each suggestion below, an explanation is provided on how it applies to the development and maturing process of an artist in the music industry.

1. Carefully select a forum community you can settle into for the long haul. Take your time researching them by reading existing posts, and making sure conversations, and music styles, meet your learning goals and objectives before making your selection. Relation to professional development: Finding the right music company or business that will develop you thoroughly is key to helping you mature in the business properly. Always know that haste makes waste.

2. Focus on building a well-respected reputation within the forum community. A reputation in any forum community is earned by a member’s cumulative interactions and contributions over time, and not within a few posts. Keep your reputation untarnished because repairing any damage done to it is always twice as hard as building it in the first place. Relation to professional development: Your reputation as an artist in the music industry is your integrity, and tarnishing it could lead to alienation and possible ousting. Wounded lions drag the rest of the pride down.

3. Keep your posts clean, respectful, and productive no matter what direction the conversation or message thread takes. It will be tough to contain yourself at times, but learn to exercise patience and calculated response tactics. Misunderstandings often happen in forums, and when they do, you will need to know when to respond and when not to. Relation to professional development: Being an artist in a multi-billion dollar music industry is a job and not a party. Learn to be professional at all times and costs.

4. Be careful not to offend senior members and administrators. Forums tend to foster loyalty amongst the members, so measure each word in your posts and focus on being productive, not destructive. Egos and arrogance need not apply because no one knows it all. Smooth over the senior members with wit and intelligence, and you will receive a warm welcome. Relation to professional development: Simple, offend the wrong music professional and it could mean your career. Be open to constructive criticism and always yearn to learn from all those around you.

5. Use the forums to “subtly” promote your personal website or Artistopia profile, which will give you more exposure (brand name building) and help drive your overall numbers (song downloads, profile views, etc.). Most forum administrators frown upon direct promotions and blatant advertising, but they will allow you to represent the website you are from. Always consider yourself a visitor and respect the guidelines set forth because administrators will ban without hesitation. Relation to professional development: Identify and exercise all marketing opportunities that will promote your artistic talent without igniting a turf war. Know your boundaries and how far you can push it by thinking with your head, and not with your heart.

6. Make full use of the signature functionality in forum communities to brand yourself, especially by putting a slogan, a quote, a banner, or a link that points to your Artistopia profile or personal website. This is permissible at most music forum communities, and is helpful for others in learning more about you when reading your posts. Relation to professional development: Every professional artist is known for a signature of some sort, even if it’s lyrics, beats, looks, or wardrobe amongst many other aspects of branding. Start thinking of yourself as a brand that sells and start establishing your market or niche. Become known for something distinct and keep building on it.

7. Engage the readers by articulating your ideas intelligently, making sure your posts are flawless of grammar and spelling mistakes, leaving out slang terms and not using excessive caps, and ensuring your writing flows smoothly. Readers are quick to place judgments based on your ability to write and communicate your thoughts effectively. Relation to professional development: The music industry is about building your fan base and keeping them. Gain their confidence by displaying the ability to walk the walk and talk the talk, professionally and effectively. Let them know through actions that your position in the industry was earned and not handed to you overnight.

8. Frequent the forums and post messages on regular basis. Appearing often will demonstrate your loyalty to the community, and your resolve to building your name and reputation. More importantly, you will be consistently marketing yourself time and time again. Members that disappear for long periods of time are perceived for not being focused or serious about their agenda in the community. Relation to professional development: Half of the battle to making it in the music industry is keeping your brand afloat and marketable. Being a star is the farthest thing from a walk in the park or a picnic. Stars have to do many performances, appearances, interviews, and anything else that will put them in front of a camera to keeping their brand alive. Absence will deplete your popularity.

9. Network, collaborate, and create as many contacts as possible. Do not be afraid to step out of the forum community box and work in-person on projects with fellow artists, musicians, and songwriters you meet in these forums. More importantly, always fish out and befriend members that you feel will further your agenda. Do not hesitate to share your ideas with other members, because if you don’t you will be isolating yourself. Relation to professional development: The music business is about who you know and being at the right place at the right time. To increase your chances of unearthing opportunities, collaborate with as many peers and professionals as you can. You never know who will open the door for you.

10. Do not spread yourself too thin by participating in more than 2 forum communities. Stay focused on establishing your presence and building a reputation in a few places only. Diligent research up-front will lead to wise decisions on the forums you elect to settle in with. Relation to professional development: Productivity is key, especially when you aren’t getting paid. Start small and build your way up. Every single decision you make, no matter how small, will impact your overall progress. Learn the politics of the music business and use them to perfection.

Building a presence in any forum community can challenge the most open-minded socialite mankind can offer. However, by exercising the above suggestions, you can be sure you are not marching in blindly. Exercise each of these suggestions in moderation, be patient as it will take time to build up your reputation, and always act professional so others can respect you. Forums will ultimately teach you people skills and politics.

Once you perfect the above forum tactics, then it is time to move on and fish out real life music circles by attending networking happy hours, conventions and conferences, and any other gatherings that congregate music artists and professionals in one place. Most important is for you to keep in mind that being a music artist in this business is a job and not a party. Good luck and tread safe!

About The Author

Artistopia – The Ultimate Artist Development Resource http://www.artistopia.com is an artist development and community on the web providing music artists, songwriters and bands all the tools needed for displaying their talent, music business collaboration, marketing and networking. Online since 2003, Artistopia develops advanced technology solutions that leverage the Internet to both the music artist and music companies respective advantage.

ArticleCity.com – your one-stop source for free articles. | Copyright © 2001-Present ArticleCity.com

Eric Herbert over at Evolvor did a pretty good job of laying out the basics of TuneCore. While most of this is covered in TuneCore’s information pages, Eric has put it all together in one spot.

The Music Marketer has also done a post about TuneCore in which they chronicle actually testing the service. If you’re interested in signing up with TuneCore, it’s a good idea to check it out these sites first.

Both companies offer digital distribution to the major mp3 sites (iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.), however they charge differently for this service which can make a huge difference. CD Baby charges a 9% commission on digital distribution with a set-up fee of $35. CD Baby also distributes to many smaller digital music sites so you get a wide distribution.

TuneCore charges a yearly fee of $19.98 for each album uploaded, they also charge one time fees for each song ($0.99) and for each digital store ($0.99 each for iTunes U.S., iTunes Europe, iTunes Australia, iTunes Canada, iTunes Japan, Rhapsody, MusicNet, Napster, eMusic and Sony Connect).

As far as selling CDs, CD Baby will handle sales and distribution of your CDs to stores at a cost of $4 CD. CDs sold through stores are special orders, so you shouldn’t expect your CD to be sitting on the racks. You will need to supply them with your CDs and re-supply them if they sell out. They do not produce CDs. CD Baby also offers credit card processing (old school carbon paper swipe machine) so you can sell your CDs live and accept credit cards.

TuneCore will duplicate your CD for fairly reasonable prices. They have low run (less than 1000 copies) and high run (more than 1000 copies) options, each costing less per unit produced in a tiered pricing structure (i.e. the more you have pressed, the cheaper it is per unit). While TuneCore won’t distribute your CD themselves, they do have a partnership with IndieMerchandiser.com that will distribute and warehouse your CD and other merch for about 15 to 30% of the shipping price depending on what you’re distributing through them. They do not sell to stores, but they do help you add an online store to your website and handle all the transaction for it. If you don’t have other merch, they also have a partnership with a company called Jakprints which can produce apparel and stickers at reasonable prices.

In the end, choosing which company to use really depends on what your needs and expectations are. For mp3 distribution CD Baby is good if you expect to sell less than 300 songs per year. If you expect to sell more than that, you’d probably want to use TuneCore as they don’t take a percentage commission. If you want to make your music available through stores, CD Baby is the only one of the two that offers this, however you must supply the CD.

Your best bet might be to use each company, selecting services as they fit your budget and goals. TuneCore’s CD replication services are fairly priced and very flexible.

CD Baby’s retail distribution is helpful, though you could outgrow it as time goes by. While CD Baby casts a wider net as far as the number of mp3 services that it can get you on, TuneCore covers all of the major services for less of an overall cost for a moderate amount of sales.

Either way, check out both sites and see what works best for you.

Radio has always been a huge part of the music industry, yet in recent years the landscape has changed.  With the iPod replacing the Walkman and the growing field of alternatives to terrestrial radio, you need to rethink your radio strategy.

In the golden age of terrestrial radio, stations would reach tens of thousands (or more) in their local market.  If you got played on one of these stations, you would have had gotten your music in the ears of a lot of people.  That said, there generally wasn’t much that could be done in the sense of targeting your audience; your music was played with whatever broad genre it fell under.  These stations tried to appeal to the masses, so they stuck to safe “proven” hits and rarely took a chance on any new music.  For those with selective tastes this steady stream of top 40 genre music was hard to swallow.  Fans of classic songs, for instance, would have to sit through “new” music to hear the songs that they wanted and fans of newer hits had to sit through classics that might not be so classic to them.

Now radio has many faces and most of them don’t even appear on the AM/FM dials.  College and independent radio stations have always been friendly to unsigned musicians and can really be considered the only terrestral radio venues worth trying to get on.  Internet radio is also a great place for indies.  Heather McDonald, About.com’s Guide to Music Careers, wrote this article about how unsigned artists get much more exposure on internet radio than terrestrial radio.  Then there’s podcasts, which cover all types of music and music scenes.  There’s also satellite radio, which supports independant and unsigned musicians as well.  Both XM and Sirius have programs for unsigned artists and genre specific stations that, in many cases play music from indiependant labels.

As you can see, there are now many places for you to get you music played.  While it’s a lot of work to research and contact so many different broadcast outlets, it is much easier to get your music played on them and much more effective as well.

These days you can target your specific sub-genre and reach more potential fans.  By specifically targeting fans of your genre you are limiting the exposure that you get, but you’re concentrating the exposure you are getting to people that are more inclined to appreciate what they hear.  It’s better to reach 100 potential fans than 10,000 people who’d rather listen to something completely different.

So do your research, find the stations and podcasts that play your genre of music and contact them… oh yeah, and have something to send to them.

If you’re an unsigned or independent musician you’ve probably heard about GarageBand.com. If you haven’t you should (read this post, and) check it out immediately.

GarageBand (GB) is an online community of musicians looking to get exposure for their music and music fans looking to discover new music. GB has been around since 1999 and in 2003 merged with Trusonic the company behind the original incarnation of MP3.com.

GB allows musicians to upload songs which are then rated by other musicians and by music fans. When songs get rated and can be included in GarageBand’s charts. Top charting bands for each genre win inclusion in Clear Channel Radio’s New! Discover Music Program which gives exposure to these bands on their 400 FM radio station websites.

It is important to note that the music industry also pays attention to the GB charts as a means of finding new music that people will like. Charting well could get the attention of those in the business that are looking for new talent for their labels or other music related opportunities (licensing, soundtracks, etc.).

So if you haven’t already, join up now and start promoting yourself.

The first place that you should go is Google. That’s right, plain old Google. When you’re trying to find something, it’s best to star in the most obvious place. So, go to Google’s start page and type in your band’s name; use quotation marks (i.e. “Your Band’s Name Here”) to narrow the results to the exact phrasing and spelling of your name.

If there’s nothing on Google, you can check MySpace Music to see if anyone else is going by the same name there. If there is, see if they are actually a band – there are a lot of people that sign up for MySpace Music accounts with specific names that aren’t really bands at all. Who knows why. If they aren’t actually a band, you might be able to contact them and ask them what the story is.

If Google and MySpace are clear, head on over to The Worldwide Band Name Registry. This is a site that registers and documents band names. They publish and copyright a directory of band names yearly, which legally establishes use of the name on the registration date. This isn’t as iron clad as a registered trademark, but it would stand up in a court as a copyright is an intellectual property protection issued by the federal government.

You need to sign up for a free registration with the name registry to check their online database for prior use of a name. If you want to register a name, you’ll need to sign up for a full account and pay a $12 fee, which also entitles you to a few other services offered by the registry.

If you’re looking to protect your bands name and you want 100% protection, the next step is a trademark. Applying for a trademark can be done through an intellectual property attorney or online. The cost can range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars depending on where you go. The process can take a while, since there is a trademark search involved, but if the trademark is available you’re name will be completely protected.

What you need to understand about MySpace music is that your profile is, in fact, a website. If you were to hire a web designer to build a site for your band, you’d want a quality site that looked good and worked well. Why then would you put up a profile that barely works and looks awful?

Since you don’t need to be a great web designer to customize your MySpace profile, many people will go about tweaking their profiles with MySpace profile editors. They are, for the most part, easy to use in that you usually tell the editor what you want and it generates code that you stick into your profile. Now here’s the thing, these editors are a dime a dozen. They don’t really do much besides generate some simple HTML that MySpace interprets and applies to the profile that it’s included in, so people looking to generate traffic for their sites or promote something will put up these editors in hopes of luring MySpacers to their sites. They often don’t put much thought into these code generators, and as a result they spit out bad code.

Besides all that, people then go through and embed all sorts of silly things into their profiles that result in pages that take about 5 minutes to load (and I have a cable connection).

If you’re using MySpace music to promote your music, here’s a list of things that you should do to make your profile fit your personality without turning people away:

Use a good MySpace profile editor – Go to the top ranking music profiles and see what they’re doing. Notice that the profiles are usually well designed, well proportioned and actually work like they’re supposed to. Chances are you’ll find a link to a good editor in one of the profiles toward the top of the rankings. Use these editors for better results.

Check your profile on as many internet browsers as you can – the two most popular browsers are Internet Explorer and FireFox. Check your profile on these and see how it loads. If it doesn’t look right, try to regenerate the code from the editor and reinsert it. If that doesn’t work, use a different editor. (I put a button on the bottom of this post that leads to the download for FireFox if you don’t already have it)

Don’t go crazy with the background image. Avoid super colorful images to put up as a background on your profile. If the image that you use contains the same colors as your text, you’ll camouflage the text and make your site a nightmare to read. For example, if you’re using black text, don’t use a background image with black all over it. The text should contrast with the background; dark text, light colored background/ light text, dark colored background. And no, a lighter or darker shade of the same color is not OK.

Make sure that your profile interface lines up – the whole point of these profiles is to promote social interaction by adding friends, sending messages and so on. Editing the interface that this is done through so that it looks good does nothing if it doesn’t work properly. If someone wants to add you as a friend, they should be able to click the <add> button without having to search for it or be sent to, say, the message section.

Your profile is for your band – it is not a personal profile that just happens to feature your band. Keep all graphics from other bands on your personal profile if you must have them. Any graphics on your band’s profile should be for or of your band.

If you must post a bunch of pictures, do it in your profile’s blog. Keep the main profile page free of unnecessary things so that it will load quickly and not cause problems for your viewer.

In short, keep it simple. MySpace Music offers everything that you need from the start. Customizing it does make it more unique, but remember that these profiles are not for you, they’re for your fans. Be creative with your music, and let your profile deliver it.

OurStage is a music and film competition site where you can put audio and video content up and compete for monthly cash prizes. The entries are judged by fans that are played two songs or videos head to head they vote for which they like best. The top ten entries for each category go head to head at the end of each month to determine the winner.

It costs nothing to upload your content and the prizes are paid by people who vote. The site has an extensive FAQ as well as several videos explaining the process and an introductory video, so check it out and submit something.