Company Set Up Fee & Renewal fee Threshold % Opt Out Take Down Fee Renewal & Length Exclusive Fulfillment On Demand Printing Marketing Comments Overall 5 star rating
REVERBNATION
reverbnation.com		 $60
($60 Renewal Fee)		 $20 0% VERY HARD TO FIGURE OUT
They also Charge $50 Take down Fee		 $50 Maybe a year; They Charge $50 Take down Fee No Matter When You Stop Using That Service Yes Yes Yes Yes Contract includes many hidden fees like a take down fee and fees to transfer money into your PayPal account. They also hold money for well over 90 days before you can get access to it. Its very hard to get paid your own money due. They CanNOT work with Various Artist titles; company does not provide that information until after payment is received by them. Any chance they get to take your money, they will do it. They are NOT a great partner and they would rather take your money, than break you as a music artist. *
AWAL
awal.co.uk		 $0
($0 Renewal Fee)		 $50 15% 30 days $0 30 days Negotiable No No Yes Contract straight-forward but leaves out many contingencies and their staff is not that forthcoming with any help. *
The Orchard
theorchard.com		 $0
($0 Renewal Fee)		 $50 Negotiable No $0 1-5 yr Yes Yes No Yes Spotty rep. New management is eager to repair mistakes of the old owners but so far has not proven themselves to do so.  Will negotiate. They have a lot to offer young bands, whether they execute any placement, is another question. The Orchard delivers to the leading online and mobile digital retailers throughout the world – over 400 and counting. *
IRIS
irisdistribution.com		 $0
($0 Renewal Fee)		 $200 15% No $0 3 yrs No No No No Some elements are exclusive but not master recordings. High threshold and long terms require careful consideration. **
SongCast
songcastmusic.com		 $19.99
($5.99 Monthly Fee)		 $25 0% No $0 Perpetual No No No No Song Cast is a world class music distribution service that delivers independent music to the worlds most popular download retailers, including; iTunes, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody, eMusic and more. Combined with the power and social phenomenon of sites like MySpace, it is no longer necessary to give away your freedom to the labels. With Song Cast, you can start selling your music on major download sites right away, and they will also provide you with customized code to link your MySpace and other websites directly to the stores. Your fans will easily be able to find and purchase your music online. Charge $20 set up fee per album, and $5.99 per month. Get about $6.00 to $7.00 per album and .60 to .70 per song from these sites. Song cast does not take any of the sales. ***
IODA
iodalliance.com		 $0
($0 Renewal Fee)		 $25 15% 1 month
Complex but doable.		 $0 Perpetual Yes No No No Caution: uses the term "underlying compositions" to define rights granted, but will negotiate. IODA provides any or all of these services to music labels and distributors, video distributors, and artists including: * service, metadata and sales administration in their Rightsholder Dashboard * digital marketing and promotion through tools like Promonet * in-house technology including reporting tools and media delivery systems * collective licensing negotiation with digital content retailers * aggregated royalty collection and payment administration. ***1/2
CD Baby
cdbaby.net		 $39
($39 Renewal Fee) 		 Adjustable
starting at $10.
$20 is the default		 9% 30 days Complex but doable $0 Perpetual Yes
(despite claims to the contrary)		 Yes No No Caution: uses the term "underlying compositions" to define rights granted. Will not negotiate terms. Variable threshold is troublesome. CD Baby for $39 per album you get your music set up digitally on itunes, rhapsody, eMusic music and others. They take 9% of the sales and musician gets 91%. They send out $250,000 every Monday to musicians who sold music thru them. In total 111 million has been paid to indie musicians. You can also sell thru their site and set a price and they keep 25% you keep 75%. Lastly, they sell to 2400 retail stores and can distribute your CD's into them. They have a good overview of the program on their site.  ***1/2
The Bizmo
thebizmo.com		 $34.95
($34.95 Renewal Fee) 		 $50.00 15% Fee of $100 if done before 6 months & $40 if done before a year $100 = before 6 months & $40 = before year 6 months No No No No The Bizmo gets your music on all major digital retailers plus 150 other digital retailers. You get daily sales reports and an embeddable retail store for your website. In the retail store you can sell music downloads, video downloads, tickets, merchandise, e-books, sheet music and ringtones ***1/2
Catapault Distribution
CatapaultDistribution.com		 $25
($25 Renewal Fee)		 $25 5%-9% No $0 6 months No No No No The cost is $25 setup fee per album and artists and labels receive 91% to 95% of the payments received from the various digital stores. They have over 4 million tracks delivered. They have thousands of artists and labels they have distributed.   ****
Go Distro
GoDistro.com		 $49.99
($20 Renewal Fee)		 None $0 After One Year $0 Yearly No Yes
(partnered)		 Yes
(partnered)		 Yes Another great deal for what they provide and they feed off all other major players, and adds special services not included at other distributors. Again, run by industry veterans with excellent reps. They pay on time like clock work with proven success through that system. They also provide upstream A&R system with ability to be picked up by Sunset Distribution Company and Universal's distribution Company. *****
TuneCore
tunecore.com		 $49.99
($20 Renewal Fee)		 None $0 Anytime $20 Yearly No Yes
(partnered)		 Yes
(partnered)		 No Best deal in town for the emerging artist. Run by industry veterans with excellent reps. They pay on time like clock work with proven success through that system. TuneCore has arrangements with leading digital music retailers (itunes, Rhapsody, emusic, napster, Amazon) that lets them place your music in their online stores and subscription services. You get 100% of the money that your music earns from digital distribution. TuneCore charges $49.99 initial set up and annual fee and starting second year $19.98 per album per year storage and maintenance. *****


COMING SOON: Ditto Music, Ubetoo, DashGo, KVZ Music, and more sites will be added every week

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Threshold:
The amount of money you must earn on the deal to trigger a payout. If you do not earn that amount each month the company keeps all the money. Although these numbers might seem small they deserve some consideration. The company almost always deducts their % first before calculating the balance against the Threshold. So a Threshold of $200 and 15% % nets out to about 336 downloads per month before you get paid. (Example: For a 99-cent download on iTunes, about 29 cents goes to Apple, leaving about 70 cents that is passed on to the aggregator. Then the aggregator takes its 15%, leaving 59.5 cents. 59.5 cents divided into $200 is about 336.)
 
%:
The percentage the company keeps of your earnings through all digital sources . This is very important because many think that these deals are just for things like iTunes, but in most cases, they are for all digital means, including performance royalties earned from Satellite Radio.
 
Opt Out:
Many companies offer "Opt Out" clauses that suggest that you can get out of the deal easily by just notifying them. For example a "30 day opt out" implies that if you send them a letter saying you want out that you will be released within 30 days. This is rarely true. Since the advent of digital distribution, many people have tried "opting out" of old deals in favor of newer, better ones only to find that now there are multiple copies of their same masters on download services months later, each paying different royalty rates and thus tangling their credit history. The chart shows which companies offer this feature and what they claim is the amount of time it takes to be released from the deal AFTER notification.
 
Take Down Fee:
Many companies do NOT spell out their hidden Take Down Fee.
 
Length:
The amount of time you are committed also known as the "Term." When you see "perpetual" this means that the deal is forever unless you notify the company within a window of time to cancel.
 
Exclusive:
Some companies insist that you do business with them and ONLY with them during the Term. Others are more flexible. However, the use of the word "non-exclusive" is often designed to instill false confidence in the customer. For example CD Baby offers a "non-exclusive" deal but the methodology of their software makes it virtually impossible to use them in conjunction with other companies. Most insist on commitments that are from six months to three years. Not only is this a lifetime in a recording artist's emerging years, it's a lifetime in the world of digital technology.
 
Fulfillment:
Does the company offer sales fulfillment of CDs along with their Digital Distribution deals? Yes or no.
 
On-Demand Printing:
Printing a small number of CDs is becoming more popular. This column shows whether or not the company offers this service along with their Digital Distribution agreement.
 
Marketing:
This column shows whether or not the company offers marketing services in conjunction with their Digital Distribution services.
 
Rating:
The ratings in the last column are done from the point of view of the emerging artist weighing their options for self-distribution while keeping their options open for a traditional record deal on a label.
 

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