Magnatunes's New Model For The Music Business

Creative Commons music label Magnatune has announced a new business model - giving people what they want.

The label has relaunched as a "no-limits membership" music business. They offer unlimited online listening and unlimited downloads for $15/month.

The chart, above, explains why Magnatune is making the change - their download revenue has dropped sharply as their membership revenue has increased.

Or as Magnatune CEO John Buckman puts it, "revenue from memberships has grown 80% in the past year alone. I don't know of any other long-lived Internet music services that are experiencing our kind of revenue growth."

In addition to moving to an unlimited download business model, Magnatune follows several other fan-friendly business practices:

• Do DRM on anything;
• They encourage you to give copies of anything you buy to three friends;
• They encourage the use of their music in podcasts;
• They're "remix friendly"; and
• Label musicians get 50% of the revenue, based on what users listen to and download.

What do you think of Magnatune's business model? Do you think $15/month for unlimited downloads is a fair deal for both musicians and music fans?

Link:

• Magnatune

James Lewin
Twitter @podcasting_news

• Comments
• Facebook Comments  

2 Comments...  Post a comment    original story

---

fight mp3    Said...

While the idea is nice I still won´t pay for 128kbps mp3s. That´s a smash in the face!

check out the new The Knife album here: http://rabidrecords.com/tomorrowinayear/ they are selling FLAC Version for 10UKP. THAT`s the right buisness model!!!

And don´t come crying for server traffic costs. Online gaming stores like STEAM are selling Games serval GIGABYTE in size für 5UKP or less.

And Beatport can´t sell one 60MB of Wave for less than 3USD?

come on....

18-Mar-10 08:33 AM

---

fight mp3    Said...

Ok I check deeper into the FAQ.

the DO sell FLAC an WAVE.

so my apologies! You ARE the good guys.

Q:What download formats do I get?

A: MP3- high quality VBR as well as 128k MP3 (lower quality) WAV files - perfect quality FLAC format - perfect quality AAC files - high quality iTunes only OGG Vorbis - high quality, open source format

18-Mar-10 08:41 AM

---

Post a comment 

 

Show me more news in this category

More Magnatune news  All Magnatune news

Print On Demand CD Box Set -03-Aug-09