| CD Baby DIY Musician Podcast |
 June 29,
2009
Ep.65 : Matthew Ebel - Stream your concerts to the world
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| CD Baby Music Podcasts |
 Music Discovery
 Hip Hop
 60's Pop
 Rockabilly
 Top Sellers
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| What happened with CD Baby and Snocap |
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I learned a hard lesson this year:
Sometimes the best deal for everyone is no deal at all.
In December 2004 Snocap contacted CD Baby about being one of our digital distribution outlets. They were a P2P fingerprinting service to help P2P services track and charge for music.
Since CD Baby has over 2.5 million songs directly from the artists, in full WAV format with clean metadata, they wanted to import our catalog into their tracking system.
After almost two years in ongoing contract negotiations, in August 2006 Snocap completely changed their business plan to what you see today. Now they still wanted our entire digital distribution catalog, but it was to create Flash widget stores on MySpace, which sounded like a great idea, so we said OK.
But there was one crucial hitch with this plan: our two options from Snocap were:
(1) - After delivering our entire catalog, step aside for the artists to deal with Snocap directly
(2) - After delivering our entire catalog, have all changes/additions/deletions administered through CD Baby's account
The downside to #1 was the obvious "tell your 200,000 clients about us, then make them our clients for free, and get out of the way."
The downside to #2 was that artists would have crippled accounts, unable to upload new material, change their pricing, or anything else.
But there's an important lesson learned, in hindsight: At this point we should have walked away, and chosen "neither". We felt screwed either way. But because of two years and thousands of dollars invested into these negotations, we chose option #2. We were assured that #2 wouldn't be so bad, that any audio we sent them would be activated within hours, that we could send through pricing changes, and many other things.
Unfortunately, everything went about as wrong as could be. Artists had to go through a 21-step process to activate their accounts, which left us with thousands of daily confused emails from artists. Furious artists trying to upload their songs into Snocap were wrongly told they can't because CD Baby "owns" their rights.
We had to hire 6 new full-time customer service people just to deal with the thousands of problems. We couldn't fix problems ourselves, only pass them on, because all fixes had to be done by Snocap. A hundred times a day we had to helplessly apologize to our clients.
Every company meeting revolved around Snocap. Every employee had to be trained in the endless FAQ about Snocap. For the last 8 months, the CD Baby office has felt like a Snocap office. All we were doing, all day long, was dealing with Snocap issues.
Then the sales reports came in.
$12,000 total sales for the 8 months they'd been active. Since we keep a 9% cut, that's $1080 for us, total. Ouch.
As a curiosity, I quietly enabled MP3 sales on cdbaby.com, without telling anyone. A "buy MP3" button showing up next to the "buy CD" button.
In 3 weeks, with no announcements, we sold over $110,000 in downloads. Hm.
We decided to do what we should have done in the first place: to choose "no deal" as the best deal for our artists.
We told Snocap we needed completely out of the contract, at any cost. Luckily, they agreed.
By breaking all ties with Snocap, our artists can go directly to Snocap with no conflicts at all, and we can free-up our 24 full-time customer service people to help our clients with other things besides Snocap issues.
We're happy with it, for obvious reasons.
Snocap is happy to have the direct relationships with the artists.
The artists are happy to have full control and one less middle-man.
And I share this tale with no hard feelings, for the few who have asked, "What happened?", and the many more that might recognize themselves in a similar situation, and remember that sometimes the best deal for everyone is no deal at all.
--
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
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You did the right thing Derek, much better to be back to how cdbaby originally was. no more snow blindness
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Can somebody please suggest to Shawn Fanning that it's time for him to find a new sport?
Skiing, perhaps?
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What? Shawn Fanning do something other than find ways to exploit musicians? It's apparently all he knows. No, wait, the gaming software industry seems in his sights now. :P
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| by
on Monday October 22 2007 @ 05:05PM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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Maybe Shawn Fanning is actually a failed artist intent on messing
wth the rest of us.....
Maybe he his sights are on the gaming industry basically because
most of their players are young enough not to know they are being
exploited.
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Well I am relieved to read about this in this forum and I hate to add one additional concern whoever signed with SnoCap:
One of their clauses says:
they're allowed to:"..Reproduce and publicly perform any Composition embodied in a Digital Master derived from your Content (including any and all "server" or "ephemeral" copies), it being understood and agreed that we will not be obligated to account and pay mechanical royalties to you, all such sums being included in the wholesale price set by you"
What prevents them to use this huge database to syphon off the underlying ("embodied") compositions, make them available to a third party who likes your song and records it with their band/ artist..., they could even collect a fee for that.... and you (the composer) sees nada....
or did I misunderstand that totally??
The "embodied" compositions clause mentioned above raises a huge red flag to me.
As does the credit card info for address verification.
BS. They can find other ways to verify an address.
I wouldn't do it.
Sad thing is, SnoCap is the only service Myspace features and I sure would love to find a way to sell songs directly via Myspace...
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You can embed any flash store, like the ones from PayPlay or SoundStation (SoundLoud) on your MySpace page. SnoCap not needed.
I've got SoundStation going on on my page now. Looks better than SnoCap. There is a 5-album limit to each store, hence the two stores. That's the only messy part. (Well, that and you can't directly offer all tracks from uploaded albums as singles - you have to upload them separately as singles. Meaning you have to upload every song twice to have it be part of an album and a single for sale as well. Hopefully they'll get a feature implemented to allow tracks from albums to be sold as singles without a re-upload...)
for reference: www.myspace.com/outout
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| by
on Tuesday October 30 2007 @ 08:23AM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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yes - it gives them the right to do whatever they want with your
music without further compensation to you.
Great company - huh?
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That's a reply to GrooveConnection, correct?!
If SNOCAP does *anything* with my intellectual property without my consent or without due compensation (I know my lawyers won't cringe at that so-called 'user agreement') they'll be bummin'.
And that's a promise, not a threat.
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You can also embed a widget from music blaster. www.blastmymusic.com, we're using it with success
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This is exactly why I didn't use SnoCap for the band I used to be in "Rite As Reign" because I read the fine print...Now I say to bad that I didn't since the singer got 2 others in the band to kick me out. Good luck is all I can say...
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You are absolutely right! I read that in their contract also and I put on the breaks immediately.
The sad thing about it is that not everbody will read Snocap's contract all the way through and will sign with them. Then they are screwed. Snocap appears to be in the exploitation game.
I am just glad that many people are reading the contract and can see right through their scheme.
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This concerns me as well. I felt I'd signed up for a partnership of sorts and even though I own the songs and have copy write papers, it wouldn't surprise me to find business doings on the side. Is there any suggestion that unfair sales are occurring? Am I just being paranoid? Whatever, it's not like folks are really out there stealing music...are they?
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> Is there any suggestion that unfair sales are occurring?
No. Snocap may have bad customer service, but they'd incur the wrath of a million major-label lawyers if they tried to hide even one sale from one client.
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That's what's up. Now how do I, for the sake of a well created relationship get my music on myspace to be sold through cdbaby. Although Snocap offers it, I'm not about company barge ins and am also not familiar with their services, but I am familiar with yours and would like to keep working through your site.
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Derek, you are about as first class as they come! I am proud to be a long time CD Baby artist! http://www.charliesouza.com
As for SoSoSnoCap , I like the mini Mystore we can put up on any web page. (Could you get your programmers to build us one attached to CD Baby? with html codes PLEASE!)
Snocap has all of our credit card account numbers and will be hitting ua all up for a fee in a few short months. Not only that, the percentage to the artist is far less than it was through CD Baby.
Another thing snocap did without asking my permission, they added my MyStore to the myspace page of a national act I play with (The New Rascals) I had to get them to take it down and that took a week!
Enough asbout me, have you read my book?
Peace & Love to CD Baby,
Charlie Souza
P.S. Snocap is "Craptastic!"
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CD Baby is a dynasty with in itself, and pretty soon the majors are going to be knocking down your door, if they already aren't! Don't add anyone else to the mix, just adapt and keep doing what you do.
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you people are great and you know your business. I'm thrilled with the ability to download from cdbaby. Great idea. any possibility of downloading individual songs?
You guys and gals are wonderful
dancetime with linda & roland
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Thanks Derek,
I had no idea. You have something great going on here and it works well for artists as well as for cdbaby. I've seen you a few times during seminars, you're a very cool person and I'm very proud to be part of this awesome community/opportunity. We all like to keep things simple and easy!
:)
JVB
Otto's Daughter
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| by
on Monday December 17 2007 @ 04:08PM PST [ reply | parent ] |
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thats why i fuck with cdbaby!!! they tell it like it is!!! thanks for holding us down
(the artist's) and always keeping us informed. israel ceo buckhouse records
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I unfortunately didn't receive the email about getting out of snocap. so now now i seem to be unable to get my songs out of there... i can hide the store but i can't sign in to snocap. the orginal user name was 18192-3c7e@cdbaby.net and it doesn't work. does this mean they have my songs forever...?
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Hi, I had same issue after reading this thread. I had no idea about the CD Baby / SNOCAO fiasco. Going to remove my music from Snocap.
If you set it up through MySpace, it looks like you have to get in through the MySpace Manage My Music thing on your profile.
Same login that didn't work going direct to Snocap site. Hope this helps.
Erik J
http://cdbaby.com/cd/seededplanet
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Yea SNOCAP left a bad taste in my mouth when i had a situation that happed with my email account. There was a problem with me accessing it, so i needed to let SNOCAP know because this is the email i used when i signed up with SNOCAP and i got terrible customer service from them. Just letting people know!!
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Dear CD Baby, I thought that the whole Sno-cap affair was a tedious process and a complete waste of time in the end. The work that Derek does with Digital distribution is far superior with his knowledge and genuine dealings with us ( the artists ) and is a good lesson for SNo-cap, if they took the time to see what is going on at CD Baby, they may not have carried on the way they did at My Space.
Keep up the good work Derek, you are the best at it. I have 3 new Albums to add to my account with my 'Brother Goose" album. Will contact you ASAP. Merry Christmas, Lil Goose.
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What concerns me was this statement 'By breaking all ties with Snocap, our artists can go directly to Snocap with no conflicts at all, and we can free-up our 24 full-time customer service people to help our clients with other things besides Snocap issues.'
WRONG. We are entitled to sign up who we want whenever we want - the CD Baby agreement is non exclusive.
I understand your issues - but you should be understanding ours. I would be wrong in any format for CD Baby to restrict the copyright owner in ANY way - that is what the CD baby agreement is? or is it?
tonym
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> wrong in any format for CD Baby to restrict the copyright owner in ANY way
Exactly, which is why we got out of this deal.
The restriction was on Snocap's side, not ours.
When an artist was submitted to Snocap through CD Baby, it made it hard for them to go direct.
Anyway, this is all past-tense now. The deal is long-dead. We have no affiliation with Snocap in any way.
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Good choice .
Snocap are chancers. They want a yearly fee and 50% of artist sales.This kind of deal is ridiculous in the world of mp3 sales where there is no 'physical' product to handle and therefor less overheads, also when there are so many other quality mp3 distributors that offer a no yearly fee service and take a more acceptable cut,i am amazed that anyone goes for this.
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I agree. Something similar just happened to me which showed that I should have followed my instincts. Now it's a lesson well learned. I can move forward for the better.
Kamal
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Well done, Derek. Once again, you have made all the right and rational moves and behaved wisely throughout..Thank you for looking after our interests...
Now, how can I dissociate myself completely from those idiots at Snocap, (which should be renamed Snomoralitysenseorvalues), in my opinion. In other words, I want nothing to do with Snocap..How can I ensure that?
George bolam : InZaneCountry
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Thanks Derek for Righting a Wrong. These guys are in the "business" and care nothing about the artists, like Statue Records they suck too!!
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yO d-MONEY YOU ARE RIGHT ON THE MARK! I TRUST YOU TO MAKE THE RIGHT MOVES.DERRY SHEPHARD
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Derek, Your'e a true entrepenuer...Genius.
Everybody wins.
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thanx for the honesty.
i am just now reading this.
i never "went for" the sno cap deal...seemed to complicated...a
3rd party tends to add complications....
better for you to expand and deliver the service...all under one
roof, so to speak.
all sounds good & in a flow
blessings
m
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Just more evidence of Derek doing the RIGHT THING. By the way, we still haven't set up with Slow Crap and I never intend to. Did I say that?
Sorry.
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yeah... My band has had big issues with snocap! We have several hundred people saying that they have downloaded tracks from the snocap store, yet we have only received $6.00!!!!
Way to go...
Down with snocap!!!!!
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I completely agree with your decisions, Derek. You are one of the best things to happen to independent artists.
Sadly, the very last part of the breakup still has not happened - I cannot access either of my SnoCap accounts (that is, they're still the crippled ones) as the supposed Oct 11 changeover has not happened for them. So I am now stuck with a service that has my works, I have no control over them (I want to remove them all) and they have not replied to my email, *AT ALL* in over two months.
And with the rumor that they're trying to sell the company, I think they're deliberately holding on to "assets" to try and sweeten the sale. My lawyer might have to get involved (which, of course, will cost more than I've ever made from digital downloads to date.)
Argh.
But again, Derek, I know that's not you or your excellent company. I'm still 100% thrilled with CDBaby! :)
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Snocap just emailed us last night to say they're still trying to get all stores removed that should be removed. Because of their 60% staff reduction, this is taking longer than the October 11th date they predicted. They're trying to do the right thing, though.
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Coming from you, Derek, I'm actually reassured.
They should at least acknowledge my emails with *something* though.
But thanks for that. Coming from anyone else, I don't know if I'd believe it. :)
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Hello other CD Artists-
Our management company had to track down SNOCAP for us to
protect our trademark/band name.
To save you time and aggravation - here is the information to
contact SNOCAP. No one handles the phones but here is their
legal dept.
General Counsel| SNOCAP, Inc.
201 3rd St., 2nd Floor | San Francisco, CA 94103
+1.415.216.2200 ext 249 |
rmosher@snocap.com
eFax +1.415.520.9214
Hope this is helpful.
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Good. Thanks for that info. I will be likely sending them a registered letter soon.
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Thank you, Derek, for keeping us in the know. Keep being one of
the good guys in the Music Biz!
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One of the latest news reports puts the total staff at Snocap around
two dozen. With so few working on the project, delay is inevitable.
www.pacificcoastband.com
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The downside to #2 was that artists would have crippled accounts, unable to upload new material, change their pricing, or anything else.
Yep I'm still caught up in this too and no answers to my emails I sent weeks ago.
You'd think they would at least have the courtesy to send out a canned email to CD Baby artists explaining the circumstances
I should have followed my gut and stayed away from them entirely.
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I did follow the link from the email announcing that Snocap would begin dealing directly with artists, and pre-registered with them, in anticipation of the change-over. Then I began getting the idea that they were not a great company to be affiliated with, and I wanted to delete my account. I have no idea how to even log in to a Snocap account. However, I deleted Snocap from my Myspace page. That should take care of it, right, even if it still leaves me with a sort of "ghost" snocap account?
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I have tried to do the same thing. I emailed them, and no response.
The proof is in the pudding.
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If you signed up directly with them, and no longer want the
account, you need to be sure that you do cancel it entirely as your
credit card will be charged for the annual fee eventually.
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| by
on Saturday October 20 2007 @ 10:27AM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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You should check the terms of service because they usually say the
artist is giving rights in perpetuity unless you cancel it in writing.
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I still can't see how to cancel my snocap account, HOWEVER, I found out that it is possible to delete all your songs from the account. Log in, then go to "my catalog", then select all of your songs, and click Delete.
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The crippled CDBaby-originated accounts have the 'delete' function disabled.
Argh.
Unless I'm missing something - do tell.
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| by
on Monday October 22 2007 @ 12:11PM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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Greg I don't know how to remove my empty Snocap store from my Myspace page, I see from your email you did, can you tell me how?
Stacey Board
www.myspace.com/staceyboardmusic
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In your myspace account.... go to Account Settings.... then go to Miscellaneous... then there is a place where you can check or uncheck "display my music store"
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Thank you very much. this was the best decision ever
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It would be unprofessional of Derek to tell everyone to stay the hell away from snocap, so take it from me, stay the hell away from snocap!
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Wow. I had no idea. Them crazy fool's!
Many propsicles to Cd Baby,
Justin of The Whirling Dervish
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derek, good decision..... head frying experience.
I still think ITUNES is the most rewarding dd there is in terms of sales for cdbaby artists, and tips and tricks would be good in this area. ie. how does a cdbaby artist get decent exposure on ITUNES.
terry
WORD-STREAM
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Facts speaks itself --->CDBABY earned a lot more money by own digital program, they did with this "buy MP3" button next to our CD's. This means CDBABY doesn't need someone to work for (like SNOCAP), for sure the contrary is more possible.
Reading this info from DEREK, I can make my own conclusion that, he and the crew behind him are totally honest people, that they have invested so much time, human resource, money, talks, and so on, to deliver something useful for us and finaly, even with the risk they took with such conditions. I think this is more important and I am tahnkful that such company exist around in this world.
I am not commenting much, but this I need to share.
Respect
Sleepwalker
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SNOCAP is a horrible company! They are impossible to get a hold
of, I have tried calling them over and over since October '07 and
there is no way to speak to an actual person! I am also having
problems with an outside source claiming digital rights to my
music, which the outside source has since relinquished, and still
SNOCAP has not grantedme back the rights to my own music. And I
can't get a hold of anyone at the company to talk to about it. I have
since reported them to the BBB in San Francisco. Lets see what
happens.
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As an Austrian I've got my Snocap-acount through Cdbaby. I've sent a mail to Snocap with the information that I am not a US-resident and how we deal in the future. no answer for the last 3 weeks.
Question: How can I quit Snocap?
greetings Wolfgang
http://cdbaby.com/group/base
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I AGREE WITH THE DECISION YOU MADE DEREK. SNOCAP SUCKS!
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Can you make a flash storefront like Snocaps so we can put on our own Myspace and website pages?
Thank you,
Glenn DeLaune
http://www.glenndelaune.com
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We have a flash player code on our site for all CdBaby artist. All you do is copy and paste the code on to your myspace page or any website and it works.
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Bradley Gailey
www.GreatIndieMusic.com
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man thats awesome i'm going to your site!
as for snocap, man! i cant't beleive it.. and i've sent like 3 of my friends there, i hadn't signed up yet because i was still finishing my cd but one of friends says they haven't been paid and they all say their emails go unanswered.
derek it would be so awesome if we could just upload yourdigital store onto our websites and myspace pages, gonna keep my fingers crossed but maybe you guys already have the answer?
thanks
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Is there a way to choose whether or not to have the sound play automatically or manually?
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SNOCAP is no friend to ANY artist and are so happy that CD
BABY is away from them. We contacted CD BABY in the
beginning because we thought it was kind of sleazy that
SNOCAP was contacting CD BABY artists around CD BABY'S back.
Also, if you clearly read SNOCAP "terms of service", it includes a
clause that insists the artist make their SNOCAP material
available for their other services without further
compensation....when Artists refuse to agree to this, their
SNOCAP account becomes "STORE DISABLED" on Myspace.
It is also kind of disconcerting that this "Artist" site ( SNOCAP
and MySpace) is designed in a manner than artists log in using
their email address - not the band name.
Allowing this duplication brings in a huge amount of revenue for
these sites (advertisers pay based on number of "subscriptions")
which makes it extremely difficult for Artists to fully protect their
intellectual property without being forced to go through their
legal department(s).
For example, Life On Mars (and your band name) are the only
Artist selling product on CDBABY as your band name is valuable
intellectual property which is respected by CDBABY.
However, very few companies are truly thinking about the artist.
After being with CD BABY for almost 5 years, Life On Mars is still
in the honeymoon stage and truly believe it is run by truly kind,
honest, and good people.
We are so happy you dumped SNOCAP - they totally suck!
Sincerely,
Linda Marso
Life On Mars
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Sorry to hear of the issues Derek. SNOCAP approached me about the same thing for our Indieheaven artists. I declined to get involved with them because I felt they would come and go pretty fast.
See folks.. it doesnt matter how many distribution points you have.. it all has to deal with demand and traffic. Putting flash widgets on artist websites and on MySpace profiles won't cause people to buy your music.
Being on CD Baby or on my Indieheaven site brings credibility and people are more likely to use their credit/debit cards to purchase from a reputable company. Derek saw this occur on CD Baby, and we have as well.
All the best to all of you and lesson learned.
Keith Mohr
President
Indieheaven
www.indieheaven.com
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I have to say that I am also highly suspicious of the 12k download statistic - not on CD Baby's end, but Snocap's. I got a SINGLE Snocap sale after having a store up for at least a month. One song. I typically get hundreds of plays a day and have nearly 7,000 friends. I get regular sales through CD Baby, iTunes, and my own website. I don't buy that a single person bought a single song over a month...
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> hundreds of plays a day and have nearly 7,000 friends
People don't go to MySpace.com with their credit card pulled out, ready to shop.
If you can find a single fan with a receipt showing they bought a download from you, that you were not paid for, please let us know.
But ALL of the online sellers of music have to be EXTREMELY thorough and transparent, because the labels (with deep legal pockets) have the right to audit their servers, and if they tried to hide even a single dollar, the labels would absolutely DESTROY their business in an instant, both with lawsuits, and ruined reputation.
So, the thought that they would screw Andrew Aversa out of $4 in order to make a bigger profit is highly unlikely.
We're in more transparent times, now.
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But isn't that the issue in the first place? Independent Artists that don't have legal departments. Then ad 60 different download services to the mix and audits are very pricey.
In the old days of physical product, one could more easily resolve accounting for a 30,000 unit press. I question the ease of auditing a server for actual information of downloads.
I appreciate the companies that seem to be honest and paying for sales of my products. I just wish there was a Virtual Better Business Bureau to rate these stores. MP3Tunes ended up sucking and burning time resources to comb thru a dozen sites to remove links and replace them with the latest - "looks pretty good" download retailer.
It is very cool that the one man business can exist in 2007. I just wish we artist would work together better to avoid everyone of us having to make the same mistakes with the sharks that are living off of our music.
Having been ripped off by every part of the industry thus far, I guess it's hard to believe that virtual sales by dozens of companies I know nothing about, haven't ripped me off too. Almost looks too easy. We do live in a virtual era that includes selling a business, take-overs and acquisitions, and virtual disappearance online.
Just trying to figure it all out and avoid anymore costly mistakes...
www.GregVail.com
www.MySpace.com/GregVailSax
www.SaxPlayersBlog.com
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Derek is such a nice guy. And I'm actually sure that the folks at SnoCap are nice people too, but the fault in their strategy is exactly what Derek said... People are not hitting MySpace with their credit cards out, ready to shop. So SnoCap would never succeed by primarily marketing through MySpace, in my opinion. We've primarily used MySpace as a way to build our email list, and it works for us. You get the sales from THAT, not MySpace/SnoCap.
All of us musicians have GOT to remember that MySpace is for social networking, and making money for selling their ad space. Nothin else matters to them.
As Chris Stanring said, "...And my personal advice is to build your fanbase. Have people sign up on your mailing list at gigs, and build your database. Study internet marketing and ways to get traffic to YOUR website. Use remote sites (such as MySpace.com) to attract new fans and get them to signup on your list at YOUR website. Understand that remote sites (such as MySpace) will be out of business within a matter of years so you HAVE to work your own domain, but most of all your own opt in list. (Imagine you had 100,000 people on your subscriber list. You make a new CD and you can be guaranteed about 30,000 sales right out of the box!). Utilize timed autoresponders to sell your merchandise to your fans. Automate all of this as much as possible so you can take care of the creative stuff.
Take control of your career now. You have nobody to answer to you but yourself. Now go get 'em!"
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Hi Derek,
Keep up the good work i myself never like snocap simply cause of the fact i could not upload the songs i wanted on there.They sent me an email wanting me to deal directly with them but i told them no thanks cdbaby is all i need....keep it rockin..
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Derek wrote: Then the sales reports came in.
$12,000 total sales for the 8 months they'd been active. Since we keep a 9% cut, that's $1080 for us, total. Ouch.
As a curiosity, I quietly enabled MP3 sales on cdbaby.com, without telling anyone. A "buy MP3" button showing up next to the "buy CD" button.
In 3 weeks, with no announcements, we sold over $110,000 in downloads. Hm.
WOW.
That's a pretty amazing thing, and bears repeating.
Seems like there are a lot more eyes on myspace, yet - SO many more digital sales happening @ cdbaby.
I feel that is a direct testament to the quality of service and features of the two sites.
(and as Derek pointed out, people aren't cruising myspace with their CCards out)
Still... I feel it always comes down to the quality of your products/services and customer service... an area where cdbaby continues to reign supreme.
Thank you for sharing this tale, Derek. Lots to be learned from it.
-adam
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Snocap always bothered me for some unexplainable reason. I never got involved with them and, obviously, very glad that my intuition paid off in the end.
To Derek and CdBaby - you have been a tremendous resource, support system and promotional boost and you always have our best interests at heart.
It saddens me that you were brutalized in such a corrupt manner by Snocap. Hopefully, you will recover your losses with the dollars generated from the approaching holiday season.
Thank you for sharing the full story with us. Now it's time to focus on all the GOOD things that you have offered and will continue to offer Indie artists. The past is past - onward and upward to a brighter future.
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Ay caramba! I was waiting anxiously to set up my snocap account...now I'm thankful that everything took so long and I wasn't able. I think it's pretty easy to put a link on my myspace page that goes straight to my iTunes or CDbaby page!
-Sean
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i had a feeling they we're trying to rip you guys off by the emails that talked about going around cdbaby. i have'nt really sold much thru cdbaby. did'nt push promotion hard enough on the first cd. we'll try to do better next time and come out with a lower price, etc. keep up the good work. damon
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> i had a feeling they we're trying to rip you guys off
Nah, they weren't. That email from them to you was our idea, to make an easy transition for the people that wanted to keep their Snocap stores, to transfer "ownership" of your store from us to you. Their wording made it sound a little strange or sneaky, but it was well-intentioned.
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The only Snocaps I ever enjoyed was the nonpariel version - generally with popcorn and a soda during a great flick.
RobSatori.com
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I'm glad you guys decided to get out of the snocap deal, they are a disaster. I think SoundLoud.com would have been a better choice, they have a user friendly partnership program and better revenue share than snocap. Many snocap users have been switching to www.soundloud.com.
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Derek, thanks for being such a straight shooter and giving us the whole story. That is why I love CD Baby, yay!!!!!
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it's ok derek, CDBaby made a small mistake. but at least not a BIG mistake! you got out of the deal! congrats :)
i haven't trusted SNOCAP since i read their agreement from myspace's website. it all sounded like a big way to take advantage of all the indie bands associated with myspace. actually, it was :P death to snocap!
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btw, i figure i'll just state this so Derek doesn't have to :)
SNOCAP is a complete waste of time. if you sign up with them, you're just supporting a scheme to make the company quick bucks.
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MyStore.com asks that you please not confuse MyStore with Snocap "MyStore". We are still litigating with them over their inappropiate use of our mark.
After meeting with Snocap regarding a "compromise" or "settlement" to their actions and the actions they took thereafter, I am not surprised to see this article. I applaude Mr. Sivers for his decision.
Todd Meagher
CEO
MyStore.com
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Derek,
Congrads on being able to get out of the
"pyramid sales scheme". We really like your company and website's ease of use. We sell our CDs thru cdbaby.com and our merch thru mystore.com
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Everyone seems to be forgetting that at the beginning, Snocap was probably just a company that wanted to change the way music was sold. In theory, the idea sounds pretty good.
But there was no way of predicting whether adding a store to a social networking site would be profitable. Turns out it doesn't work so well.
It's easy to damn Snocap, but something tells me their company isn't doing so well--another sign of turbulent times for this business of selling recorded assets. You might hate them today, but tomorrow they could have the idea that revolutionizes monetizing digital music assets. You can't blame them for trying.
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> You can't blame them for trying
VERY well-put, Cameron! I agree. It's a shame that some parts of it didn't work out, but you can't fault them for trying.
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Thank you to Cameron for showing a little bit of support for SNOCAP. And also to Derek for doing the same.
I consider many of the folks at CD Baby to be colleagues as well as friends, and continue to support the things that they do for musicians worldwide.
We at SNOCAP have always had the interest of the artist in mind. Sure, we've done some things wrong, but we've also done some things right. As is the case with most start-ups, there are bumps, but we've always maintained the vision to bring musicians' art to a wider audience.
Although we had to make the painful move to cut some of our staff, we still look to carry out this vision.
And I can assure you all that we read these posts and they're shared with our team. I know that many of you are saying that you haven't heard from our support team, but we're doing everything we can to address and get to each of your emails.
We hope that we can continue to serve many of you. And, of course, we wish you all the best in continuing to create your art.
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I'm sure that most of you all are altruistic at SnoCap, but for me it's too little too late. Sorry, but I'm out. (Two months plus with not one personal response to any email inquiries (and this goes back to prior to your layoffs and split with CDBaby) are simply too many times being blown off. Not good at all.)
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Chris, your letter sounds sincere, but your agreement states the opposite. It seems that you want to take peoples music, exploit it and keep all of the money for yourself.
You should be ashamed of yourself!
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The whole SNOCAP experience has been really disturbing.
I still believe there were months of sales not accounted for...but...do not know how to even start to audit.
When I go to SNOCAP now it still shows Jessy's CD's but says they are unavailable.
How do I remove all and any association with Jessy and SNOCAP. and....despite anything to the contrary SNOCAP does not answer emails, I have given up writing.
Thank you Derek and CDBaby, you're the best thing since sliced bread.
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Maybe so, but I would still like to read through the notes on the creation of the company, where the ideas came from, who implemented them and took credit for the intellectual properties that formed the basis for the business method.
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Derek,
Could you do a very simple thing for us? Could you allow us the option to JUST sell digitally through cdbaby? It seems to me that signing up to the entire digital distribution agreement when all I want is just for my mp3's to be available from cdbaby, linked to from my own site. My fans are happy and I get paid quickly.
Is that possible?
Thanks
Alasdair
Moojuice Records
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You made the right decision, and I just wanted to thank you for letting us know what happened. Too often these things are handled (by other companies) with a vague press release that doesn't explain everything. I appreciate your candor and the details of the events.
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110k in CDBaby MP3 downloads??? yikes! and congrats!
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Derek,
Thank you yet again for honesty and transparency. Maybe you should seek elected office. We could use some decent folks in office.
I don't trust SNOW CRAP and I'll stick with CD Baby anyday over Shawn Fanning's latest ploy..
I have no truast in his concern for musicians well being..
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Hey Derek,
Snocap is a drop in the bucket, I just want to say thank you for being " THE FUTURE OF MUSIC "
in an industry that is slow to change it's business model, CDbaby continues to grow and remain in the black year after year. CDbaby is the benchmark for all record companies.
Peace my brother,
J.T.
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Their wording made it sound a little strange or sneaky, but it was well-intentioned.
There's an old adage about good intentions paving the road to hell.
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Yay! A full and honest explaination! That's what I've come to expect
from CDBaby, and I appreciate it.
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Good job Mr D you rock dude. Keep n em at bay who needs em any how.
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thanks derrick i was just having issues with the two together and i just started
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"A Human and His Stds" commends you! It was a very good descision to cut out the Snocap contract, we are happy that you guys were able to find an alternative. It means alot that someone out there is looking out for the little man!
Kudos!
A Human
www.myspace.com/AHumanandHisStds
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Hey guys, I have some news I logged into my account w/ Snocap account on Sunday to find that we had been selling downloads at 4500 per month since March 07 we are selling through our page myspace/ovatronicscorp so it does work.
I always thought it was weird it never showed any dollar amounts before so this lets me know they were trying to withold information from us. Something told me to print out the information before I contacted them which I did. I was finally able to contact them , its funny because now my Revenue is set back to zero and it shows no record of the before mentioned information.
I will be taking up legal action really soon, If I do not get a response from them. So I'm sure there are a lot of us who have unpaid funds with Snocap. I think I was not suppose to see this information, I think they were in the transistion period because I now have total control over the account after my numerous calls to them yesterday.
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Hey Folks,
A quick update on the SNOCAP front (I work at SNOCAP): We are presently sending out messaging to the thousands of artists who are converting to a direct relationship with SNOCAP.
And again, I see that many of you are saying that you haven't heard back from SNOCAP's support team. Since we have multiple e-mail addresses on our site, we ask that you send any inquiries to support@snocap.com. I assure you that we're doing everything we can to reply to you all in a timely manner.
We look forward to working with many of you....
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Don't worry, Derek... you're the man!!!!!!!!!!!
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who the hell is snocap??
youguys are doing great; keep a handle on things, and we all
win. derek, you had the right ideas from the get-go. Keep your
instincts sharp and your head clear. your company is the best
that i've seen so far for this type of distribution.
so who the hell gives a damn about a company called snocap?
they aren't even smart enough to choose a decent name...
CDbay rocks my world...
peace
LC
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Snocap is the worst i have ever seen at paying the artist!! I have emailed and emailed them and recieved one payment for one month in 8 months of sales. I can see how many sales i have... just no payments being made to me.
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Reputation goes a long way in this industry and in my modest opinion, SNOCAP can take their 21 step procedure, yearly fee, and all their hassles elsewhere while I tell all my friends to buy CD's or downloads here at CD Baby. Can you make MP3 banners for CD baby too? I'll post them everywhere I've got sites.
Thanks for everything Derek and staff.
www.myspace.com/kellypettit
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I agree. I've been sending people to CDBaby and iTunes mostly,
but I still want a widget store for MySpace and on my site, too...
so:
I've been over at SoundLoud.com, and there's no annual or
signup fee, and their cut is small - like really competitive with
what we all get from iTunes and all that.
They take credit cards right on their widget stores, which can be
embedded on any website.
I was able to get the entire catalog I manage uploaded over a
couple of days (11 albums) almost entirely at 320kBps. (There is
a 25 MB per track limit.)
So far, so good.
And no, I don't work for them. :) I heard about them in this
thread, actually.
In the end, even thought SoundLoud might work out, I'm a loyal
CDBaby'er!
Continual kudos to Derek & everyone.
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You said we could copy and paste our songs into myspace from greatindiemusic...but exactly how do we do that?..I can't seem to find the right buttons to push to make it happen...thanks...
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Find your albums on greatindie - they supply some html that you
can cut and paste.
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...You did good Derek...
Although I never sold anything with SNOCAP... I feel like they robbed me of something.
Time, perhaps? lol
---DTown
DK ALL DAY
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| by
on Wednesday October 24 2007 @ 08:08PM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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Should have seen it sooner!
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Oops...I mean I'm glad it worked out o.k.
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| by
on Thursday October 25 2007 @ 12:03AM PDT [ reply | parent ] |
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Has anyone else received the latest promotion from SNOCAP - how
pathetic and desperate are they? Derek - can you send an email to
SnoCap to ask them to stay away from CD Baby artists. I makes me
sick when they refer to me as a SNOCAP Artist....Fwek them!
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Derek,
I have my doubts you will see this sense a thousand people have
written you on this topic, but just for the record I just want to say
that you have handled this all incredibly well. I would like to put in
a special mention for one of your emplyees, Kristin, who was
indispensable in helping me through the myriad of disasters that
was "Snocap".
You have an miraculous company and I am honored to be in there
somewhere in the mix. Thanks for all of your help.
Bob Long (the jazz pianist-you have two Bob Longs)
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Strange days..
My Snocap player has dissapeared from my myspace page without warning.
What the F%@# !
DC Pryor
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Thanks for all your feed back.
Nearly made that mistake.
Not now.
Cheers
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Snocap has some of the worst functionality I've ever dealt with in my life. I had countless problems with them when I opened an account, so I closed it in less than a month. But I'm grateful for CD Baby.
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I must be out of the loop because the only reason I found this posting, was because I noticed my snocap was missing my myspace. So I figured this would be the place to look. Thanks for keeping us posted Derek - was there an email that I missed regarding this?
miike/dB3
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I don't remember getting an email about this either. I had just emailed Snocap to find out why my store said "unavailable". Guess this answers the question.
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Due to global warming, Snocap will probably be history soon anyway. Actually, I never even understood who they were or why they were so important...so good riddance!
*************************
Gerry Aire is EverywhAire
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Hey Derek,
You did the right thing. I have always loved being a CD BABY artists. I myself have tried to set up a simple account with Snocap, it is a nightmare. Now I read that they will be charing 30 dollars a year after the first year.
Like you said, I saw few sales if any through Snocap, all other stores, itunes etc... take an average cut,
I am happy CD baby is out...it is exciting though to read about this magical mp3 download button.
Very cool.
I love supporting not only your concept, but your pure strong spirit. If you also sell MP3s then hey all traffic over to CDBABY! And by the way, you have a wonderful staff.
Kara
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WOW....
I can't believe how much my instincts protect me. I've waited
months to get the time to put SNOCAP up and when I got to my
page, someone ELSE'S SNOCAP store was on my page! (I share
my first name with a very popular singer from Spain 'Camela').
AND I hadn't set anything up yet.
Thanks to this thread I was able to go into my myspace page
and disable the store selling her music!
I was trying to figure out what was going on, and I'm so grateful
for the integrity, honesty and good will that CDBaby is
representing. Mistakes are mistakes and I have so much more
trust and respect for Dereck and crew to be dealing nobly with
this, no need to create anymore negativity.
I wish you all the best and grateful for all that CDBaby does and
all that indie artsist do to contriute to a thriving culture of art.
http://www.CamelaK.com
http://www.myspace.com/folkrockcamela
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Ciao Derek,
I want to say that you really did the right thing and I always wanted you to challenge with them. I have always loved being a CD BABY artists and I will always be.
I tried to set up my Snocap account, but had no fortune and it is still a nightmare to me too.
They will be charing $30,00 per year after the first year given for free as they say, and this is unfair as they get money from sales too.
As you mentioned, I saw no sales through Snocap, even if had no chances to set up the account properly 'cose the next few days coming they cut the agreement with CD Baby.
I appreciate that CD baby now is out... it is cool to know about this usefull mp3 download button available on site.
I support your decision as reading it throught your post and I see a good challenge in that mp3 button available for download directly from site.
If I may suggest you should try to set, embed, emulate an artist mp3 player to be posted to sites and sell throught to it.
I wish you all the best.
Regards Peace Love & Respect
from Sicily
Paolo
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Derek, any sage advice on the best myspace storefront to use in place of snocap? Would it make sense for CD Baby to provide one directly?
Thanks.
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...put a link to your iTunes music instead. Myspace was so arrogant when launching the SNOCAP deal. The major digital sales action is on iTunes right now, thats were indie musicians should be putting their energy.
I think eventually the Zune marketplace will be worth the effort, but not now (especially since Musicnet (their aggregator) stopped accepting indie submissions)
don't get tricked into "supporting" all these "web stores" that don't know how the hell to sell music to fans to begin with. iTunes has figured it out...put the energy there.
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None of these "stores" sells your music.. only YOU as the artist can sell your music. These are all services. I recently heard i-tunes started taking 60% of the sale from indie artists.. hmmm. that isnt so artist friendly, is it?
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> I recently heard iTunes started taking 60% of the sale from indie artists
No no no. Not at all true. iTunes pays the distributor 70 cents for each 99 cent download, even for indie artists.
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Hi Derek,
You mentioned that iTunes pays the distributor 70 cents. Who exactly is the distributor in a CdBaby artist's case?
Also, it would awesome if each outlet's % were stated in the List of Digital Music Services in the CdBaby artist accounts.
keep up the great work,
William
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Derek,
Thanks for your transparency. You allow us to learn from your mistakes. It means a lot.
Doreen
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Thanks a ton for letting us all know about CD Baby's dealings with Snocap. I (and I assume the rest of the artists here) truly appreciate your honesty and openness and can definitely learn a lot from the attempted partnership.
Thanks again
Robbie
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Everyone I know that had any dealings with them calls them SNOCRAP.
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These guys are scam artists. I proved their accounting was false by buying songs of my own that were never reported (to test them, on a hunch). They are going down but they've stolen who knows how much from artists. Karma is a bitch.
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If that's true, that they are hiding sales, then there's a class-action suit that needs to happen!
Derek, you say we're in more transparent times - well, this window maybe needs some cleaning!
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Hi Derek, I'm a brand new CD Baby and it's comforting to know that Papa is watching out for us. Thanks!
Melany
KidstuffByMelany
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Hello Derek and readers,
I had Snocap via CDBaby. I decided that when Derek severed
ties with Snocap that I would do nothing and let it disappear. Of
course it didn't disappear and I had to turn the store off within
myspace. Couldn't access through Snocap. Since I didn't sign
up with Snocap does this mean I am free and clear? I'm a little
paranoid after reading all the preceding comments. Any
thoughts?
Billy Carl Mancini
BIRD MANCINI
www.birdmancini.com
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Don't take anything for granted. Contact SnoCap and require them to cancel your account and delete all intellectual property belonging to you. Simply turning off the store on MySpace doesn't assure you of anything other than that store not being visible on your MySpace page.
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Derek,
Having been on board CDBaby for some time now, I trust your judgement and you guys at CD Baby have been just fabulous to be connected with. So, I think you did the best thing and appreciate you not only looking out for your bottom line - but looking out for us (the artists with CD Baby) also.
Kameron J.
KJV Presents
KJVPresents.com
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Derek,
I'm glad you could resolve this situation. I originally signed up with CD Baby while living in Portland, Oregon. I now live in Virginia and am still recording and publishing. I never appreciate people that take, take, take from the goodwill of the music community tryin to gold dig and never really catch on that it's good to make money but throwing a bucket of water on the warm goodwill of your partners and customers is never good for biz. Thanks for all you do for us!
Acoustic Randall
http://www.randallsmusic.com
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Acoustic is my name, whoops I misspelt. Liberal Arts guy here...
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| by LQ
on Tuesday November 06 2007 @ 12:42PM PST [ reply | parent ] |
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IM SORTA CLUELESS ON HOW TO ACTUALLY CONNECT MY CDBABY SONGS ONTO MY SNOCAP STORE ON MY MYSPACE PAGE....SOMEONE CONTACT ME PLEEEEEEASE
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You can't anymore. CD Baby is not affiliated with Snocap anymore.
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| by
on Tuesday November 06 2007 @ 08:27PM PST [ reply | parent ] |
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We use blastmymusic.com to sell digital downloads on MySpace
and other places. Simple and good to use.
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I am so glad we waited to see how it all fell into place. Thanks for all the research.
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| by
on Thursday November 08 2007 @ 07:19PM PST [ reply | parent ] |
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I am SO glad I didn't put my music on Snocap. I was suspicious from the beginning especially since Myspace breaks the law and doesn't pay the artists, so I didn't dare trust something they were pushing.
It's people like them who make this world a miserable place.
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I couldn't be more happy with both decisions.
Snocap was nothing but a complete nightmare to
deal with. I repeatedly emailed them for help
over months and never got so much as one reply.
Of course every time I did get an auto responder
but never a real follow-up by an actual person.
When they split I removed the player off of
myspace. I've noticed tons of mp3 downloads now
and too bad that wasn't done a long time ago, eh?
I am just glad Snocap went along their merry way
and they are no longer affiliated with CD Baby
in anyway.
Snocap will never be a family like CD Baby is.
They don't have the good hearts, great minds and
Scocap lacks the most important thing of all..
the soul to be an amazing company like CD Baby is.
Thanks for trying Derek. Your efforts are really
appreciated. For all the brilliant things you've
done, there is bound to be some parasite to
eventually try to suck some blood from you and us.
I'm just glad it's all said and done and I will
NEVER associate with Snocap again.
LONG LIVE CD BABY~!!
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I never even got more than one out of ten autoresponder
responses. It was only after I threatened having my lawyer start
contacting them that I got a human.
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Dear Derek,
I am happy to say that your company is the most courteous, friendliest and most helpful people to deal with. The services that you perform for artist and musicians are a testament to how people should be treating other throughout the whole world. I hope that more people would learn from your example and follow your lead in making this world a better place for everyone and future generations.
Thank You All so much for your tremendous contributions to musicians especially and to all people in general.
Much love and peace always,
Ishmael
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Thank you:CD BABY, PEACE AND LOVE TO YOU ALL."CD BABY
ROCKS" www.JamesHenryMusic.com
PS.Thank you for being there............CD BABY" NO Worrys ,NO
Goonie Berries.,Only Sweet Berries, PEACE*
.
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Thanks, Derek, for explaining this. I was a little confused, but as usual you're already ahead of the game with a full detailed update. That transparency, more than anything else, I appreciate.
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Hi Derek, I thank you for trying, was a cool system while it was up and running through CDbaby , at least for me but seemingly not at all for you. I have not gone onto the Snocap site yet to set up my account, maybe I should do that. But... is there a chance that CDbaby would set up a simular system, where I can have a mp3 shop on my own website that is managed through my CDbaby account? Just a thought, seeing as you have it on the CDbaby site, maybe you could make a stand-alone shop window??
Thanks for all the great help over the years, I tell all my musician friends that if the release an indie CD they would be stupid not to put it on CDbaby. Lots of Love, Lionel.
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HEY DEREK, I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT I TOLD SNOCAP TO JAM IT AS SOON AS I SAW WHAT THEY WERE TRYING TO DO BY CUTTING CD BABY OUT AND WANTING TO DEAL WITH THE ARTIST DIRECTLY. I WANT CD BABY TO GET THEIR SHARE FOR DOING WHAT THEY DO FOR ME AS AN ARTIST. WHY WOULD I WANT TO KEEP UP WITH ANOTHER ACCOUNT WHEN CD BABY KEEPS PERFECT RECORDS OF SALES FOR ME? I WOULDN'T BE IN NEAR AS MANY DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION STORES WITHOUT YOUR HELP. YOU MAKE THE DEAL AND GET THE MUSIC TO THE STORES I THINK YOU SHOULD GET YOUR SHARE.
WELL I COULD GO ON AND ON BUT I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I'M WITH YOU AND THANKS FOR ALL THAT YOU DO FOR US INDEPENDENT ARTISTS.
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Hi Derek, THanks TONS for having teh courage to withdraw at what ever stakes.
It doesn't sound liek it was easy but I support you in what you did.
I began to get very nervous over that deal and withdrew all myu digital distribution off line via anyone..
I was reayd to just go and build my own distributino store whatever it took because I was soo frustrated with what I saw going on and the direction things were headed..
BUT I am an artist. not a distributor and you are much better at distribution than I am..
and O was very glad to hear that you started your own online distribution.
wil explore y account to see how I can sign up for only CDBABY.com online disitrbution
I even with drew all mny music from itunes.. and most artist would call me a fool fore doing that. but something just doesn't feel right there.. and after they pulled away all search terms and took away their stance on how alllll artists have a 9.99 cap on albums.. and instead gave major artists free riegn to charge 14.99 and up... I was disgusted with them..
I don't play like that. they told us at teh start they wanted every artist's business and that majors and indies got the same deal.. I'm glad to see you're getting wiser Derek...not tht you were dumb to being with but we all gotta learn and awaken and I"m grateful to see that in you..
that means I get to keep working with you and I have hope to get back to pushing my music via you. now that i don' have to focus on building my own distribution site anymore LOL!
Thansk
a very grateful artist...
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er.. that second line should read..
It sounds like it WASN"T easy.....
too many typos.. in a rush to get out the door.,.
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BTW>..
how do I sign up only for CDBABY.com digtial distribution?
I checked my pages and I couldn't find a link..
is it just a matter of time?
I also checked the "you should sign this album up for digital disitribution" link but it looked like it was for everything....
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Thanks Derek, for the clarity. As always whenever I read something
you have written. I feel like I am dealing with a decent company,
trying to do the best possible job for everyone and not out to screw
anyone. Thanks for that,
All the best,
Jane
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Snocap sucks. CD Baby is as high quality a company as it gets.
They don't belong together...
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Wow...we are touring jazz musicans, also running a record label as well as producing recordings for oursleves and others. Of course we switched to Snocap as we had no other choice for our digital dist but we were under the impression that this switch was for MY Space only. Since we switched we have not received one payment from Snocap for digital sales and nothing from CD Baby. We were totally unaware that your entire digital dist was being taken over by Snocap. We've had nothing but huge headaches with Snocap. I think we're pulling down our MY Space store. I am assuming that this means that anyone who digitally downloads from CD Baby is actually using Snocap?
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No, CDBaby didn't get taken over by SnoCap. They partnered
with them to act as a conduit for CDBaby artists to get onto
SnoCap, nothing more. SnoCap has nothing to do with CDBaby
downloads, or now, with CDBaby in any way.
SnoCap has gotten a (likey accurate and justified) reputation for
not paying.
CDBaby are the opposite - they pay accurately and religiously.
And as soon as a third party (iTunes, etc) reports to them that
you sold something, CDBaby tells you.
You always had other choices other than SnoCap for digital
distro, and CDBaby has been and still is an excellent aggregator/
manager for them.
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> anyone who digitally downloads from CD Baby is actually using Snocap?
No no. Not at all. CD Baby has no affiliation with Snocap in any way whatsoever. That's what this article, above, was about. How and why we cancelled our affiliation with them.
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Sorry Derek, I didn't put enough emphasis on the past-tense of
"partnered" in that post. As in, formerly, no longer, ex, over and
done, etc. Past tense. Relationship over. Thankfully. ;)
Your loyal CD Baby member,
Me. :)
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Derek,
I just read this Sno-Cap thing, holy crap! Just wanted to say that, as in the post above, I really appreciate your honesty and transparency as he/she so succinctly put it, and I love reading your stuff! Please DON'T run for office as this would take you away from cdbaby though! BTW I do notice that, on another MySpace page that I administer, SNO-CAP's store just showed up, unasked-for, on his page--and it was the wrong artist! Seemed a bit, I dunno, underhanded to me. And it took me a while to undo what they had done.
AmyG
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Thanks for cutting them loose.
Lou
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Derek,
I wish that CD BABY had it's own portable store that let the artist choose the order of songs, autoplay or not, 30 seconds or the entire stream and the ability to promote another CD BABY artist as well. I can't speak for everyone but I get tired of trying to protect my songs only to find some yo yo has published to Google my cd with a different UPC number other than the one given to me by CD BABY. I think the promotion of another artist would be beneficial to everyone as well. I would like the ability to put the player in many top sites. Maybe in the future? Derek, you handled Snocap like the Pro that you are. I'm proud to be affiliated with you. Warm Regards, Tim Sharpton
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Right on, Derek. SnoCap was a thorn in our side. Good riddance.
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You did the right thing for artists. BRAVO!!!!!!!!!
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Derek Congratulations on your decision! Once again you have shown us that you are a man of high integrity, character, keen business sense and ever cool! I had suggested in a reply months ago that Snocap negotiations should come to a halt. Later on I thought that with MySpace making it so easy, however, that I'd give it a try. I even had my lawyer review the contract which he said wasn't a bad one. Ijust recently signed up but never uploaded my tunes. Something inside me kept saying wait...wait. I should have checked here first. I'm going to cancel my account and try the other widget sites mentioned here. Glad to know about the MP3 thing and I sincerely hope that CD Baby also creates a store that we can add to our sites. You are brilliant Derek...we KNOW you can do it! Thank you so much for all you have done and will do.
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That sounded like a disaster to me as well.
I think you should now offer a player - which is much more intelligent than the one snocap offers.
It should be completely cusomizable, with the ability to offer several artists individual players, all from 1 account.
I'll offer my programming expertise as well!
Let's make this happen.
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I never chose to deal with snocap I want yall guys to keep on keepin on CDBABY IS THE BEST AND DEREK KEEP YOUR HEAD UP AND CONTINUE TO RUN THIS BUNISESS WITHOUT snocap
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Anything we can do to help make the "at any cost" less painful? I would love to do whatever I can because I am soo grateful you got away from that ...
THanks you!
BTW when are you going to be back in teh midwest again?
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They should change snocaps name to icecap, since they are so cold. Who needs snocap when there is CD Baby? David
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I trust Derek... and when time comes that we in the "spoken word", meditation, and other single track CD creators, can get a good deal on digital download... I am with CDBABY all the way.
Dr G
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I ditched Snocap on myspace. I wanted to replace it with an iTunes "Buy" button, but can't figure out how to do that. I'm techno-feeble. Anyone know how to code that in? Thanks!
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Derek,
I am still concerned that from July through end October no sales at all have showed through Snocap/MySpace and CDBaby. I know there must have been sales because we were getting so many hits during that period. In June (which was before we were getting all the hits) we sold $131 through Snocap/MySpace and CDBaby.
Is there anyway you can audit them for sales during the CDBaby/Snocap relationship.
Also how do we totally sever the relationship with Snocap. Even though I took the store down from MySpace when you split with them and I can no longer sign in to Snocap through the CDBaby account, when I do a search I find our CD's listed in Snocap with an unavailable next to them:
http://www.snocap.com/stores/?artist=jessy+moss&title=&x=30&y=7
How do I get any association out of Snocap, can CDBaby please make sure everything is totally cancelled with them.
I have emailed them many times but they do not respond.
Thank you for your wonderful business. You have done so much for artists and we are eternally grateful.
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great we agree !!!now how do i get snocrap off myspace!! please advise!!!Bluejean
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You have to turn the mystore off in settings in your myspace page
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Thank God! That thing was a headache.
And thank you Derek.
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Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
Look Derek the next time you make a decision like the one you made with spoffcap the best source to come to is your clients and you my ask why and i will tell you. because we are the ones who are looking out for our interest and we found in your company that we as artist have our freedom in your company ,which means in order for us to feel free most of us have done our research on contract and have delt with spoffcap before also you have lawyers and people who study this music business daily there are somethings you my not be aware of that others on cd baby my have awareness off.It is like a doctor the doctor has to go to all types of classes through out his or her time of being a doctor to find out what is new out there as well find out what type of diseases has come up to keep up, when things they never delt with faces them so they know how to handle it later.
this is from your client Johnnie Livingston. PS I also believe that your clients can be of help if you look at it you a lot of people here who can help your company for free and I am one
I work work for a fortune 500 company I am also a manager and I manage about 280 people along with other managers and how we learn more about our company is through the clients we service to become better at what we do .
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hi Johnnie -
Thanks for the feedback.
We did go to our clients to ask what they wanted, and that's a big part of the reason we did what we did.
We take about 1500 emails and 1000 calls a day(!) from our clients. We definitely listen to what they want.
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Dear Mr. Livingston,
I am also a CD Baby client and I want to respond to your post.
Since you are a manager at a Fortune 500 company, you obviously know the importance of good communication skills. Based on what I just read by you, it seems you are in need of an editor/proofreader for your correspondence, so I would like to offer my services. I work from home as a proofer and editor, on a freelance basis, and my rates are low. Please contact me if you are interested.
Sincerely,
Blake Guthrie
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punctuation would be a start! :\
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In my humble opinion:
I'm sorry people... but you guys should have had your heads examined for even speaking with
Shawn Fu##ing "Free the music" Fannning of Snooocrap and NAAPSTER fame. I remember reading he was trying to "help" the musician... by helping himself to their wallet/royalties... just do a google search and find out what BS he was up to with the early Naappster that he founded and the lawsuits against him. I support RIAA going after him. Derek, that should have been YOUR first clue. There are plenty of articles(mostly negative) about him(and his technical and legal staff) during the time of the record label lawsuits against Crapster.
As for "Chris" (from Snoocrap???) stating that they were going through a learning curve... I say
F$$k him. They had an experienced team(from when they ran Crapster). This is not hard stuff to do,
especially for decent software programmers. Can I say GREED?
AS primarily a film maker/director(I minored in music), the following has me concerned:
""""by GrooveConnection on Thursday October 25 2007 @ 11:20AM PDT [ reply | parent ]
Well I am relieved to read about this in this forum and I hate to add one additional concern whoever signed with SnoCap:
One of their clauses says:
they're allowed to:"..Reproduce and publicly perform any Composition embodied in a Digital Master derived from your Content (including any and all "server" or "ephemeral" copies), it being understood and agreed that we will not be obligated to account and pay mechanical royalties to you, all such sums being included in the wholesale price set by you"
What prevents them to use this huge database to siphon off the underlying ("embodied") compositions, make them available to a third party who likes your song and records it with their band/ artist..., they could even collect a fee for that.... and you (the composer) sees nada....
or did I misunderstand that totally??
The "embodied" compositions clause mentioned above raises a huge red flag to me. As does the credit card info for address verification. BS. They can find other ways to verify an address. """"""""
As as primarily a film maker, musician's need to make sure they understand their rights... especially "synchronization and performing" rights. You can make some decent change if a major film or TV show picks up on one of your tracks and uses it. So yeah, I would be concerned about the embodied compositions clause.
Free the music my ass. Hey, I pay good money to people that build my equipment... guitars... amps... software... blah blah blah.
Just as I compensate those designers and techs that build my guitars and amps and recording gear,
so do I need to get compensated for the music that I create. If you didn't like my music, you(the so called music supporter) wouldn't be trying to use software to rip it from the "cache temp file".
Or an example of another download scam:
People trying to convince me to place my music on site's that offer ""all of the downloads you can handle for one low monthly fee!!!"" How am I going to make money off that. Oh sure, the people that run the website use the lure of low price downloads so they can bring in potential web customers and expose them to advertising from
Goooogle and others... sort of similar to how MySpaace makes money. I, the artist, don't see squat in revenue.
Now what I've been reading on the web is that "Peer to Peer" file sharing companies, and others,
are trying to convince YOU THE ARTIST, that you shouldn't really be too concerned about making money from your recorded music... use it(free or pirated downloads)as a method of advertising for your live gigs.
To that I say F##k them too. Artists were making
money before the so called "Digital Revolution"... even if you didn't tour. I choose not to tour.
No one is paying my bills but me. I don't want or need a computer software programmer trying to tell me I need to give my music away to promote myself.
If you want to give away your music ... that's fine. Only YOU know what your music is worth.
I have no problems with that. BUT, keep in mind
the copyright laws were designed to protect the
artist, writer, painter, film maker etc.
Compared to some of the music download sites... the major record companies are angels.
Look, I'll provide you(the customer) with a 30 second sample of my music and you decide if you want to buy or not. Simple.
How about creating a player that I can copy and paste on my MySpace, Facebook, my website, etc. I do not want to "hook up" with a bunch of different
"aggrigators" and have to try to track them all.
Also, to all the artist's on CD Baby and on other
labels... I would check the fine print of some o the other music download sites to see if they are affiliated with Snoocrap. You might be surprised... and not in a good way.
CDBaby should be talking to the folks at MySpaace... Faace Book... all of the social networking sites, about getting their player onboard and taking a REASONABLE percentage from the artist. The keyword is REASONABLE... despite
what others say... iTUNES is good... but I don't want them to have a monopoly. There is plenty of software available that can create files acceptable to the iPod.
A halfway decent programmer can incorporate that into a player. GET PRO ACTIVE
To do a decent player, you need to have computer firepower from a hosting service. I know CDBaby offers hosting... but something like streaming to a player and tracking downloads and charges may require the services of a big time hosting company like GoDaddy. They have the programmers and technical support staff to do it right AND cost effectively. Just a thought.
Anyhowz, thank you for letting me get my opinion's out.
Have a great holiday season.
Marc
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Wow, it's comforting to read your words and know that others
feel as I do. That society has definitely gotten waaaay out of line
in how they view the value of music. It's epidemic, and a whole
generation is growing up with this as "normal" - which is really
scary.
Rest assured, though, that SnoCap tries to actually license out
so-called server" or "ephemeral" works, they'll get their asses
handed to them by some legal team somewhere. I *dare* them
to try it with my stuff (which, sadly, probably still exists on their
servers as "ephemeral" files - ma, I wish I nnver got involved
with them, but I certainly don't blame CDBaby.) I know with
confidence that I'd win a case. Those online rights agreements
don't hold much water - especially when an intermediary
delivered the music to them, circumventing any reasonable
opportunity for me to have to read read their terms first.
And if their legal department is worth anything, they've already
advised them not to go there.
My guess is that clause is to allow them to use their fingerprint
identifiers, derivative data from the original works, in
perpetuity. Even thatI say "screw you" to, although I know that
would be harder to fight, as it's not the actual songs themselves,
but derivative data... what a mess though. :(
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I have been on CD Baby for some years now, and all I can say is how much I appreciate the way you guys truly respect the artists you're working with. Rarely do I have the impression that we are treated as partners, not cattle, by the people we're dealing with, especially on the web.
I'm trying to make my (now inactive) snocap store disappear from my myspace page, but neither myspace nor snocap seem to notice I send them mail...
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I respect what you have done for the industry and for Portland, Derek, but you lose *a lot* of credibility saying that you were able to simple replicate the technology, that elsewhere you were spending thousands of dollars and months of time and creating annoyances for your client.
Why, oh why, in any good business decision's name would you ever pursue something that you could do yourself and for less cost? I mean, that's the whole gist of CDBaby is it not; cutting out the middle men?
I'm very sad to read your post, not that I am in any way a fan of Snowcap -at all-, but you really lose business credibility with your short sighted business decisions.
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> why pursue something that you could do yourself and for less cost?
At the time that SNOCAP launched, it looked like they might be the biggest thing to ever happen to online sales of independent music.
Yes I can do what iTunes does for "less cost", but that doesn't mean I shouldn't help get my clients into that outlet, if I can.
If it's a popular place that people are buying music, it's my responsibility to help my clients get their music there.
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I keep harping back to the same thing BUT
I would like you to know that on the day I swapped from Snocap through CDBaby to Payplay through CDBaby on My Space I have recorded sales.
Something is not right with Snocaps recording of sales. No sales have been shown from July through October.
For CDBaby's income as well as the artists some serious auditing needs to be undertaken on Snocap.
Please can someone start investigating the sales through Snocap.
I personally can't do anything, no lawyers, no responses from SNOCAP, just eternal frustration.
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The head of digital accounting at CD Baby is Christine Barnum at cbarnum@cdbaby.com
Email her any SPECIFICS, so she can audit.
(Such as "PayPal Transaction ID#19283476 on August 14, 2007 purchased the following 4 songs from our MySpace URL at ___ for a total price of $3.96, and here is the receipt.")
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I almost forgot...
Besides the social networking sites,
it would be a good thing to communicate with
the various cell phone networks. Due to the increasing popularity of many of the phones that
can play MP3's, PAID downloads are increasing for that market.
Indie's need to make inroads in that area.
Thank you to Derek for allowing me to post my rants. --LOL--
Marc
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Thanks Derek for adding the MP3 downloads. I have sold songs, even after my inventory was depleted. Keep doing everything you are doing!
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Cdbaby and all its artists and labels are the new MAJORS - We're in there with you all the way! Best Regards John A Williamson Conjur Root Records all within Cdbaby!! Ya Cdbaby!!
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I have decided to stop writing music.
What's the point!
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Oh man, don't stop writing, just get the hell out of this scientology-esque pit known as CDbaby. I forgot how depressing and delusional these post boards were! Derek Sivers is a very clever Donald Trump in Kelly Groucutt's clothing(bass player for ELO, look it up, they have the same hair do). Here on the posts CDbaby artists are referred to as 'clients'; when pitching CDbaby elsewhere Derek talks about 'paying' out X amount millions of dollars to the artists. Since when does anyone 'pay their clients'? The clients pay. And someone gets a cut.
Derek is making so much money from the brokering of CDbaby artists music, that he abandoned his own 'love' of creating music and now doesn't even work for the company anymore. Oh, but of course it's giving him more time to just help the artists in 'new ways'. Hoover makes a good vacuum cleaner, but I don't think you're going to get random e-mails from them telling you how much they love you and what wonderful things they are doing for you, just 'cause they thought you should know. Derek is shrewd and knows how to push the buttons of artists and wannabe artists to the point of gaining their confidence and a portion of their money. And let me guess, most people think that Derek is so rad that it's OK if HE gets a cut. That's where these forums get a little wird and cultish for me personally.
This is called "the moat". The stinky watery area between the 'castle' and the commoners. Most musicians won't make it to the castle(unfortunate in many ways but true), but that doesn't mean there isn't someone willing to make a profit off of their trying to. Just do something for musician's that they're too lazy or unfocused to do for themselves then get them to worship you for making them feel like rock stars. Very clever.
Of course I hesitate to even contribute here, as this post board is way too slanted, but hey, that's my opinion. It excited/scared me, so I did it.
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correction - "weird & cultish".
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I didn't signed for Snocap, but was observing. I receive a message from Snocap about the rupture with CDBaby. Once you know and do business with CDBaby (even at a small scale like me), and suddenly somebody send you a message about "no longer being in a relationship with CDBaby", you know something big happened. Sorry for the lost of money, but all the above messages not only tells you the obvious message "you did the right thing"; they are also saying how big and important is CDBaby to music and musicians today. There is an even bigger message - the real value of honesty, integrity and transparency. The lost money? It will come back...
Thanks Derek. You have friends all over the world.
Browsing through the messages, it seems to me Derek and CDBaby were dealing with people who, at least, were trying to be clear. But the legal aspect behind Snocap, which is fundamental nowadays in the music industry, doesn't seems right. It sounds like: 1) Snocap has been misinformed (or, who knows, deceived) by their legal advisors; or 2) Snocap is not telling the full story .
Anyway, music first! I am glad things are back to normal now.
What happened to the 6 new full-time customer service people you had to hired?
Regards;
EJVargas
http://www.sonidosytiempo.org
http://cdbaby.com/all/sonidosytiempo
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Thanks Derek..I really appreciate CD Baby. I pray that this company expand rapidly.It's great to have such a helpful tool as this to help people like myself reach the masses.I see great things to come..Lord Bless.One LOVE One GOD One WAY>>>>>>>>>>>>.
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thank you derek and cdbaby for your honesty.. thank you for your hard work.. your hearts are in the right place, and your work ethics should be a good example to everybody..
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I'm an artist from Australia, Derek, I cant even send SNOCAP an inquiry because on their inquiry form it dosnt recognise Australian states.
Any Ideas ??
Cheers,
Jason Kemp
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like a true INDY..good for u.
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Well I have come across two of the most fuck up shit,excuse me
but that snocap and a label call pinch hit,They are some crazy ass
trying pirate your music smartly by having you agreeing with
it,Seems like most Artist just don't read the fine prints, I am a
CDBABY man, that all, PS do not put your songs in SNOCAP
DATA BASE if you did kiss your ass good bye oh your songs I
mean.
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check out this link, regarding snocap's likely-soon bankruptcy: ??
slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/15/037234
it's a geek site so not a super hot topic, but worth mentioning.
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