CD
Baby's Digital Download Sales Program
CD Baby has been
selling and distributing CDs for independent artists since 1998, and
has paid over $4 million to artists. They already encode every CD
that comes in their door. They already have all the information about
every CD. They are already paying artists every week. All that's added
is delivering your audio files to the music services, then taking
the incoming payment reports to adding it to your next weekly payment.
Legal Permission
• You keep all the rights to your music. You just lend
CD Baby the right to be your digital distributor, to get
your music to legitimate music services like the new Napster, Listen.com,
and more.
• To give CD Baby legal permission to distribute your music,
you must own or control the copyright for the sound recordings and
musical compositions.
• If you didn't write the music yourself, that's OK, but you
must get permission, and pay the publishers their
mechanical royalties.
It's Exclusive
• There can't be more than one distributor bringing the same
music to the same store, so CD Baby has to be the exclusive distributor
of your digital music to these services (only) during
the contract period. You can still sell your music on DigStation.
• You can cancel your contract at any time - with 30 days' notice.
How It Works
• You sign CD Baby’s agreement, giving them the right
to distribute digital copies of your music to legitimate paying music
services. Examples of "music services" include the new Napster,
Listen.com’s Rhapsody, Emusic, and many more to come!
• CD Baby pays you 91% of whatever the music services pay CD
Baby for the use of your music.
(Note that these services are not required to carry your music if
they don't want to. CD Baby will submit it for their consideration,
but they always have final right of refusal.)
• Once you sign CD Baby’s agreement, they will make a
perfect digital copy of your CD and store it in a safe place in their
office (NOT online!) for future processing.
• CD Baby will process it to the needs of each music service.
Each service has their own requirements – some including mailing
the storage media to them.
• The music services pay CD Baby and deliver a detailed electronic
report of all activity.
• CD Baby gives you full detailed reports of all activity and
pass ALL information they receive on your music through to you.
• CD Baby adds 91% of whatever amount was generated from your
music on to your next CD Baby payment, keeping only a 9% cut for their
administrative work.
• Payments go out through their existing every-Monday-night
CD Baby payments (whether by check, electronic funds transfer, or
however you wanted to be paid).
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