iTunes debuted several years ago, and I continue to be impressed with the simplicity and superiority of Apple’s value chain for music–from the iPod to the Mac/PC all the way up to the store itself. Not so much for video delivery, but that’s a subject for another Sunday. The point is, iPod and iTunes accomplished a far-sighted vision incubated by Jobs and immediately lampooned by lots of naysayers. Of course, Jobs had the last laugh.
But while the last laugh he may’ve had, the last frontier for iTunes isn’t music, and it certainly isn’t merely video. It’s GOT TO BE community-generated content. Look at YouTube. They’ve taken the medium and empowered a collective of independent, usually amateur, video producers by giving an outlet for their art, for their skull-cracking skateboard accidents, and sometimes, for their influence. Isn’t that the heart of Web 2.0?
Steve Jobs’ recent comments dissing Digital Rights Management as a repressor of the greater media industry got me thinking: What would iTunes be like if it were given the 2.0 treatment? Here are my ideas for ya Steve, free of charge:
1. Allow anyone–ANYONE–to submit music to the iTunes site. Then, allow these independent producers to create communities around that music. Free and open user ratings and reviews of the content, just like the commercial stuff that’s in the iTunes Store. The good stuff will be rewarded and bubble to the top, while the crap will languish at the bottom of the bit barrel, just as it should be.
2. Empower Mac users to create superior content–it bolsters the growth of the platform in way that shoddy .Mac cannot. In other words, give Logic Express and GarageBand features which allow pain-free submission of user-generated music by indy producers. Take your cues from MacJams.com, but make it look Apple-pretty and make it stupidly easy for all us musical blockheads.
3. Share revenue with independent producers who submit music–they’re a lot less likely than Warner Bros. or Arista Records to squeeze you for 94% of the revenue generated, or whatever you’re paying now. Paying indy producers for content sold accomplishes three things–(a) it rewards and encourages the community while increasing the influence of Apple in the musical entertainment space (b) it allows a pathetically stagnant indy music business to be scrappy against the payola wagon at Clear Channel and compete with the big record companies, who would rather publish three platinum albums per year than twenty gold albums, and (c) it could create deflationary pressure on the big labels currently participating in the iTunes franchise, lowering prices and increasing thru volume. Everybody wins.
4. Keep community-submitted music DRM-free. Mindshare is the reward for excellent art. In keeping indy submissions free of DRM, you can prove your point to the big labels.
Steve, you acted like you had a pair of rocks when you mouthed off about DRM. Now, it’s time to prove it. Apple is in a unique position to create a whole new arena for democratized indy music. Where MP3.com failed, Apple can succeed, because it already has a captive audience with iTunes.
[...] & Co. to start off just with the indie labels instead of all artists. No comments Share/Send Sphere Topic: Media Tags: Apple,iTunes [...]
we’re doing this at Tamago, its p2p, so fans who sell music earn sales commissions; and artist still get royalties. Its windows now, unless you have a virtual machine. We’re coming out with a Mac version soon. Its like iTunes, except what you buy becomes your personal store.
we’re doing this at Tamago, its p2p, so fans who sell music earn sales commissions; and artist still get royalties. Its windows now, unless you have a virtual machine. We’re coming out with a Mac version soon. Its like iTunes, except what you buy becomes your personal store.
thanks
I love the idea. This is already doable in some senses though with the podcast section. Just make an easy way for artists to upload music, add the rss, and submit it to itunes. Free music and its available through itunes. Email me if interested.
-JLB
Hi
As a music fan I would love Apple to have a indyTunes, but tell they do I will just have to make do with being a fan of Project Opus, and no they have not paid me to post this comment
Below is an extract from the FAQ section on they website:
—–
Project Opus™ is an online music community designed to support artists, fans and local music. It is a single point of contact for discovery of new music.
We have two goals:
1. make it incredibly easy for bands to self-publish music, find their audience and then get paid for the sale and licensing of their music, and
2. make it incredibly easy for fans to find music they love and support the artists that make it.
How much does it cost to join Project Opus?
Nothing, and there are no levels or “special features” that cost more. Everything is available to every artist that joins. We are here to help you make money, not make money from you
—-
Hope you find some music on here that you like
Have fun listening
Steve in the UK
[...] You hafta love Ted Wallingford. Smart guy, insightful commentary, and occasionally he just “hits one out of the park” with some particularly good observations. In this case, his call for Steve Jobs to turn iTunes into the YouTube of music is brilliant. In fact, it may be the smartest thing that Jobs could do, given that YouTube is already becoming… the YouTube of music. Every day you find more and more clips from up and comers and musical wannabe’s finding their way onto YouTube. How long before the labels, and hence iTunes, become irrelevant? [...]
Ted,
It sounds like my old company MP3.com which I founded. Universal eventually bought the company and turned it off, but if you remember MP3.com WAS the Youtube of music. We had lots of firsts:
- Accept every band (major or indie)
- Free band signups
- Free unlimited storage and bandwidth
- Non-exclusive
- Shared ad money (called payback for playback)
- Sold CDs (gave artists 50%)
When MP3.com shutdown a few new sites popped up to take it’s place. Purevolume.com became the biggest initially and then myspace combined band hosting with social networking. Magic happened!
So yes, Steve should sell MP3s. And I have 3 other ideas like publishing the database format for ipods so other software can store files onto them. See: http://michaelrobertson.com
I hope Steve takes action but I fear that his words were just postering to try and get the EU off his back.
– MR
isn’t iTunes already irrelevant?
[...] Ted Wallingford paints a picture of iTunes gone indie, with IndyTunes in his blog posting. A interesting idea and something that may not be all that unreasonable. Michael Robertson, founder of MP3.com and now better know for MP3Tunes.com and the Linspire (formerly Lindows) operating system, covers similar ground in his recent blog posting. He gives his ideas for iTunes, which include divesting some of the family jewels. Whilst I can’t see Apple going that far, I can see them beginning to place more emphasis on unrestricted MP3 downloads, whether they are established acts or independent artists. With EMI currently mulling the offering of their entire catalog without DRM, it’s certain that the first company to do this, will pretty much blaze the path for others to follow. Then the whole music scene will become virtually unrecognizable from the one we have today. [...]
This thread would be a lot more interesting if ITUNES DIDN’T ALREADY ALLOW ANYONE TO UPLOAD AND SELL MUSIC.
tunecore.com
At pretty much the same margin as the “majors.”
Same thing for Rhapsody, Musicnet, eMusic, Napster, yadda yadda yadda.
Long tail = ZERO barriers to distribution.
Apple isn’t very Indy friendly unless your connected and or have a huge presence or a recent film featured at Sundance. You have to utilize other 3rd party publishers that can get you placed in iTunes which frankly sucks!
I hope that changes, but I don’t think it will.
MySpace and YouTube rule for indys.
Cheers,
Aoleon The Martian Girl
Ted,
I do think iTunes is making inroads in making media easier to distribute for the little guy.
Oh, we personify your headline at http://www.iJigg.com
Not quite upto your vision but hey give us some time and we’ll get there.
-Zaid
You may want to check http://amiestreet.com. Not the size of iTunes, mind you, but a lot of excellent ideas on how to sell indy music. For example, songs start free and price goes up, to a maximum of 98c depending on how many people buy them…
(I’ve no affiliation with them, just happen to like the idea).
[...] The i in iTunes should mean INDIE:Ted Wallingford has taken the idea proposed by Michael Robertson one step further: allow anyone to submit music to the store. Make it a truly open marketplace. Like the idea. More choices are good, even if those choices don’t float my boat. [...]
tunecore is a great solution, but you are still dealing with a lag time of actual producing, manufacturing, and submitting a CD, is still locked in to the traditional mindset of the music industry.
What about the bands who won’t ever release an “album”, and instead just record and upload directly from the studio? Why stop with music – I think the future is about much more than selling individual mp3’s/AAC’s. Video dj’s, dancers, comedians, aspiring filmmakers… they’ve all got quality entertainment thats worth at least as much as Desperate Housewives.
Big props to the clarity of the original post though – Apple does have the tools and infrastructure to make this happen. However, its a bit like asking Virgin Megastore to open up a few shelves to local indie bands from the neighborhood. Possible, but highly unlikely.
Nathan
http://cruxy.com
Apple can hardly process the content that is coming in already fast enough and they certainly like to keep (editorial) control over their iTunes stores. What you are describing might be a bit too wild and free for Apple. Really eMusic should be doing much more in the 2.0 space. Soon EMI will let them have mp3s and the major label content will start to stream in. They are well-placed.
[...] Regarding my suggestion that Apple should use iTunes to transform the indy music scene, the reaction was varied, vocal, and very mixed. Alec Saunders likes the idea and provides some good feedback: Ted’s proposal is just the sort of inspired lunacy, the zig to Microsoft’s DRM zag, that Apple ought to embrace. Let people upload their own music and share the profits from downloads with them. iTunes has more market power than you think, Steve. What would happen if iTunes became the indy “label” of choice? [...]
Hey Nathan,
What are you talking about? You can submit individual tracks to iTunes w/o pressing a CD. All you have to do is submit a 16bit/44.1 file.
The lag time is negligible. Not instantaneous, but not 2 months either. Anyone reasonably talented enough to make music worth buying can deal with that timeline.
P.S.: selling music is a BAD business to be in.
How does one submit music to itunes? CAn someone show us the link? IS it cheaper than tunecore or myspaces’s “snocap”. Any help would be great! We are new to this stuff.
Thanks,
MOXIE
Hello Ted,
We are already doing that at Digipie.com and have been doing so before iTunes. Revenue sharing, DRM free, Real Time revenue and download tracking, link to different websites including MySpace, non-exclusive, and much more. We do charge the artist $4.99 to put up to 50 digital works a year audio or video on the site. And, they do it themselves. No waiting necessary other than the time it takes to upload the material.
Glenn Clarke, VP Promotions, Digipie.com
July 30, 2007 Monday
Oh! I forgot a few more things. We have a sliding scale for artist works, which begins at a slightly higher rate when first introduced and then reduces over a 4 week period where the price then flattens out. Our thoughts are that the artist\’s core fans will want to promote their artist financially as quickly as possible within the first few weeks–––they are the ones hopefully creating momentum. If any fans help the artist at the beginning weeks they will get a slightly higher amount back. (Yes we are talking about money) AND, if their artist is one of the artist that achieves a degree of success on our site, then the artist receives a bonus and the fans who financially supported them will share in that bonus!
When you have time and hopefully before August 01, 2007. Look at Bruce Baum\’s page…i.e. his Digipies and Aima Maria Labra-Makk\’s page, and Petra Luna\’s page to name a few. You can type their names in the search window in the upper right hand part of the home page.
Thanks for taking the time to look us over.
Glenn Clarke, VP Promotions, Digipie.com
July 30, 2007 Monday