It's the end of the music business as we know it, and I feel fine.

Amazon does the digital delivery and is your storefront, and TuneCore will burn the CD's and ship them on demand.

“As an artist, you have unlimited physical inventory, made on demand, with no upfront costs and worldwide distribution to anyone who orders it at Amazon.com,” said TuneCore CEO Jeff Price, formerly of indie label SpinArt Records (Pixies, KaitO, Apollo Sunshine).

That alone should worry the big labels. But it gets even worse for them.

TuneCore has other plans in the works:

• Amazon will launch a TuneCore-branded section next month.
• A TuneCore widget will soon allow bands to distribute tweets and songs to fans.
• If you sell 100 songs in the New York or Los Angeles area, you get to play Le Poisson Rouge or The Roxy, earning a guaranteed minimum of $100 — even if no one shows up.
• TuneCore is working on a deal with live music behemoth Live Nation/House of Blues that would give artists who sell a certain number of songs a live gig, also with a minimum guarantee of $100.

Marketing, promotion and live gigs as well.

Game, set, match.

This entry was posted by Kevin Creighton, on 5.22.2009. You can leave your response.