Originally Posted by Kevin Rivers
Originally Posted by Jody Whitesides

The Artist/Label gets 91% of the net of the sale or stream (not up to, they get it). How can Wa-Tunes promise 90% of the sale when Apple takes 30% off the top, a little misleading isn't it?


Not necessarily. For you to conjunction something like that is for me to say that CD Baby also misleads their 91% of their sales. Because thick-n-thin, iTunes also deducts 30% of their annuals just like they do with any other distributor. Like CD Baby with their 91%, WaTunes promises 90% of the net sales from the music store services.

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As for paying for the UPC - there may a legal reason for that. The smart artist would get their own UPC setup - it's a costly one time fee, but that allows them track where sales went thru with their own name with the UPC - That includes physical and digital. Don't forget the need for ISRC numbers - again the smart artist would sign up with the RIAA and get their own - that's free to do.


This is why I love working with CD Baby customers. Because once they have their unique UPC prefix, they don't need to buy another UPC just to use for their upcoming album. With our current UPC generation tool, anyone can generate any valid UPC code using their own unique prefixes setup by places like CD Baby, GS1, and the RIAA.

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As for speed of CD Baby's delivery, it happens once a week to any given service. From there it is in the hands of the service itself to get it up in a timely fashion. Thus why CD Baby will say give them 2 to 6 weeks.


That's plays well good and bad. It's good because if gives the CD Baby customers assurance of fast delivery. However, the majority of indie artists wants to see their content on iTunes faster than any other music store service, and to say a minimum of 2 weeks could be quite misleading. Which is why we say 4-6 weeks, because initially it does take iTunes roughly 30 days to make the content available at their store.

CD Baby does not mislead their customers. They are very clear that they pay you 91% of the net sale on any source of digital income (sale/stream). Apple = iTunes. Look at the part quoted from me, I mentioned that Apple takes a 30% cut off the top. With other services, some take more, some take less. If there's a hidden annual fee to be an Apple distributor, CD Baby isn't passing that cost on to the artist. All I did was clarify net sales/streams.

Talking about the UPC thing for a moment. Now, there's an issue. One cannot take the UPC code they get from a 3rd party company like CD Baby and then go make up another barcode number based on the prefix. Why? Because that prefix is registered to CD Baby (the RIAA does not create UPC codes). If an artist or Wa-Tunes reused that prefix with another number for another release without checking with the company they got it from, to know if the new barcode was in use already, there would become an issue with products carrying the same barcode. MAJOR problem, it would be fraudulent use of a barcode.

Each prefix is good for 9999 releases of a particular product category. I know as I have my own UPC setup from the UCC. Those setups/prefixes cost money, big money compared to when I purchased mine - the price has gone up considerably. Each setup/prefix is registered to the person/company that bought the prefix. Then there's the 9999 variants to use per prefix. I highly doubt CD Baby or any third party reseller is spending over $750 for a UPC setup/prefix to give to an artist for $20 (that would be bad business). Thus if this is how Wa-Tunes is doing things in terms of 3rd party barcodes, reusing a 3rd party prefix and creating a new product number - I wouldn't go advertising that. Here is CD Baby's FAQ on barcodes: http://cdbaby.net/barcode

As for speed of a service, I'm probably a bad example, usually happens within 2 weeks for me (for iTunes). And I mistyped. CD Baby declares a minimum of 3 weeks to a max of 4 months - but they're referring to all the companies they deal with.

I realize that CD Baby is the recognized leader of sales in the non-signed music world. I realize they are the company to shoot down when another company competing in the non-signed music business is working on comeuppance. They didn't get to that position by screwing people or being misleading. I applaud you Kevin for working on being upfront and clarifying about things.

Jody Whitesides
A Funky Audio Lap Dance For Your Ears!
www.jodywhitesides.com