Well, I've faxed off the documents and mailed the CD to Magnatune. I've talked to a lot of people about it over the past day and thought I'd share some (very possibly incorrect) observations here. A lot of musicians I know seem interested in Magnatune so maybe they'd benefit from some of this: 1. As harmless as a non-exclusive deal sounds, as far as I know, no major record company in the world is going to want to ALSO sign a non-exclusive deal. So if you're still holding out for Geffen to snatch up your album, a non-exclusive deal really isn't as benign as it sounds.

2. Various people raised the issue of the digital distribution deal (for iTunes, eMusic, the new Napster, etc) I signed with CD Baby being exclusive. This helpful page indicates that this is not a concern and that the only issue I would have is if Magnatune decided to go off and try to sell the tracks to iTunes or eMusic. In which case I'd have to choose between Magnatune and CD Baby for my digital distribution. (CD Baby says all it requires is 30 days notice.)

3. The 50/50 sliding scale model of Magnatune irked more than a couple of musicians and industry folk I showed it to. I was told that since Magnatune is not advancing you any money or promising to do any promotion, they couldn't understand why Magnatune would deserve 50% of the of the financial goodwill you generate as an artist.

When you buy a CD from Magnatune you're given the option of paying $5-$18 with $8 being the recommended price. It says underneath the pricing option "50% goes directly to the artist, so please be generous", which as several people pointed out, is the same as saying "50% goes directly to Magnatune, so please be generous".

Most other services (such as CD Baby and Cafe Press) take a flat amount per CD to ensure they profit on each transaction. Anything above that number goes to the artist. Does Magnatune necessarily deserve an equal tip each time you tip an artist on the service? For me I guess I don't really care, but it's probably something worth thinking about if you're looking at this as a potential big money maker.

4. To join Magnatune I had to agree to put a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license on the songs on my album. Whether this conflicts with my whole "no copyright" thing, I have no idea and basically I just don't have the energy to worry about it. You would think it would be easy to get the simple message "DO WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT WITH MY MUSIC, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I DON'T CARE" across, but apparently it's a lot more complicated than that. In conclusion: I love licenses!

5. On the topic of Scott Andrew's post the other day about the Creative Commons and BMI/ASCAP royalties, you must sign a waiver when you join Magnatune so that BMI/ASCAP cannot collect royalties from Magnatune for the songs you specify. (I understand why, I just thought I'd throw that in for Scott.)

6. The contract is for five years, which seems like a dang long time. In the annotated distribution agreement it says "You give us these rights for 5 years (remember, they're non-exclusive rights, so you're not giving anything up)".

While it's true that a non-exclusive deal doesn't keep you from signing other non-exclusive deals, I think a lot of artists are secretly hoping that a really sweet EXCLUSIVE deal will come along within the next five years. Unless I'm mistaken, that means your album is effectively off the exclusive market for five years. Which I agree isn't a big concern for most people, but I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it's nothing.

Anyhow, I don't mean to harsh on Magnatune. I'm still real pleased with joining and I think they offer a cool, unique service that is bound to change and evolve over time as things get ironed out. These are all just things that came up as I was running it by friends of mine, some of whom are in the currently dying record industry.

Here I sit waiting for any one of my two bulk orders of padded mailers to show up so I can mail off more CDs. I also have learned that my CD burner overheats or something after doing 10-15 CDs in a row and starts burning coasters.

Brad Sucks patriot Kaddar did some Brad Sucks shirt designs which you can now get on Cafe Shops:

Click the images to take a closer look. Thanks Kaddar!

If you felt like it, you could now order Brad Sucks: I Don't Know What I'm Doing on CDBaby. You're really better off buying it from me because it will be cheaper. It's $6 on CDBaby (without shipping) which is as low as I could get it without me actually losing several dollars on each sale. If anybody felt like writing reviews of the album on CDBaby, that would be really great.

I am humbly presenting my middle finger to the RIAA: RIAA to give file swappers amnesty

Every day I try to give the RIAA the benefit of the doubt. Hey, I'm a wannabe musician. If I was living off of it I'd probably defend that as hard as I could too. But I honestly think that machines have taken over their brains and someone dropped a cup of water on a computer in central command. Now the RIAA has gone haywire and needs to be taught a lesson about human friendship by a small doe-eyed child.

Universal Lowers the Cost of a CD from $17-$19 to $13.

UMVD President Jim Urie said the move will benefit consumers and the company's retail customers, while invigorating the overall music industry. "Music fans will benefit from these price reductions. Our new pricing model will enable U.S. retailers to offer music at a much more appealing price point in comparison to other entertainment products."

Here's a Metafilter thread about this Ars Technica article. From the article:

The big question is: why. Why is the RIAA launching such a public offensive against its own customers when obviously the greatest threat to their business right now are real pirates?

I think that one's pretty obvious. It's because much more dangerous to their business than street pirates is everyone collectively deciding those guys aren't actually doing anything illegal. Which is what's been rapidly happening. It's only against the law as long as the majority of the public agrees not to break that law.

As somebody who makes music from time to time, I'm getting a little tired of reading arguments about whether P2P file sharing is wrong or not. I don't think it matters if it's wrong and I don't think scaring or shaming people into paying for music is going to work. You may be able to put the hurt on the Napsters and Kazaas right now, but networks are only going to get cooler and cooler. Everyone knows it's all changing, it's just a question of who's going to be able to adapt. (Everyone knows that too.)

I treat CDs like I treat paypal donations to websites right now. I know that if Artist X doesn't at least pay off what it cost to get their album on the shelves, there might not be another album because they'll go do something that actually pays the bills instead. With some artists I don't care. With others that I think are doing something special, I want to support them in a small way.

And I'm not even forcing myself out of some sort of moral or ethical obligation. It comes naturally when you realize that there's a very real bottom line in the music making process.

Radiohead Loop Remix Contest:

Digitallandfill.co.uk will contain in total 82 short audio loops. Download them, and use them to make your own audio track, add as much of your own sound as you like, as long as you respsect copyright laws (see the legal bit below). You may mess around with the loops themselves too as much as you like. Be inventive and interesting. Go nuts. But don't just slap them on top of your demo tape, that's not going to impress anyone.

I'm not really sure how these guys are affiliated with Radiohead but I guess I don't really care either.

A Modest Proposal To The RIAA. Kevin Aylward writes that casual music swappers could be persuaded to run a piece of software that certified their computer as free of copyright violations if given free music by the music industry. It's an interesting idea, but I'm not really sure how such a piece of software would work. How could you keep it from being cracked wide open and abused?