The threads on how to buy recordings of Manakkal Rangarajan and Kalpagam Swaminathan's IIT concert led me to this thought. As I wrote in the Manakkal thread, I have been collecting some information on these paid download sites. There is definitely a huge benefit if the artists get their music onto iTunes and other 5 or 6 paid download portals. They only get 50% or so of what the buyer pays but the value of breadth and depth of the potential audience and the relatively care-free management of the material is huge. But the issue anyone will face is, if anyone want to do this on behalf of others need to work out the legal issues. Also, once you do this on behalf of a handful of artists, you become one of these 'feeder' sites to all these 'feeder' sites that feed to the download portals. Not that it is bad but it becomes a full-fledged business by itself and it needs dedicated time and attention. Also to be kept in mind is, many of these download sites like iTunes do not do business through out the world. I do not think one can buy stuff from iTunes from India. Can you?
So, that is on these mega download sites. I have not given up on them but not much fruitful outcome has come about yet.
That led me to thinking, why not start small by having a CM artists portal and let people buy music and pay through PayPal. Before I get too far, I want to know if PayPal works in India without hassles. Do any of you know? In this case, if the buyers pay in non-rupee currency, the thing to work out is, can that money be taken out by someone in India for disbursement to the artists.
Anyway, just dumping my thoughts here in the hope we can help the artists have their concerts made available to us commercially.
Paid downloads
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rshankar
- Posts: 13754
- Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:26
VK,
VERY DOABLE IDEA! I am not sure about iTunes d/l from India, but I think your idea of having a CM artists' portal sounds good. Instead of a central authority collecting monies and disbursing to artists, I think the artists can have their own accounts with Paypal, and have the money deposited directly into their accounts. Will save the middleman fee and also remove a potential site for possible misunderstandings.
Paypal works very well in India.
VERY DOABLE IDEA! I am not sure about iTunes d/l from India, but I think your idea of having a CM artists' portal sounds good. Instead of a central authority collecting monies and disbursing to artists, I think the artists can have their own accounts with Paypal, and have the money deposited directly into their accounts. Will save the middleman fee and also remove a potential site for possible misunderstandings.
Paypal works very well in India.
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vasanthakokilam
- Posts: 10956
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01
rshankar: I like your individual PayPal account idea since it solves many accounting issues as well. And thanks for the info that PayPal is workable from India.
Now a few things come to mind immediately.
1) So the portal will make available to the buyers in a secure manner the materials that the artists upload. Link each download with a paypal account of the artist.
2) Many artists may not know how to convert to mp3, clean-up if needed, upload etc. They will require some help. So some volunteers will be needed for that.
3) One issue to work out is: Linking the payment confirmation from PayPal to the opening up the download for the buyer. I wonder if there is a e-commerce portal that can take care of that for a commission.
4) I looked at http://www.indietunes.com/ They sort of solve the same problem but it costs $10.00 a month for the artists. They do provide lots of good services. But in all that clutter one encounters even on a casual visit to that site, I do not see it being a proper place for CM. A CMish front page is needed.
5) If there is another site like indietunes.com who do not require a monthly fee but take only a small piece per transactions and still work with artists directly and their paypal account, that may be the one to use or one to model after.
6) Of course, there is all the legal thing. What prevents someone from uploading an artists stuff and putting up their own paypal account? Yikes!! I guess this problem exists for any of these Independent artists sites...
Now a few things come to mind immediately.
1) So the portal will make available to the buyers in a secure manner the materials that the artists upload. Link each download with a paypal account of the artist.
2) Many artists may not know how to convert to mp3, clean-up if needed, upload etc. They will require some help. So some volunteers will be needed for that.
3) One issue to work out is: Linking the payment confirmation from PayPal to the opening up the download for the buyer. I wonder if there is a e-commerce portal that can take care of that for a commission.
4) I looked at http://www.indietunes.com/ They sort of solve the same problem but it costs $10.00 a month for the artists. They do provide lots of good services. But in all that clutter one encounters even on a casual visit to that site, I do not see it being a proper place for CM. A CMish front page is needed.
5) If there is another site like indietunes.com who do not require a monthly fee but take only a small piece per transactions and still work with artists directly and their paypal account, that may be the one to use or one to model after.
6) Of course, there is all the legal thing. What prevents someone from uploading an artists stuff and putting up their own paypal account? Yikes!! I guess this problem exists for any of these Independent artists sites...
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vasanthakokilam
- Posts: 10956
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01
Thinking about this further, may be a baby step is a procedure like this. This is definitely not scalable.
1) Artists upload their music to rapidshare or x-drive. Get a premium account if required. Volunteers can help the artists, if required, in all those matters.
2) Have them post the availability along with their PayPal account number in a forum. If srkris is comfortable with this forum used for that purpose, that will be great ( put a FAT disclaimer that you are not responsible to verify that the person holds the legal right for the music ).
3) Once the paypal confirmation is received by the artists, they can send the buyer the link for the download.
4) Of course, there are many drawbacks, chief among them is there is no protection against the buyer from sharing the download link nor the downloaded material privately. Artists should understand and accept that.
1) Artists upload their music to rapidshare or x-drive. Get a premium account if required. Volunteers can help the artists, if required, in all those matters.
2) Have them post the availability along with their PayPal account number in a forum. If srkris is comfortable with this forum used for that purpose, that will be great ( put a FAT disclaimer that you are not responsible to verify that the person holds the legal right for the music ).
3) Once the paypal confirmation is received by the artists, they can send the buyer the link for the download.
4) Of course, there are many drawbacks, chief among them is there is no protection against the buyer from sharing the download link nor the downloaded material privately. Artists should understand and accept that.