Beatport cuts round two.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:52 pm

i have mixed feelings in all of this. while i have an a knee jerk reaction against the whole concept of monopolies, i'm also aware that beatport don't demand exclusivity (although they encourage it) so in effect you have nothing to lose. there's nothing to stop you putting your stuff on any amount of download sites if you wish.
the reality is that beatport easily outsell all of the other sites put together, making it almost pointless using the other sites.
there's nothing to stop us selling from our own sites and beatport or whoever can do a job for us.

when i was in a band, the target was to get our CDs into HMV and Virgin, who between them had a high street monopoly in the UK, because that way we would reach more people than selling CDs at gigs. we werent bothered that they also sold Death Metal, or Barry Manilow, or that the pop charts were up on the wall.
most people know what music they are looking for.

i now accept that the music from my label will only appeal to certain people, i'm not sure that it really is buried in a pile of crap, word of mouth cuts through all of that.

saying all this, i still believe that micro distribution collectives, purveying selected quality labels will be the future, but theres nothing wrong with these existing side by side with the big commercial download sites.

victorgonzales · Post by **victorgonzales** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 6:44 pm

I think labels could sell their own music easily if there was a better method of buying online. Its just a pain in the ass to fill out all that credit info for a hundred different websites.

Perhaps if someone wants to be a millionaire they should make a usb credit card swiper that plugs into home pcs and stores can join your site that it runs through. So you see something you want online you just swipe your card and enter your pin just like at any normal store.

oblioblioblio · Post by **oblioblioblio** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 11:52 pm

steevio wrote:i have mixed feelings in all of this. while i have an a knee jerk reaction against the whole concept of monopolies, i'm also aware that beatport don't demand exclusivity (although they encourage it) so in effect you have nothing to lose. there's nothing to stop you putting your stuff on any amount of download sites if you wish.
the reality is that beatport easily outsell all of the other sites put together, making it almost pointless using the other sites.
there's nothing to stop us selling from our own sites and beatport or whoever can do a job for us.

when i was in a band, the target was to get our CDs into HMV and Virgin, who between them had a high street monopoly in the UK, because that way we would reach more people than selling CDs at gigs. we werent bothered that they also sold Death Metal, or Barry Manilow, or that the pop charts were up on the wall.
most people know what music they are looking for.

i now accept that the music from my label will only appeal to certain people, i'm not sure that it really is buried in a pile of crap, word of mouth cuts through all of that.

saying all this, i still believe that micro distribution collectives, purveying selected quality labels will be the future, but theres nothing wrong with these existing side by side with the big commercial download sites.

I have a kind of a biological mistrust of business focussed entities, and certainly many of my experiences have reinforced this.

The kind of free expression that makes music beautiful does not mix at all well with buiness intentions imo. Business will pretend to be expressive focussed entities friend if there is money involved, but this is not a relationship based on supportive dialogue and mutual trust, and the business won't think twice about turning their backs if they fck up or if the money tap dries up. And they will feel jusitifed in doing so becuase 'it's just business'.

With beatport or selling cds through hmv you have a degree of protection from this business 'sense', compared to say, shady distros. So yeah it's true, there isn't that much to lose by doing so.

I guess I'm just making a deal out of stubbornly seeking independance. The internet, imo, has really drawn out a new playing field, even if many things are still the same, like the desire to acquire money, or the tendancy towards stubbornness, or the desire to follow familiar patterns. And I believe that more independance in retailing is possible somehow. Or at least a friendlier and sllightly more collaborative joint retailer.

Maybe there is an inbuilt need for the Beatport style model, but imo it seems to be in the place it is through some accidental glitch that has become self sustaining. It's a vicious cycle... the more labels who retail through beatport becuase they get more sales. the more likely it is that other people will then retail through beatport. and the more beatport wallets are filled and the more they can fck people around.

obviously it's easy to complain. I can afford to eat and to try out this little independent experiment. who knows, maybe one day I'll be cold and hungry knocking on beatports door myself.

PsyTox · Post by **PsyTox** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:22 pm

lots of idealistic stuff on this site, but the fact remains: 99% of your sales as a label are happening on Beatport. That's not because BP makes it so, but because they just were early to start with this kind of service and some good marketing. Can you blame them for being succesful?

We have triedlots of things before: selling on our own website, selling on other stores, giving exclusivity on other websites,... the only result was that we sold nothing, or that we didn't sell anything until the tracks were available on Beatport.

More over, idealism set aside, BP is a very very trustworthy partner to deal with, never any debate about payments and you can follow your sales realtime. Everyone who knows the record industry knows that isn't a common fact

Anyway, about the cutting of labels: I think it's sad if your label gets deleted, but on the other hand, everyone was complaining on this board that there was too much stuff on BP. Now that they action, everyone is sad that there's less content. Hellooooo?
If you want to truely support your favourite artists, buy their tracks so the labels they are on don't get deleted. It's as simple as that. And don't hit the Elektro House button if you don't like it :p

::BLM:: · Post by **::BLM::** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 9:35 pm

PsyTox wrote:lots of idealistic stuff on this site, but the fact remains: 99% of your sales as a label are happening on Beatport. That's not because BP makes it so, but because they just were early to start with this kind of service and some good marketing. Can you blame them for being succesful?

We have triedlots of things before: selling on our own website, selling on other stores, giving exclusivity on other websites,... the only result was that we sold nothing, or that we didn't sell anything until the tracks were available on Beatport.

More over, idealism set aside, BP is a very very trustworthy partner to deal with, never any debate about payments and you can follow your sales realtime. Everyone who knows the record industry knows that isn't a common fact

Anyway, about the cutting of labels: I think it's sad if your label gets deleted, but on the other hand, everyone was complaining on this board that there was too much stuff on BP. Now that they action, everyone is sad that there's less content. Hellooooo?
If you want to truely support your favourite artists, buy their tracks so the labels they are on don't get deleted. It's as simple as that. And don't hit the Elektro House button if you don't like it :p

I agree

mlexicon · Post by **mlexicon** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 6:51 pm

maybe specific online stores catering to a specific sound is a good choice?

they can really cultivate and manage that sound the best because theyre fans and hopefully really knowledgeable to that genre, so theyll carry the more obscure stuff that might have been missed and of course the big labels

and maybe theyll actually listen to all the releases, and filter out the bullshit for us. record stores are like this, and if you love a certain record store for any reason, chances are its because there was someone there that loved that music and really tried to carry only choice cuts.

tone-def · Post by **tone-def** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:58 pm

mlexicon wrote:maybe specific online stores catering to a specific sound is a good choice?

they can really cultivate and manage that sound the best because theyre fans and hopefully really knowledgeable to that genre, so theyll carry the more obscure stuff that might have been missed and of course the big labels

and maybe theyll actually listen to all the releases, and filter out the bullshit for us. record stores are like this, and if you love a certain record store for any reason, chances are its because there was someone there that loved that music and really tried to carry only choice cuts.

Totally agree with this. We need stores with love.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 9:45 pm

tone-def wrote:
mlexicon wrote:maybe specific online stores catering to a specific sound is a good choice?

they can really cultivate and manage that sound the best because theyre fans and hopefully really knowledgeable to that genre, so theyll carry the more obscure stuff that might have been missed and of course the big labels

and maybe theyll actually listen to all the releases, and filter out the bullshit for us. record stores are like this, and if you love a certain record store for any reason, chances are its because there was someone there that loved that music and really tried to carry only choice cuts.
Totally agree with this. We need stores with love.

+1