Beatport cuts round two.

thomasjaldemark · Post by **thomasjaldemark** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 10:11 pm

steevio wrote:
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

+1

PsyTox · Post by **PsyTox** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:35 am

just got an e-mail from Beatport that the contracts have been "updated". One of the updates which are conveniently not mentioned in the mail itself is that labels are required now to produce a minimum net revenue of $500 USD (instead of $200 USD before). In other words, as a label, you have to be able to create over $900 dollars of sales every quarter to stay on BP.

That might not look much, but to give you an example: we are currently on the 11th spot in minimal charts, and for that track we have about 500 USD revenue... so it is not hard to realize that this will surely mean that BP will be cutting a huge chunk of labels in the next few quarters. Some bad labels for sure, but also interesting labels with quality music but with the bad luck that they don't have known producers, or no money to pay for remixes of big names. Or like us, who only work with unknown newcomers.
The alternative: throw the quality criteria overboard and release as much as possible (more releases with small revenue will also get you the numbers needed) or start making the same formula stuff like the big labels who make these numbers without any problems.
To be honest, I am worried, for our label but also for many others, because the stuff I buy is usually from labels that aren't in the charts and I'm pretty sure they don't ever make these new requirements. What is Beatport trying here: going from a massive great catalogue to a small hits-only elektrohouse and progressive feelgood fluff site?

I hope I'm too pessimistic, but the way I see this going is less quality, less new exciting labels and more playing safe. As a dj, I know I'll be shopping elsewhere if that ever should happen.

victorgonzales · Post by **victorgonzales** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 5:10 am

PsyTox wrote:just got an e-mail from Beatport that the contracts have been "updated". One of the updates which are conveniently not mentioned in the mail itself is that labels are required now to produce a minimum net revenue of $500 USD (instead of $200 USD before). In other words, as a label, you have to be able to create over $900 dollars of sales every quarter to stay on BP.

That might not look much, but to give you an example: we are currently on the 11th spot in minimal charts, and for that track we have about 500 USD revenue... so it is not hard to realize that this will surely mean that BP will be cutting a huge chunk of labels in the next few quarters. Some bad labels for sure, but also interesting labels with quality music but with the bad luck that they don't have known producers, or no money to pay for remixes of big names. Or like us, who only work with unknown newcomers.
The alternative: throw the quality criteria overboard and release as much as possible (more releases with small revenue will also get you the numbers needed) or start making the same formula stuff like the big labels who make these numbers without any problems.
To be honest, I am worried, for our label but also for many others, because the stuff I buy is usually from labels that aren't in the charts and I'm pretty sure they don't ever make these new requirements. What is Beatport trying here: going from a massive great catalogue to a small hits-only elektrohouse and progressive feelgood fluff site?

I hope I'm too pessimistic, but the way I see this going is less quality, less new exciting labels and more playing safe. As a dj, I know I'll be shopping elsewhere if that ever should happen.

That is insane.

Our distro has a contract with beatport that keeps them from pulling that. I believe the contract states that any label making over 300 per quarter cannot be cut. That sucks

Mainly because it is a super pain in the ass unless you have a distributor to manage releases on all the other sites
Im sure the traffic will pass to the other sites if they enforce this.

What the fck are they thinking over there at beatport?

AVX23 · Post by **AVX23** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:09 pm

victorgonzales wrote: What the fck are they thinking over there at beatport?

NOM NOM NOM is what they is thinking mate.

tone-def · Post by **tone-def** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:42 pm

Maybe it's a way of getting labels to stop distributing music anywhere else. The extra pressure on the label will make them put all there attention on beatport. The labels marketing will have "available from beatport" everywhere instead of "available at all good stores". as if it isn't a big enough monopoly anyway.

ferdy · Post by **ferdy** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:34 pm

tone-def wrote:Maybe it's a way of getting labels to stop distributing music anywhere else. The extra pressure on the label will make them put all there attention on beatport. The labels marketing will have "available from beatport" everywhere instead of "available at all good stores". as if it isn't a big enough monopoly anyway.

Totally agree with this. I'm sure all of us when we have a digital release on beatport market the release with the 'now available on Beatport.com' or something along those lines.

It's all money making for sure, but on the bright side I'm kinda looking forward to some quality control.

I'm sure alot of small labels with awesome music for the niche genres would feel very pressured, but atleast all those badly produced copycat songs would be out of the way.

Phase Ghost · Post by **Phase Ghost** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 2:56 pm

Hola. I'm new here and like the forum. I've been making techno for about 9 years or so now. I've always wanted to find a minimal techno forum, but never did until someone pointed me here recently.

Anyways, the amount of music on beatport is unreal. I listened to some tunes in the dub techno section last night and found 1 release out of 5 pages the was pretty good. I was a vinyl dj for years, quit buying a lot of vinyl and pretty much stopped all together. Now, I'm getting back into dj'ing and have been buying a lot of mp3's online. About 99% of them from Juno. I always liked them for vinyl and just naturally went there for mp3's. I'm giving everyone a fair shot by listening to every track coming as deep house / minimal / tech house and have already spent hours sifting through the back catalogs. I've grabbed some good tunes and I am happy with my purchases

Am I missing out by using Juno only? Since I've never really bought a lot of techno (was a Dnb dj) I don't really have an arsenal of labels that I could go back to. I mostly just grabbed mixes from people without ever getting a tracklist. Frankly, I don't really like a lot of the sh!t the gets rated highly by different magazines or by beatport. Plus, I like to give everyone a shot and love finding great tunes people miss. However, I couldn't imagine listening to all the tunes both Juno and beatport put out daily. Someone should start a quality controlled download site. But, then again, it's all personal taste.

I don't know. Maybe I'll just go back to wax.

PsyTox · Post by **PsyTox** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:25 pm

are you missing out, yes and no. You can find a lot more stuff on BP that isn't available alsewhere. So, in that aspect, yes you miss out.
But on the other hand, you can only listen to and buy so much music, so if you are happy with what Juno offers, why would you have to care about what you 'miss'

If you have some time and you want to find more exclsuive and really nice music digitally, and you don't want to go Beatport, try WhatPeoplePlay.com They really offer some amazing exclusive material there that you won't come across anywhere else.