Bands don't usually make money from their record labels. The press has written for decades of top-selling, major-label pop stars forced to live on $15,000 per year.

Musicians typically make money from:

• Live performances (i.e.: concerts)
• Selling CDs, posters and t-shirts at concerts

What does Magnatune do for you, the musician?

• We sell your music online. How much money does this really mean? We don't know yet. One thing we do know: the 50/50 split we offer means that a $5 album sale yields $2.50 for you, the artist. A typical record label will pay you 25 cents to a dollar in royalties on a CD sale after they recoup their expenses (if that ever occurs). That means we have to sell 1/10th as many albums to give the artist the same revenue. Can we do it? We don't know yet, but we're trying, we're trying.
• We help you get heard. Internet Radio, Kazaa, Napster and Gnutella have proven that people want to listen to music and share it with their friends. We provide all the technology to enable widespread Internet distribution, and we do it legally, without violating anybody's copyright.
• We keep the quality high. One big reason good music has trouble getting heard is that there's too much junk out there. We filter it out, by selecting music ourselves, recruiting artists directly as well as listening to submissions. We have an audience who comes here to listen to the great artists we've signed.
• We can help you network with other musicians, promoters and fans. This will help you get more gigs and sell your stuff to them.
• The big money is in licensing music for games, movies and commercials. We promote your music for this use, and offer an easy system for music-licensing customers to find your music and buy it online. What the Internet did for clip-art, we think we can do for music. Some people tell us there's lots of money to be made here, and not much competition. Do we believe them? Not yet, but we'll try our damndest to see if we can make it work.
• The contract you sign with us helps us make money from your music from a variety of sources, and we split any money we do dig up 50/50 with you. You make the great music; we do the grunt work of finding money for it.
• Your contract with us is totally non-exclusive and limited only to the music you send us: you can (and should) keep promoting your music yourself. You can print and sell your own CDs, compete with our web site; even sign with another record label. There is no long-term commitment to send us more music: if you want to part ways, don't send us any more music. We'll retain the right to keep finding money for the music you have sent us (and we'll keep sending you 50%) and we won't have limited your rights to do anything you like with the music you have sent us.
• We have friends that we can recommend to help you out if you want to print CDs, get publicity, sell mail-order, etc. They're good folks, cheap, and (surprise) we don't get a kickback from any of them. We don't ever want to make money by selling stuff to our musicians. We are here to make money for our artists, not the other way around. Check out other music web sites and try to determine if they make more money ripping off their musicians or by selling music. You'll be surprised.
• We help you promote you. Besides getting your music heard, we provide an email discussion and announcement list for each artist, help get merchandising together, and talk to the press about you.

• NOT ABOUT big promises: we can deliver technology, a bunch of effort on our part, an audience, and maybe some money. We'll do our best, but what we're doing is new and unproven.
• NOT ABOUT limiting the artist: the contract you sign with us lets us find money for your music, provided we split the money 50/50. You're free to sign any contract with anybody else, and/or promote your music yourself however you see fit.
• NOT ABOUT getting you a major label contract. We think major labels are usually a bad deal for the artist. Also, major labels mostly don't want to promote the more-interesting genres that we like. However, if a major label does approach you (perhaps because of the exposure you received on Magnatune) and you can negotiate a fair deal, more power to you: we certainly won't get in your way.
• NOT ABOUT buying you studio time: you have to figure out how to get a good quality recording yourself. However, we can help you network with others so that you can get a super-good deal on studio time.
• NOT ABOUT printing CDs: they're expensive, a pain in the neck to sell and ship, and the distribution network is expensive, corrupt, and locks out small and independent acts. We think the future belongs to MP3s and its successors. When a CD burner costs $70 and CD blanks are less than a quarter, shipping pre-printed CDs no longer makes sense.

• Magnatune is a music/business experiment that has never yet been tried. We're doing our best to make it succeed, but it may not. If we don't make you any money, we think we can get you some exposure, it won't cost you anything, and we won't limit your future options.
• However, with the right people, we think this might work, and could make history. We hope you'll consider working with us.