Interview with Chris Fellure, founder of BlastMyMusic
BlastMyMusic
is a convenient way to sell your music per song, as a download. It's
great for indie artists seeking more control over the business aspect
of making music. They can rely less on managers and labels and utilize
the self-promotion tools that the web has to offer. By distributing
and selling music on their own, the artists retain more control andmore
profit. This is especially important for the lesser-known musicians
that make up the longtail of this industry. Being able to sell
individual songs as downloads is important as well, as it provides more
value to the end customer while still streamlining the process on all
ends. BlastMyMusic also offers a widget that lets artists sell their
music directly from other websites, thus greatly expanding the reach of
each artist to their potential audience.
Below is an interview with BlastMyMusic founder Chris Fellure.
There's a lot of activity surrounding music culture, distribution and selling online. How did you get into the market?
I’ve
been a concert promoter, band manager, and venue owner for the last 9
years, so I’ve been very familiar with artists and how they make a
living (and why the are not actually making a living). I signed a band
to EMI and realized that they weren’t going to see any money from their
records sales for several years, if ever. Then one day my girlfriend,
Kristina, had an idea that I realized was the answer to the problem of
artists not making money from their music. Fourteen months later, that
idea is now BlastMyMusic.com
Are you a music artist as well?
No, I realized early on that my talent is not in making music, but in selling it.
How does BlastMyMusic work? How do artists get paid and how do you get paid?
BlastMyMusic
is a very simple, easy to use service. An artist creates an account
for free (there are no fees for artists to use our service, ever).
They upload their music. Then they place the MusicBlaster on their
websites. When their fans purchase music, we pay the artist 65% of the
gross sale price (as opposed to other companies who pay artists net
after “expenses”). BlastMyMusic uses the remaining 35% to cover
transaction fees and administrative costs. All songs are tracked
geographically in real time in the artist stats section so the artist
will know where their songs are selling and can plan tours more
effectively. Funds are available to the artist immediately after a
30-day verification process.
What other tools do you offer the artists?
Aside
from the stats section that tracks sales geographically and in terms of
popularity, etc…we also have a promotions page with tools available to
the artist. If an artist is releasing a new record exclusively through
BlastMyMusic, we can also run a feature on that artist.
In
terms of tracking sales (regional data, etc), do you think you'll ever
allow that information to be public in the sense that artists would be
able to compare themselves to others in their industry?
That
information is extremely valuable to the artist, and should only be
viewed by those who that artist deems necessary. If an artist wants to
share their information, they are free to do so, but we currently do
not have plans to make it available to the public. (if we start to get
requests from artists wanting that information publicized, we can
introduce that functionality)
It
looks like you're sort of covering two ends of the music distribution
spectrum here; music can be bought and sold on your website, or sellers
can export your service to their website. How are you going about
being a destination site as well as providing a plug-in for users?
At
this point in our marketing endeavors, we are not focusing on being a
destination site. We want the destination site to be the artists
website. They are our greatest advertising outlets, and we want fans
to feel like they are directly supporting their favorite artists,
because they are. In the future, we may begin marketing the option to
buy music from our site, but our primary focus will always be driving
fans to the artist sites.
In
terms of your success as a business, which do you think will be more
important; being a destination site, or providing a mobile plug-in for
sellers to export onto other websites?
As
we continue to grow and expand, there will be opportunities that
involve using our site as a destination, but they will not interfere
with our primary focus of driving traffic to the artists site.
How does your widget work?
An
artist arranges their catalog (albums, songs, etc…), features any music
they want to feature, then copies the code from the MusicBlaster
section in their artist account into their websites. Any changes they
make to the MusicBlaster in their account automatically shows up in all
the websites incorporating the MusicBlaster as soon as they save those
changes.
How do you protect the artists selling music, as well as ensure that copyrighted material isn't being sold by users?
If
an artist or label attempts to sell music they do not have permission
to sell, any profit they earn can be taken by the owners of that music,
and the artist or label attempting to sell it will be subject to legal
action.
Right now we are focusing on digital music, but those options are on the table.
Comments
This is an awesome idea. It's great to see people using tech to develop music sales with innovative business models. These days I see huge battles between conventional media distribution companies and modern web-based distributors. The most obvious of these being Viacom Vs Youtube, and the RIAA vs Filesharing outfits.
Conventional companies have villified the internet as a medium for thieves who will steal money out of artist's pockets, when really they have been unable or unwilling to launch anything but the most rigid and clumsy attempts to distribute digital media.
Chris's idea is the first I've seen that makes an attempt at using the internet to actually benefit the artist and properly distribute music, and deserves success. Certainly we will see many more of these sorts of companies and distribution models cropping up within the next two years.