for consumers & music buyers: why would I want to buy music here?

• Free listening of all songs
• All albums and artists hand-picked
• Very simple user interface, quick to play music
• Radio stations and "genre mix" playlists allow background listening - can do work while listening to our music
• No need to "register" to listen or buy
• Smaller selection means easier to find good music
• Wide variety of genres, can fit any mood
• Our genres are hard to find in record stores and not on radio (though do appear on college radio)
• Downloads and CDs are both available (no other site on the internet sells both)
• Perfect quality downloads (CD copy) are available when you download (not inferior quality sound)
• No copy protection on the music (DRM) which allows playing music on any device (unlike iTunes/MSN/etc)
• Extensive biographical info about each musician, and artist photo -- feel a strong connection to the artist
• Full color, high quality cover art PDF available for most albums - easy to print
• Variable pricing scheme means you can pay as little as $5 for an album if you choose
• 50% of payment goes to artist (makes buyer feel good: they're helping the world)
• Not venture-capital backed big business
• Not part of the "evil" major label machine - for those that hate the music biz and want to help topple it
• Founder/owner runs it -- support a small business
• Low pressure environment - nothing flashing, no audio ads while listening to albums
• Music selection is unique to Magnatune, unlike most on-line stores that have more-or-less the same (gigantic) selection

• 50/50 revenue split is extremely generous
• Top artists make several thousand dollars per year: not enough to live on but good incremental income
• Nonexclusive relationship with Magnatune helps musician pursue many avenues
• Quality-control at Magnatune gives credibility to musicians who are accepted
• Magnatune is actively marketing itself and its catalog (web site ads, trade shows, free compilation CDs mailed, PR) and musician can ride along with that.
• 20,000 compilation CDs given out each year (to fans, reviewers, licensors)
• Magnatune handles licensing, which is a complicated process, and can result in very good revenues and exposure
• Musicians are shown and marketing to a large audience of Magnatune site visitors
• Artist's music is also through other outlets: iTunes, eMusic, Netmusic and many foreign sites (eDong City [China], Koodoo [France], Novatunes [Germany])

• Large selection of genres, especially instrumental music which is important for most licensing uses
• Extremely low prices
• Our music fits a middle market between very low cost and low quality royalty free CD libraries, and "recognizable by the audience" record label artists.
• Same price no matter who the buyer is (i.e., companies with deep pockets don't get charged more, as is typical)
• No legal haggling - contract is the same for all buyers.
• Very high quality music, far better than royalty-free music libraries.
• Entire process is fast and automated (good for deadlines)
• We do not review the use of the music -- all uses are allowed w/o our approval needed.
• All our music is the same price, if it fits your budget you can choose any music and know the price, which simplifies the process for the buyer (choose music based on quality not on relative price)

• Makes revenue from both consumer sales and licensing
• All direct-sales, (avoids investing in physical distribution channel where most labels lose money, though some physical goods are sold through partnerships).
• Music licensing business is 3X that of consumer sales, and there is no significant on-line music licensing company. Magnatune wants to be "Getty images" of music.
• Sells both CDs and downloads, which is unusual - usually stores have one or the other
• No DRM (copy protection) is very rare
• 50/50 revenue split is better for Magnatune than what iTunes gets (which is 30%)
• Self-funded/home-grown/organic growth.
• Appears to be a sustainable business model with only modest running costs
• Unique catalog of music
• Giving away music for free (radio stations, free listens) may be a way to stimulate consumer interest without big marketing outlay
• Free listening / radio stations policy only possible because Magnatune has direct artist relationship - no other on-line store can give complete free previews of all albums
• Variable pricing scheme is odd - gives interesting metrics, but dubious as to whether it is scalable to a mass market
• Capitalizing on the Creative Commons and open source movements - biz model that rewards openness.
• Open music model (letting people listen to get them to buy) allows cooperation with music-finding services such as Webjay (www.webjay.org) and iRate (irate.sf.net)
• Nonexclusive relationship with musicians means lower Magnatune investment in artists, more investment in promoting itself and the entire catalog
• Creative Commons license allows noncommercial use of music, which later generates licensing revenue when commercial broadcast of those works is needed.