Publishing Music On the Web

The Internet provides a number of sites where independent musicians can upload their music, and actually sell their songs. They can also establish their own publishing company online.

This is great news: it provides a means to by pass the publishing companies, and a means to create ones own publishing.

Owning one's own publishing rights directs the royalties and profits only to the authors. This leaves the writer free to lease his own songs, and sell them, where the profits then go directly to the author. With traditional publishing deals, only paltry percentages go to the author, and the people who make the most are the publishers.

Two of the better services I have found to sell mp3's are Songplanet, and Ilike. Both are very good services. I have found Soundclick to a be a bit too amateurish, although the site has excellent widgets that allow you to take each individual song outside of Soundclick, and place them on your own website. The code displays an excellent player. Taking code outside of these services is a must, because within the services are only other musicians who are in competition with one another.

There are two musts before uploading songs to these services: the first is copyright registration. Your songs can be registered online at the US Copyright Office, and I imagine there are online services for copyright registration with online features in other countries.. And  another  recommendation I have is to establish a membership in one of the major song writers performing rights organizations, such as: ASCAP or BMI - they have online registrations as well.

These organizations collect royalties for you, the publisher, instead of sending it to a publishing house where you the writer would only get a percentage. In the hey day of the Beatles, and many other performers, and writers, publishing only allotted a standard 15% to the authors. And so by owning your own music, you get 100 percent. Another recommendation I'd have is formally establish your company as an LLC, a limited liability company with your state. I am in the process of doing that now. The process is simple andinexpensive and may provide tax shelters. Plus, it establishes you as a formal company.

For many years I have been writing songs. I have been registering them since 1982. I have been looking for the right venue to sell them, and for many years my songs were on sound click. I have major issues with that group, and so I am content with what I feel are the better ones. Ilike, and song planet. It is important if you are a writer not to contain your music in a box, such as a big music community, and you involved with one, take advantage of the widgets on your own website to expand your listening audience beyond the box containing only other musicians.(note: it is also possible to buy software to by pass all, and sell directly by yourself since some online providers take a percentage of each sale..)

Since I took on responsibilities of wife and family, and not having the time or inclination to go out with a band and tour, writing songs and uploading them is what provides me with my creative outlet. For those in a similar situation, I would advise doing something similar - get your stuff out there to be heard. I even invented my own band called "The Toylanders,' and so, if it isn't any good, I can blame them. Funnily enough, a friend i used to know invented a band called Earl Flemm and the Fuller Brush-men. I wondered why he didn't dig old earl out of storage, and put his stuff online. And so he has...great. We even invented a relationship between old Earl, and The Toylanders. I am sure you can read about their feud on the Internet. The whole invention has been quite fun, and who knows, it might lead somewhere, especially if I've captured your imagination here. As it seems that the two bands have become mortal enemies...and they are constantly at war. The Toylander's used to play with Earl. Who is a musical genie. But as the story goes, they left earl to find their own "frickin genie." It's become a saga, and it may be a book...you can search on this battle on the internet. The tug of war is good my friend and myself, because it keeps us creating.

I'll let you know how we're doing. Meanwhile, creating is what you should be doing. Make your music, and get it out there where it can be heard - if you can't do it on stage at the moment..

- Gary Stone