Jeff Price at the Leadership Music Digital Summit: Nashville

The Part of the Tunecore Business Model that Jeff, doesn’t tell you about.
While it is true that Tunecore offers a good service, I read that the FBI is going to start monitoring Tunecores accounting
processes.
Why? Isn’t Tunecore a great service?
True on all accounts but why does a musician need to use tunecore to put their music on iTunes anyway. Tunecore doesn’t pay a fee to
iTunes…or do they.
Tunecore pays a fee to iTunes, and other online stores to keep the littleman out. Therefore they can charge a fee. This seems
innocent right. I’ts only a mere 9.00 per single and 35 to 50.00 per album. That’s where the 7 million in financing went.
After doing the math and subtracting all the paypal transfer fees, I am wondering how Tunecore stays in the black.
Aahh! The truth is revealed…Now…
This is how they do it..aside from there state of the art automated processes
.
First you sign up.. they don’t care what type of music you put on and they don’t even check to see if the said music is copyrighted.
They do let you check the box saying you agree that selling music that you don’t have permission for is illegal.
All goes well and believe it or not in less than 3 weeks all your music is in the stores…Wow!…
You then every 5 minutes, check all the online stores to see if you moved in chart position or sales rank.
Then 45 days latter you receive your first 30 dollar royalty check. Wow you are really siked and pumped.
Another 45 days goes by and now you receive a 300 dollar royalty check. Wow..
This keeps happening for the next few months till finally you are about to hit the $1000 dollar mark and you do.. You log into your
account to initiate the paypal transfer. You type in your email..and wait for the next 24 hours to see your cash…but….2 days go
by..6 days go by then 2 weeks go by and no money.
You are pissed so you email support and no one answers you. There is no phone number but after calling and the 2 hrs of googleing
you find the address of tunecore. You then call the attorney general. The attorney general, connects you to the better business
bureau. You get the number.
You call and…Someone answer the phone right away…Wow. You think. They must be busy processing payments.
They explain to the rep that you want your money in the kindess tone.. He put you on hold..and then a guy named Tai comes on the
phone. He tells you that they aren’t going to pay you..because you don’t have permission to sell your songs that you wrote.And…if
you want your money..you need to produce the licenses for your songs. Now you are confused because you wrote all the songs, and
registered them with the copyright office. You are indeed pissed, but since you live in California and they are in New York, you
can’t strangle them. You yell you scream, but they just laugh. You hang up. Not knowing what to do. You wrote those songs. How can
they do this to you you wonder. You call back and try to remain calm. You tell them there must be some mistake. They laugh again and
say if you have a problem than go get a lawyer.
You hang up, call and think to yourself, I am going to get me a lawyer.
You find who you think is a good lawyer and you are confident until he says that he charges $500 dollars and hour. Saddend you call
around to find a lower priced lawyer but the fees keep getting higher and higher. YOu only made a little over $1000 dollars. If you
hire a lawyer you will receive no money because of the fees they charge.
You call Tunecore again..This time you keep getting tossed around. Finally you are transferred to a fellow named Peter. He seems
like a good guy. You explain the situation to him.. he pulls up your account..He tells you that it is illegal for you to sell
unlicensed music. Again you argue that it is your music and it is original. YOu ask for the anme and number of the person who says
your are stealing music. He blows you off and says you will need an attorney to get that info. YOu think about the lawyers fees and
now in your heart you know that you are fighting a losing battle.
You are so pissed by this time that you asked speak to the Boss. You are than transfered to the CFO, Gian…He says he ain’t gonna
pay..You need a lawyer to get your money. You then in the calmest way tell him that it is yours music. And you tell him that you
signed up at Tunecore so you want have to deal with lawyers. You thought they were on your side. He then laughs and says, “Buddy,
Music isnt about you..It is all about Money and Lawyers.” Almost in tears and barely able to speak you threatened to sue them which
is a lie.
He then yells “don’t call here again.” And don’t you threaten my staff. And slams the phone in your face.
****
This is a True story…And this happens to a lot of Tunecore customers.
Tunecore will only steal money from those who cannot afford a lawyer. They know you can’t sue because it is too expensive. A record
company won’t sue them because of the lawyer fees as well. So who keeps the money. Tunecore!!!
I am writing this to warn you about this practice. It doesn’t matter if you have licenses or not for your songs. If you samples
someone, do a cover of a song, you are really not safe. Tunecore is trying lock down the independent artist sector and steal there
money because they don’t have lawyers or money for them rather.
Tunecore has done this to thousands…and made millions in this shady practice.
It is a good service on the outside. But shady on the inside.
The Truth Exposed…
If this has happened to you or you feel your royalties are a bit low for your efforts, feel free to email me xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
We independents are only strong together..We can file a class action law suit and at least get a court order to audit there books.

There are some very strange thoughts in Tom’s posting, but the bottom line is I can completely understand why he is so frustrated. On occasion, an artist will have music distributed to a digital store like iTunes etc that has “samples” in it – for example, if an artist literally takes a recording from an Eminem song, or any song they did not record, and use it in their own recording, its called Sampling.
To legally use a sample you MUST clear the rights from the entity that controls the master recording (usually a record label) AND the entity that controls the publishing.
If you have your music go live in a digital store, and it has “uncleared” samples (meaning you did not get the official legal rights), and the record label and/or publisher discovers it, they will notify the digital store and ask the store to take the music down claiming copyright infringement.
When this happens, the digital store will take the music down, contact the distributor and ask for proof that the rights to the sample have been legally cleared. If they have, the legal paperwork is provided and the song(s) go back up. If not, the stores will not make them live again as they could get sued for copyright infringement. Any money generated from the sale of the music is put on hold until the dispute is resolved.
The distributor – for example TuneCore – could also get sued as it distributed the music to the store.
In some cases, and this might apply to Tom, an artist could be told by a producer, or someone else, that the samples they are using were legally cleared when they were not.
I would normally just take these sort of postings down, but I want to leave it up as it allows us the opportunity to give those of you reading a heads-up. Make certain that if you use samples from other people’s music, you clear the rights.
In my opinion, the laws and rules should be easier and clearer to figure out. I suspect they will be changing over the next years to keep up with the changes in the world.
As far as the FBI…ummm, no. And no, TuneCore does not pay any digital store a fee. Actually, I started TuneCore three years ago in reaction to middleman that would get music into digital stores and in return wanted the artists’ rights and money, that was just dead wrong.
Actually, its such a bizarre posting, if I wanted to, I am not sure I could even figure out how to respond to some of the other points.
Jeff

They kept our money as well!……….Why?…We have No Idea!…The album in question had nothing to do with the other sales that we made!……The bottom line…..either get the correct license or get screwed…with..(NO VASALINE)……..WE GOT SCREWED!