Nothing is more important to Artists than the relationship with their Fans. All of an artist’s financial success comes down to the strength and breadth of the relationships they have with their fans. It is from those relationships that artists can earn a living selling music, tickets and merchandise. It is our mission to provide the tools artists need to create, nurture, and strengthen fan relationships. We call the total value of these relationships an artist’s Band Equity™, and it is our mission to help artists maximize this.

TuneCore has arrangements with leading digital music retailers that let us place your music in their online stores and subscription services. You get 100% of the money that your music earns from digital distribution. Sign up now for digital distribution.

TuneCore charges $0.99 per track, $0.99 per store per album, and $19.98 per album per year storage and maintenance.  Or, just put up one song as a single for a flat price of $9.99 per year, all stores included.

The Plain DealerSome classic-rock acts have made a killing on the road for decades. But when they stop touring, the arena-rock experience could become roadkill.

A moment of silence, please, for arena rock. OK, it’s not quite dead yet. But the days of the big rock ‘n’ roll concert would seem to be numbered. Certain things we won’t miss. The high-priced tickets. Those long bathroom lines. The view (through rental binoculars) from the nosebleed seats.

Click here to read more…

While the internet may be a great place for entertainment, not everyone has the tech savvy - or the patience - to search seemingly infinite websites to discover something new.

But British rocker Peter Gabriel thinks he has found a way to help with his site, appropriately titled The Filter, which debuts on Tuesday.

“The internet, which I think is an amazing creation, provides access to an ocean of limitless information, but without filtering it’s easy to drown,” Gabriel, 58, said. “But if you have this little friend on your shoulder, that can pick out music to listen to and films to look it, it’s something I would use provided I could steer it a little.”

The site, which will provide users with daily recommendations, was founded by Gabriel and Martin Hopkins, a jazz fan.

Hopkins first came up with the idea of filtering content to discover new or forgotten music according to one’s individual mood.

Users who visit The Filter will initially be asked to fill out basic information and rate different genres of music and film, and also different acts and movies. The filter uses that information to work out what kind of suggestions to make, and the more a fan uses the site, the more accurate the recommendations become, according to the site’s developers.

Gabriel recently had soul music and Nick Drake on his own Filter page. He also likes Radiohead and Icelandic band Sigur Ros.

“It’s the attraction of being still in touch with interesting and new things without having to make the effort to research them all the time,” said Gabriel, pointing out the “inherent laziness in my nature”.

“I’m a tired thumb person, I’m a channel clicker. Maybe it’s a male thing. I know there’s good stuff I’d love to watch out there but I don’t want to search all the time,” he added.

He also does not have the time. The singer has a six-year-old son and another son on the way with his second wife. He also has two adult daughters.

Slicethepie enables artists to raise money directly from their fans to professionally record and release an album.

On Slicethepie:

• Artists can raise money directly from their fans to professionally record albums
• Fans can become emotionally and financially involved at all levels of the music industry - scouting, breaking, investing in and influencing real artists
• Investors can gamble on, trade in and profit from the success of these artists
• Artists who secure finance pay Slicethepie a small royalty on album sales but keep all their copyright and publishing rights.

This is how it works:

1. Artists sign up, upload their profile and join an Arena.
2. When the Arena is full (up to 1,000 Artists) the Scout Room opens.
3. Music fans earn money scouting each track at least 10 times rating it 0-10 and writing detailed reviews.
4. The 20 highest rated artists from the Scout Room go forward to the Showcase.
5. Music fans vote for and finance Showcase Artists by buying Backstage Passes.
6. Backstage Passes give fans exclusive access to the artist, participation in the recording process, a free copy of the album and exclusive rights to buy Contracts in the artist at a discount.
7. Fans buy Contracts that entitle them to a return based on the number of singles and albums sold by the Artist over a 2 year period
8. The Artist receives the money (non-recoupable) and goes off to record the album, keeping in close contact with Backstage Pass holders in a private area of the site.
9. The Contracts become fully tradable on the Slicethepie Exchange, fluctuating in value depending on the anticipated number of album and single sales.
10. The album is released and Slicethepie receives £2 royalty on every album sale.
11. The Artist keeps all their copyright and publishing rights and remains free to sign a record deal at any time.

If you already have a dedicated fanbase of over 5,000 fans then you may be able to go directly to the financing stage, if this is the case, then please contact us, alternatively, if you are not yet well established, you can join a Slicethepie Arena.

Jamendo offers free access and free download of music tracks, published with Creative Commons licences. On Jamendo, the Artists choose to give access to their music for free to the users.

From their website:

How to download
You can download mp3 music via the http protocol for free, legaly and without limitation, by clicking on the download links, directly from our player, from the album page or a playlist. The music is also available in ogg format and via eMule and BitTorrent networks (you can set this option in your preferences).

Why the Artists join jamendo?
By providing their music via Jamendo, the artists take advantage of the innovative technologies and comply with the new behaviour related to Internet. Thanks to Creative Commons licences, the Artists can protect their music and give the chance to discover their creations to large numbers of users. We offer…

Can the Artists earn money with jamendo?
Yes they can! Jamendo enables all the users to make a donation to the Artists with a minimum of 5 Eur (or Dollars). In any case, jamendo retains as little as 50 cents for financial fees, the remaining sum is directly given to the Artists. Please note that the only Artists eligible for receiving money are those who have opted for the Program ‘Donation’. But there is more, jamendo shares 50% of its advertising revenues to the Artists who opted for the Program ‘Revenue Sharing’.

What is the music format?
When you download a track, you get it in an mp3 format. If you download a playlist or an album, you get a compressed file (zip format), containing all the tracks. All you need to do is to decompress it and import the songs into your favorite audio player (iTunes, Media Player, Winamp, …)

How can I download the music?
We offer serveral ways for downloading music, the simplest one is to click on the download link and the file is saved on your computer. If you are familiar with the tools eMule or BitTorrent, we also offer links to download complete albums via these networks.

Is Jamendo really legal?
Our Artists use Creative Commons licences. To learn more on these licences, visit their site www.creativecommons.org

I want to make a donation to an Artist. What should I do?
All you need to do is to go to the Artist’s page of the Band and if donations are accepted by creating a Paypal account, you will find the corresponding icon by his name and logo.

I have a business or run a commercial activity. Can I use Jamendo music for my business ?
Please note that the commercial use of the music (background music of a shop, bar, use for a video, remixing…) depends on the Creative Commons licence selected by the artist. For commercial and free usage, without any payment of Creative Commons music, you need to select the tracks of Artists who have a licence authorizing commercial use of their music. These licences are: CC-BY, CC-BY-SA and LAL (Licence Art Libre). The licences are listed on the bottong of this search page: http://www.jamendo.com/fr/creativecommons/ I you want to access a wider selection of music, please contact us via e-mail: contact@jamendo.com. In the coming week, we will design new programs for our Artists with simplified access to commercial use of a large selection of music.

What if a track does not seem to be under a Creative Commons licence?
If you have a doubt about a song or a track… Despite all our efforts, it can happen that some Members do not understand the Creative Commons licences system and/or we did not see that a problem occurred with the copyright of a music track. In that case, please let us know, we will carry out the necessary verifications and take the right measures.