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Digital Bazaar Signs Content Distribution Agreement with CD Baby Heralding Bold New Music Initiative
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Added: 03/14/2005
Type: Summary
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Digital Bazaar Signs Content Distribution Agreement with CD Baby Heralding Bold New Music Initiative
Blacksburg, VA March 14, 2005 -- Digital Bazaar, Inc., creators of the Bitmunk file distribution network, announced today that they have entered into a partnership with CD Baby, the largest seller of independent CDs on the Web. The agreement allows any CD Baby artist to distribute their digital music via the Bitmunk network while retaining the vast majority of the sales revenue.
Bitmunk allows fans to purchase digital music and then re-sell those purchases to other fans. The artist always gets the royalty they set for the sale of the digital good, regardless of who sells it on the network. This new business model allows fans to create music sites and sell music to their friends in a completely legal and legitimate manner that strengthens the artist-fan bond.
"We are ecstatic to be providing this service to CD Baby artists because we built this technology to help artists distribute their content. By using Bitmunk, they will be able to better connect with their fans." said Manu Sporny, CEO of Digital Bazaar.
"We are looking forward to a great relationship with Bitmunk to expand the independent artist's possibilities for digital distribution. It's exciting to see new ideas emerge in the world of digital music sales, and Bitmunk's program is unlike any other retail service we currently work with." said Gray Gannaway, head of CD Baby Digital Distribution.
David Longley, CTO of Digital Bazaar added "We will be releasing Bitmunk Sales Server software for free shortly after the public launch to enable anybody with an Internet connection to create their own online music store and sell CD Baby artist content. The best part about Bitmunk is that there is an incentive for everybody, including artists, fans, labels, Internet radio and fan-based music sites, to participate." For each sale on Bitmunk, the sellers are allowed to charge a small distribution fee to cover website operation costs such as bandwidth fees.
"We allow artists full control over their creations including setting royalties, descriptions, licensing options, allowable distribution countries, and many other options regarding their creation." said Sporny, "This is a bold step away from traditional online music stores which use restrictive Digital Rights Management (DRM), have fixed prices and do not allow fans to support and participate in the content distribution of their favorite musicians."
This announcement comes several weeks before the public launch of Bitmunk. "We are very busy integrating the CD Baby artists that have opt-ed in to our service before the public launch." added Sporny.
An introduction to Bitmunk available at: http://www.bitmunk.com/introduction.html
The public Bitmunk service is targeted for a Q1 2005 launch.
About Digital Bazaar, Inc.
Digital Bazaar's innovative file distribution technology ensures that artists can distribute their work while ensuring the proper royalties are paid to them. Consumers enjoy the full rights afforded by owning the song, including the ability to burn the MP3 file to CD, placing it on any MP3-capable device and even the ability to re-sell the song via Bitmunk. Founded in 2003 by Virginia Tech Computer Science graduates Manu Sporny, David Longley, and Mike Johnson, Digital Bazaar strives to be the market leader for the sale of digital files online. Digital Bazaar is headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center.
About CD Baby
CD Baby does online sales and distribution for independent artists and labels. Founder and musician Derek Sivers was selling his own CD online in 1997, and he eventually asked a few friends if they'd like to sell their CDs there, too. Friends told friends and now over 80,000 artists sell their music through CD Baby. CD Baby has sold over one million CDs to customers worldwide, and paid over $11 million dollars to musicians. CD Baby's Digital Distribution program has deals with all major digital outlets such as Apple iTunes, MSN Music, Rhapsody, Napster, Sony Connect, and many others, making CD Baby one of the leaders in the aggregation of digital content. For more information, visit http://www.cdbaby.com.
Contact Information:
Michael Johnson
Digital Bazaar, Inc.
540-961-4469
http://www.bitmunk.com/
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