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GarageBand iTMS

hotwire132002

hotwire132002

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 24, 2004
1,209
1
Cadillac, MI
I do a lot of web design, and I'm wondering if people would be interested if I set up an indie iTMS (call it iNdie? Tell me if you have a better name!) anyway, I thought it could post independant artists' GarageBand songs (like this one) and charge somewhere in the range of $.49 per song, with all going to the artist. If I set up a site like this, would anyone be interesting in using it?
 
Wow, you actually linked to his song! I know quite a number of people (including myself) that would be interested in purchasing his music. He's working on making a full CD, and I'm on the list for a copy of it already.
 
I would definitely be interested in purchasing indie music.....and maybe posting my own. I know a lot of people who would be interested in this also.
 
i'd have to see how it turns out but if its a success i would definitely be interested
 
crenz said:
But if all goes to the artists, how are you going to finance the site?
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thats what i was wondering...and a site like this could get huge, you'd need so much space to store peoples songs
 
howard said:
thats what i was wondering...and a site like this could get huge, you'd need so much space to store peoples songs
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I could either use donations, or half and half (half to artist, half to support site)... that would mean 32 songs and I'd pay the month's hosting.
 
hotwire132002 said:
I could either use donations, or half and half (half to artist, half to support site)... that would mean 32 songs and I'd pay the month's hosting.
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(It costs me 8 bucks a month for an 800 meg hosting, its a start...)

Even if I needed a dedicated server, if it gets huge its $49 a month for a 40 gig server with 500 gigs bandwidth. If you're interested, I'll get started on the site. Tell me what you think.
 
Heck yes, I would be very very interested in seeing what GarageBand has really done to make music accessible to the masses....as well as to the talented souls out there who may have been languishing due to lack of studio funds! My mind keeps going back to how little equipment it took Trent Reznor to get Nine Inch Nails started....

A couple questions: I'm guessing you wouldn't be licensing FairPlay, so the music would be without any DRM? No authorizations, restrictions, etc?

Would the format still be AAC? If so, what sample rate?

Also, would it be a requirement of the site that any music up for sale must have been made on GarageBand? Or would you allow stuff started in GB, and completed in other software, or just any song that GB has touched somewhere during its production?

But yes, go for it! definitely!

GoDaddy reports that indieMS.com is available, if you're going to flirt with angering Apple's legal department. :)
 
rueyeet said:
Heck yes, I would be very very interested in seeing what GarageBand has really done to make music accessible to the masses....as well as to the talented souls out there who may have been languishing due to lack of studio funds! My mind keeps going back to how little equipment it took Trent Reznor to get Nine Inch Nails started....

A couple questions: I'm guessing you wouldn't be licensing FairPlay, so the music would be without any DRM? No authorizations, restrictions, etc?

Would the format still be AAC? If so, what sample rate?

Also, would it be a requirement of the site that any music up for sale must have been made on GarageBand? Or would you allow stuff started in GB, and completed in other software, or just any song that GB has touched somewhere during its production?

But yes, go for it! definitely!

GoDaddy reports that indieMS.com is available, if you're going to flirt with angering Apple's legal department. :)
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I would go with anything that used GarageBand somewhere in production. (Based on honor system, I'm not going to go and get confirmation on every song to make sure GarageBand was used.) As for FairPlay, my opinion on music is you own it, you can use it however you want. I'm not going to worry about copy protection.

I think I'll get started designing the site this weekend. Anyone who wants to help fund it ($8 per month is what I'll need...), tell me. It'd be very helpful, but if nobody wants to help me out, that's fine.

Anyone with ideas, tell me please! If you have a song you'd like in the store that used GarageBand, email me at eric@coresoftcomputers.com. I'm thinking it'll cost 49 cents a song. (Maybe half and half, just so I can support the web hosting cost? If I sell more than 32 songs a month I'll cut it.)
 
i'm thinking about getting an album together from stuff i've done. not all with garageband but eh. this has interested me for a while and i was actually thinking of doing something similar but none of my other friends have been interested thus far. their problem was that they wanted their music to be free, which i'm all for and i'll probably only charge for a hard copy, so they wanted it set up so that their music could be available for free if the artist so chooses... i completely understand and support that but with the cost of such a site it would be hard to do something like this.

just rambling. :D
 
ExoticFish said:
i'm thinking about getting an album together from stuff i've done. not all with garageband but eh. this has interested me for a while and i was actually thinking of doing something similar but none of my other friends have been interested thus far. their problem was that they wanted their music to be free, which i'm all for and i'll probably only charge for a hard copy, so they wanted it set up so that their music could be available for free if the artist so chooses... i completely understand and support that but with the cost of such a site it would be hard to do something like this.

just rambling. :D
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I like the idea of artist sets the price, but it might require a banner ad on the site. Don't worry--no pop-ups, I can't stand 'em! I'd prefer to do donations over ads, but I don't know if anyone would want to donate...
 
I think this is a fantastic idea. If the songs were good enough, I'd download 'em--I'd also contribute some of my own. Cool cool cool...

Would there be an opportunity to at least sample the songs, like in iTMS?
 
Once you have a site design, let me see it and if I like, I will supply some degree of fundage. Perhaps the domain registration cost, for a full year or more, and/or the hosting setup cost (if any) in exchange for letting me keep an email account there or something. My username here is also my email at AOL, so if this sounds acceptable, let me know.

Interesting about what to charge....if you allow bands to determine price, that may quickly drive customers to the free/low-price bands and marginalize the higher-priced ones. Tricky for the bands that truly believe that their music should be free (which is their right). However, there ARE hosting and distribution costs associated with offering downloads, and one would think that they wouldn't object to helping towards that if they're getting exposure in return. It's not like there's DRM involved.

Maybe two-tiered pricing: One very low price for "free" bands that just covers the expense of putting them up there, and then one higher price for bands that want some revenue. In other words: Help cover our costs to keep your music up here, with the option of getting x cents per song you sell if you wish. Of course this would have to be calculated so as not to burden either option unfairly.

But there's some attraction too to the iTMS's (former?) policy of everyone getting the same deal, same cost, same treatment, so that everyone's playing on the same ground.

I don't know....any ideas?
 
Ok, here's my spin on pricing.

You said that half of 49 cents would go to the site, so, artists can price their songs as low as 25 cents. They will not receive any money, but the hosting cost will be covered. Bands can also choose to charge more, but the more they charge, the more that goes to the site, so if they wanted to make 50 cents per song themselves, the price would be $ (or more).

Just my idea.


Oh yes, default would be 49 cents.
 
How will you accept payment for the songs?

How will you accept payment?

If you're going to take credit cards, you'll be paying fees to Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc. So you'll need to take this expense into consideration.
 
Yes, the hosting would have to allow a merchant set-up. And I would think that along with major credit cards, PayPal would be good to have. I'm not sure how complicated all that would be, or how much server space would be needed to host the songs. It's probably a fairly big and complicated thing, actually.

Here's another question: What would draw a person to a GBTMS, when there are at least two major sites offering free GB creations for download? You'd want to know that before putting money down for domain/hosting start-up.
 
I came up with a great name... indieTunes!

My only issue is Apple's Legal department. Do you think it's similar enough for them to sue me?
 
hotwire132002 said:
I came up with a great name... indieTunes!

My only issue is Apple's Legal department. Do you think it's similar enough for them to sue me?
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Strike that, reverse it: indietunes.com is taken by one of those stupid "buy this domain" dealios. How about independantTunes? Plus, it's less similar to iTunes than indieTunes, which means that Apple is less likely to sue me! :D
 
Depends on how strict they're being, I guess....the indie part is completely safe, and tunes is general enough without the "i" to not confuse anyone, which is the basis for most lawsuits. Of course, without any association or similarity at all, it's hard for prospective customers to grasp "website to buy songs created with GarageBand."

I might say that "indieTunes" doesn't sound like a place to buy GarageBand songs, but you might want to expand if this works out well, so that might be a good thing.

I have to say, MacJams and iCompositions have some pretty decent looking sites. iCompositions also allows hosting-like options....
 
I consulted my lawyer (AKA Dad :D Handy) and he said that independentTunes is likely to get me sued. What do you think about GarageSale?
 
GarageSale.com, .net, and .org are all taken.

Finding a domain name now is a pain. Every common word and combination of words is long gone, and all letter combinations of four letters or less is gone too. I've been trying to come up with something for my personal use for months now that's not too long, not too specific (or negative-sounding), and that will work for friends, family, and prospective employers. Still can't find anything workable AND available.

I recommend pulling up some registrar's domain search box, and trying everything you can think of....it'll give you some idea of the kind of stuff that's not already taken.

From my own little bit of research:

Available domain names:

indieMS.com, .net, .org
indieGB.com, .net, .org
garageMS.com, .net, .org
gbtms.com, .net, .org

Not available:

indie.com
gbms.com
gbmusic.com
etunes.com

.com taken, .net/.org available:

gbtunes.com (.net, .org available): forum for GB users
gbstore.com (.net, .org available): Gun Broker online store!
gbsongs.com (.net, .org available): Domain for sale: squatter
 
rueyeet said:
Here's another question: What would draw a person to a GBTMS, when there are at least two major sites offering free GB creations for download? You'd want to know that before putting money down for domain/hosting start-up.
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The chance to support an artist that you like. The free download sites do not help you support the artists whose music you enjoy listening to. Granted, logistically it's a nightmare, and I'm sure that's where the majority of Apple's profits go, to getting all the behind the scenes financial crap taken care off that the average user doesn't even consider.
 
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