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WaTunes Gets Out Of Digital Distribution

WaTunes is getting out of the flat fee digital distribution business. This will allow the company to put more emphasis on its music  discover and social platform and its download store, WaTunes Marketplace. ON WaTunes' social platform artists can create a profile, embed
widgets, and share music with fans.  Certain artist services will be retained in the transition including selling unlimited mobile apps, ringtones, and licensing.

image from upload.wikimedia.org But Watune's departure from flat fee digital distribution also comes just days after sector leader TuneCore got it biggest competition yet. Last week European distributor Zimbalam moved into the U.S. with a very competitive offering; and on Friday, ReverbNation expanded its flat fee offering with more outlets tied to their expanding suite of marketing tools.

An ongoing need to find cost savings as well as growing belief that marketing functions can be delivered outside of the distributor, will continue downward price pressure both for flat fee and percentage based music aggregators.

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4 Comments

  1. From the WaTunes blog: “On April 1st, we will begin to takedown all contents from our digital services and will begin to issue royalties from all previous and concurrent months to ensure that your transition with us is smooth, quick, and easy. By June 1st, your albums should be fully removed, royalties issued, and you should already have a new distributor to call home.” This is exactly why I still see CD Baby, and maybe TuneCore, as the preferred digital distributor for indies.

  2. On April 1st? Smart call.
    Anyways, this is further evidence for the radically futuristic notion that you can’t run a service infrastructure without service fees. Didn’t trust WaTunes when they started for that precise reason — if you’re not generating income, you’re not seriously in it to begin with. Life costs money!

  3. It is sad that we had to exit out this business. We’ve worked for years to create a appealing model. Through this transition we hope that everyone enjoyed our services as we move forward to focus on our social platform. We encourage everyone to join WaTunes, share music, and even buy music from personal favorites. There is a lot more coming from us that we hope would be well appealing to the end user.
    Thank all for the support.
    Kevin Rivers
    CEO, WaTunes

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