WaTunes Offers Free Digital Distribution
WaTunes has announced that it will no longer charge artists for digital distribution to iTunes and other online retailers. The company hopes to generate revenue from ads on a new music social networking site.
The fees that digital distributors charge have expereinced aggressive downward pressure in recent months with TuneCore, ReverbNation and others offering indie artists access to major online retailers for a low flat fee. But Watunes' unlimited free model, while potentially game changing, could be hard to sustain particularly in a tough economy.
The startup's CEO appears unconcerned. "By becoming the very first company to embrace
the absolute digital distribution model, we have eliminated the fee structured aggregation model that enables musicians pay in order to get their music available to their fans. This model enables our customers to distribute music while getting the full benefits of earning all the royalties and maximizing exposure.” says Kevin Rivers, founder and CEO of WaTunes.
WaTunes also provides a social music experience that enables the fans to connect and stream music, rate and comment on their favorite albums, meet new friends, and buy music directly from iTunes.
This, as will most new ad-based companies, will fail. Tunecore is doing it right.
Definitely agree with @Vanessa – I can’t imagine any situation in which this won’t eventually fail. Generating ad-revenue from a music social networking site is putting your eggs in a basket that has NOTHING to do with WaTunes’ core competency, which is digital distribution.
If I was an artist I’d be skeptical about ever receiving any royalties that earned but collected here. If the company is operating at a full loss – losing money hosting albums, files and performing accounting functions, how long till they stop paying out artists all together and sit on the money?
Word of advice to artists: you want your partners to make money and succeed along with you. That way they keep supporting your efforts and you don’t have to start from scratch every few months as they shut down. This applies to distributors, music stores, widgets, social networks, publicists, agents, venues, merchandise manufacturers, etc.
Is 10 dollars per album per year too much to pay to be on all the retail sites? Don’t get me wrong…I hope they can succeed…It would be awesome to see advertising actually work on the websternet but is anyone going broke using tunecore? If you are then I doubt free digital distro will help.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
Has anyone heard of Choosik? Check out http://www.choosik.com. It’s a free service for the artists. Very creative and getting popular.
Thank you Bruce for the post. WaTunes is a very interesting company with a compelling story to tell. If you would like to know more information about the company feel free to drop us a line at: press@watunes.com.
Kevin Rivers, CEO WaTunes.com.
Instructions on how to get FREE digital distribution are here http://is.gd/6J0zd
Kevin Rivers is a liar and a thief! He is also the KING of excuses. He runs a FAKE company called Xeinge, which is the parent company to his seperate scams Watunes (digital distribution) and Music Expand (marketing/promotion).
Kevin Rivers uses a program called MyPRGenie to post several press releases to sucker people into signing up with his company Watunes. He claims to offer FREE distribution of your music into stores like itunes, amazon, e-music, etc.. Now, although he DOES have the ability to place your music into some of these stores (not all as he claims), what happens next is the NASTY part!
Assuming you have made sales of your music on these digital retail outlets, Kevin Rivers has created his own accounting software, instead of using professional spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel, which purposely miscalculates your royalties, leaving himself with a HUGE chunk of change at your expense! He will then send you his doctored monthly accounting report stating you made a certain amount of sales when, in reality, you probably made ALOT more!
I am speaking on this from personal experience as I, and about 1,000 other “clients” of his, have been ripped off so far. PLEASE don’t be his next victim! The level Kevin Rivers will stoop to to rip you off is ridiculous!
Xeinge, Watunes, and Music Expand are not REAL companies. The checks he issues even list Xeinge as a DBA, not a private corporation as he is claiming to be a CEO of. Kevin Rivers is NOT a CEO. He is a young man in his early 20’s whom still lives with his father! He does not have a real office. His office is his bedroom in his father’s house. He uses the internet to set up these systems to bait-and-switch customers so that he can steal a portion of their royalties from itunes. He has changed his business model several times as to purposely keep his customers confused.
The sickening part is he has his friends and family working with him on this. He claims they are his business partners. My attorney has learned otherwise. Known associates include:
Kyle Rivers (Kevin River’s younger brother whom Kevin sometimes claims is the President or VP of Watunes)
Tony Paul aka Tony Pytleski (Kevin Rivers friend, whom Kevin claims works for him and is VP too)
Keith Rivers (Kevin Rivers’ father and head of household)
Marlene Rivers (Kevin River’s mother whom currently resides in GA)
In the event you are looking to pursue Kevin Rivers in court, here is his contact info
Kevin Rivers
1824 10th St
Port Huron, MI 48060
Kevin Rivers has used the following phone numbers:
404-461-9342
810-941-9595
810-982-6906