Magnatune
Encyclopedia
Magnatune is an American
independent record label
based in Berkeley, California
, founded in spring 2003
by John Buckman
, then-CEO of e-mail software company Lyris. It aims at treating both its musicians and its customers fairly—its tagline is "We are not evil". It originally only sold music for download
through its website, but added a print-CDs
-on-demand service in late 2004, and in October 2007 began selling complete albums and individual tracks through the Amazon.com
Music Store. In May, 2008 Magnatune launched all-you-can-eat membership plans, and is believed to be the only online music site to offer a DRM-free unlimited membership. From March 2010 Magnatune dropped the CD printing service, and moved exclusively to the all-you-can-eat membership plans. Magnatune was the first record label to license music online and as of May 2008 had sold over 3000 licenses in its five years of existence.
licensing.
Magnatune makes non-exclusive agreements with artists, and gives them fifty percent of any proceeds from online sales or licensing. These kinds of policies were very unusual for a record label in 2003–2004. Users can stream
or download music in MP3
format (no DRM
) without charge before choosing whether to buy or not. (Some MP3s available for free download have Magnatune advertisements in them.) Buyers used to be able to purchase individual albums and choose their own price, from US $5 to $18 per album, but in March 2010 Magnatune moved to a subscriptions-only business model, whereby buyers have to purchase a monthly subscription (with a three month minimum) under which they can download as much music as they like from Magnatune. Customers may download music they have purchased in WAV
, FLAC, MP3, Ogg Vorbis
and AAC
encoding formats. Music files sold by Magnatune do not use any form of digital rights management
to prevent customers from making copies of music files they have purchased; and actually encourage buyers to share up to three copies with friends.
All of the tracks downloaded free of charge are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
. Even though using liberal licensing is not a new idea in itself, Magnatune is one of the first and most visible companies to try to build a business in music around this idea. However, many other platforms do not restrict authors to one specific license but allow them to pick one of the CC (or other) licenses, including those that do not prohibit commercial use.
API that has made integration within media players possible. Amarok (from version 1.4.4, released in October 2006) allows users to preview and buy music from all signed artists from within the application. Rhythmbox
0.9.7 added this functionality in December 2006. A Slim Devices
plugin for SlimServer
is available. A plugin for Songbird
is also available. Clementine
added support for Magnatune in version 0.4.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
independent record label
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
based in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, founded in spring 2003
2003 in music
-January:* January – following an investigation by The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and London detectives, police raids in England and the Netherlands recover nearly 500 original Beatles studio tapes, recorded during the Let It Be sessions. Five people are arrested...
by John Buckman
John Buckman
John Buckman is founder of Magnatune, a Berkeley, California-based record label he founded in 2003 and which is known for its commercial application of Creative Commons licensing and overtly artist-friendly business practices...
, then-CEO of e-mail software company Lyris. It aims at treating both its musicians and its customers fairly—its tagline is "We are not evil". It originally only sold music for download
Uploading and downloading
In computer networks, to download means to receive data to a local system from a remote system, or to initiate such a data transfer. Examples of a remote system from which a download might be performed include a webserver, FTP server, email server, or other similar systems...
through its website, but added a print-CDs
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
-on-demand service in late 2004, and in October 2007 began selling complete albums and individual tracks through the Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
Music Store. In May, 2008 Magnatune launched all-you-can-eat membership plans, and is believed to be the only online music site to offer a DRM-free unlimited membership. From March 2010 Magnatune dropped the CD printing service, and moved exclusively to the all-you-can-eat membership plans. Magnatune was the first record label to license music online and as of May 2008 had sold over 3000 licenses in its five years of existence.
About
Magnatune describe themselves as "a pioneer in the fair trade music movement". Magnatune was one of the first commercial enterprises to use Creative CommonsCreative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
licensing.
Magnatune makes non-exclusive agreements with artists, and gives them fifty percent of any proceeds from online sales or licensing. These kinds of policies were very unusual for a record label in 2003–2004. Users can stream
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
or download music in MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format (no DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
) without charge before choosing whether to buy or not. (Some MP3s available for free download have Magnatune advertisements in them.) Buyers used to be able to purchase individual albums and choose their own price, from US $5 to $18 per album, but in March 2010 Magnatune moved to a subscriptions-only business model, whereby buyers have to purchase a monthly subscription (with a three month minimum) under which they can download as much music as they like from Magnatune. Customers may download music they have purchased in WAV
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
, FLAC, MP3, Ogg Vorbis
Vorbis
Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression...
and AAC
Advanced Audio Coding
Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
encoding formats. Music files sold by Magnatune do not use any form of digital rights management
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
to prevent customers from making copies of music files they have purchased; and actually encourage buyers to share up to three copies with friends.
All of the tracks downloaded free of charge are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
Creative Commons licenses
Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...
. Even though using liberal licensing is not a new idea in itself, Magnatune is one of the first and most visible companies to try to build a business in music around this idea. However, many other platforms do not restrict authors to one specific license but allow them to pick one of the CC (or other) licenses, including those that do not prohibit commercial use.
Integration with media players
Magnatune has an XMLXML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
API that has made integration within media players possible. Amarok (from version 1.4.4, released in October 2006) allows users to preview and buy music from all signed artists from within the application. Rhythmbox
Rhythmbox
Rhythmbox is an audio player that plays and helps organize digital music. Originally inspired by Apple's iTunes, it is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop using the GStreamer media framework. However, Rhythmbox functions on desktop environments other than GNOME.-Music...
0.9.7 added this functionality in December 2006. A Slim Devices
Slim Devices
Slim Devices, Inc. is a consumer electronics company based in Mountain View, California, United States. Their main product is the Squeezebox network music player which connects to a home ethernet or Wi-Fi network, and allows the owner to stream digital audio over the network to a stereo...
plugin for SlimServer
SlimServer
Logitech Media Server is a streaming audio server supported by Logitech , developed in particular to support their Squeezebox range of digital audio receivers....
is available. A plugin for Songbird
Songbird (software)
Songbird is a free and open source software audio player and web browser, with a stated mission "to incubate Songbird, the first Web player, to catalyze and champion a diverse, open Media Web."...
is also available. Clementine
Clementine (software)
Clementine is a cross-platform free and open source music player and library organizer. It is a port of Amarok 1.4 to the Qt 4 framework and the GStreamer multimedia framework. It is available for Unix-like, Windows and Mac OS X...
added support for Magnatune in version 0.4.
External links
- Magnatune official site
- Magnatuneasy, Easy Way Magnatune with rss
- List of Magnatune albums on Last.fm, sorted by popularity