Family Learning Center

Posts Tagged ‘Royalties’

Zimbalam brings mass distibution to indie musicians

Zimbalam, which launched in Europe in 2009 to help artists get their music widely distributed without a lot of work, opened its doors to US stores this week, meaning any artist using Zimbalam can now sell their music in the United States.

Zimbalam promises to distribute an artist’s music across multiple services, from Spotify and eMusic to behemoths like iTunes, Rhapsody and Amazon. The company is hooked into 35 different outlets, which lead to hundreds of other stores – a huge distribution network for musicians. Like competitor Tunec

The company’s revenue stream is simple: It charges $19.99 for an artist to distribute a single, or $29.99 for an album. After the initial release, there’s a yearly fee of $9.99 or $19.98, respectively. The company keeps all the royalties from sales until that figure is met and then gives 100% of subsequent royalties to the artist. In a surprisingly musician-friendly move, if the music doesn’t make more than the subscription fee, Zimbalam only charges what the music earned, and no more.

Through March 31, because of South By Southwest, Zimbalam is offering an even better deal for artists, charging only $3.99 for a single release and $5.99 for an album. All a musician has to do is use the coupon code SXSW when they sign up.

Zimbalam offers some free tools as well. It has developed a number of widgets for artists that let them do everything from embed their music on a website to create apps on Facebook and MySpace to interact with their fans.

Like its competitor Tunecore, Zimbalam takes a non-exclusive right on the sales of an album. Users can pick and choose where their music gets distributed, and can see aggregated or individualized reports on how their album is doing. They also get control of the price and release date of their album, as well as all the details of how it gets sold.

Zimbalam’s parent company is Paris-based Believe Digital, which says it’s the “leading digital distributor and services provider for independent artists and labels in Europe.” Zimbalam seems to be a natural extension of what Believe Digital already does and takes advantage of the relationships the company already has. The company was founded by music executives from around the world, with a lot of experience in the digital music industry.

The model seems to be working in Europe: Zimbalam’s website boasts that Believe Digital has paid $22 million in royalties since 2005 and has had 10 number one digital singles in the same time span. If the company can get similarly entrenched in the American music scene, it might become an invaluable resource for independent artists in the US.

Believe Digital, based in Paris, is a 70-employee company with $8.5 million in funding from xAnge and Ventech.

Companies: co:believe digital, co:zimbalam

Read the whole story…

Amazon hikes Kindle royalties to 70%, with a catch

Amazon dropped a bomb on the publishing world Wednesday morning by announcing a new royalty program that will allow authors to earn 70 percent royalties from each e-book sold, but with a catch or two. The move will pay participating authors more per book than they typically earn from physical book sales so long as they agree to certain conditions—conditions that make it clear that Amazon is working on keeping the Kindle attractive in light of upcoming competition. Still, authors and publishers are split on how good this deal really is.

Amazon’s old system will remain in place for those who don’t want to participate in the new arrangement, but the carrot to upgrade is pretty attractive—a typical $8.99 book would pay an author $3.15 under the “standard” system, while an author or publisher would get $6.25 under the new 70 percent scheme.

Read the whole story…

Amazon to start paying 70 percent royalties on Kindle books that play by its rules

Sure, you know how much you pay for a book on your Kindle, but do you know how much an author gets from that sale? For most it’s probably some meager single-digit percentage, with the publisher taking the rest of the roughly 35% of revenue Amazon doles out. The remaining 65% goes straight into the site’s coffers, but that’s about to change. On June 30, Amazon is launching a new option in its Digital Text Platform (DTP) publishing scheme that would give authors and publishers 70% of the revenue, with Amazon taking just 30% — effectively flipping the ratio on its head. The catch? There are plenty:

• Distribution costs are now paid by the publisher, but that should be on average a few cents per book.
• These books must sell for between $2.99 and $9.99 and must be priced at least 20% lower than a comparable physical copy of the book. (This is good news for readers, putting a greater incentive for lower-priced digital volumes.)
• The book must support the “broad set” of Kindle features, including text-to-speech.
• This will only be available for books that are in-copyright and only for those sold in the US.

This is an obvious reaction to the competition from places like Scribd, which pays publishers 80%, and publisher-friendly upstarts like Skiff, but it’s also an interesting push to force more books to enable Kindle’s text-to-speech. That is currently something of a sore spot amongst those who provide the content, so while we’re sure authors will love the extra money coming here, we’re wondering whether their publishers will take it given the possible loss of lucrative audiobook revenue. So, will this help Amazon in the upcoming war of the e-readers, or will it hurt? We can’t wait to find out.

Amazon to start paying 70 percent royalties on Kindle books that play by its rules originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  BusinessWire  | Email this | Comments
Read the whole story…

Amazon To Introduce New 70% Royalty Option For Kinde Digital Text Platform

Right off the heels of announcing an expansion of its Kindle Digital Text Platform to authors and publishers around the world, Amazon has announced that it will soon introduce a new 70 percent royalty option in the program that will allow them to to earn a larger share of revenue from each Kindle book they sell.

For each Kindle book sold, authors and publishers who choose the new royalty option – will will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option – will receive 70 percent of list price, net of delivery costs.

Amazon says the new 70 percent royalty option will become available on June 30, 2010 and be restricted to books sold in the United States at launch.

From the press release:

Delivery costs will be based on file size and pricing will be $0.15/MB. At today’s median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. This new program can thus enable authors and publishers to make more money on every sale. For example, on an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option, and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option.

Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content at Amazon.com says authors today often receive royalties in the range of 7% to 15% of the list price that publishers set for their physical books, or 25% of the net that publishers receive from retailers for their digital books.

The new royalty option aims to increase the revenue earned from book sales for publishers and authors, but there are certain requirements they have to meet in order to qualify, on top of the requirements books receiving the standard royalty rate have today:

- The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99
- This list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest price for the physical book
- The title is made available for sale in all regions for which the author or publisher has rights
- The title will be included in a set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech
- Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices

For the latter requirement, Amazon says it will provide tools to automate the process, and that the 70 percent royalty will be calculated off the sales price.

Read the whole story…

Kodak Files Lawsuits Against Apple, RIM Over Digital Imaging Technology Patent

Eastman Kodak Company (in short, Kodak) has filed lawsuits against Apple and Research In Motion, alleging that both have infringed digital imaging technology patented by the company.

The complaint, filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission, claims that Apple’s iPhone devices and all RIM’s camera-enabled BlackBerry phones infringe a patent that covers technology related to a method for previewing images.

Separately, Kodak filed two suits today against Apple that claim the infringement of patents related to digital cameras and certain computer processes.

In a statement, Kodak says it remains open to negotiating an agreement with both Apple and RIM, which it claims to have tried reaching for years.

Kodak says it has licensed digital imaging technology to some 30 companies, including major players like Nokia, Samsung, LG and Motorola, and that all those companies currently pay royalties to Kodak over use of its patented technology.

Said Laura G. Quatela, Chief Intellectual Property Officer, and Vice President, Eastman Kodak Company:

“Kodak has a long history of digital imaging innovation and we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars creating our industry-leading patent portfolio. In the case of Apple and RIM, we’ve had discussions for years with both companies in an attempt to resolve this issue amicably, and we have not been able to reach a satisfactory agreement. In light of that, we are taking this action to ensure that we protect the interests of our shareholders and the existing licensees of our technology.

Our primary interest is not to disrupt the availability of any product but to obtain fair compensation for the use of our technology. There’s a basic issue of fairness that needs to be addressed. Those devices use Kodak technology, and we are merely seeking compensation for the use of our technology in their products.”

On Dec. 17, in an action involving Samsung and Kodak, an ITC Administrative Law Judge issued a ruling declaring that the Kodak patent covering color image preview (No. 6,292,218) was valid and enforceable, and that Samsung’s camera-enabled mobile devices infringed upon that Kodak patent. Samsung and Kodak have since settled.

Kodak is now seeking from the ITC a limited exclusion order preventing the importation of infringing devices marketed by Apple and RIM.

In both U.S. District Court actions against Apple, Kodak is seeking to permanently enjoin Apple from further infringement as well as unspecified damages.

In the first suit against the Cupertino tech giant in District Court, Kodak alleges infringement of two patents generally covering image preview and the processing of images of different resolutions. In the second suit, Kodak alleges infringement of patents that describe a method by which a computer program can “ask for help” from another application to carry out certain computer-oriented functions.

The patent at issue in that suit, Kodak notes, was also the subject of litigation with Sun Microsystems, in which a federal jury in 2004 found Sun’s Java software infringed; that case was settled by Sun paying Kodak for a license for the patents.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Read the whole story…

Apple calls Nokia a copycat in patent countersuit

Apple has filed a countersuit against mobile phone giant Nokia, asserting that it has not infringed on Nokia’s patents and that Nokia has, in fact, copied Apple. The 79-page court filing was made in response to a lawsuit that Nokia filed against Apple in October, wherein Nokia said that Apple’s iPhone made heavy use of the company’s GSM/UMTS patents and that Apple should cough up the royalties.

The ten patents in question cover aspects of 2G and 3G wireless connections, as well as WiFi integrated into mobile phones. Nokia has an extensive patent portfolio, claiming it has “over 10,000 patent families” and has been embroiled in other, related IP litigation with other industry players over the past several years. In October when the suit was filed, Nokia’s Vice President of legal and intellectual property Ilkka Rahnasto claimed that Apple downright refused to agree to Nokia’s licensing terms and that the company was “attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation.”

Read the whole story…

Judge: ringtones aren’t performances, so no royalties

If you have been blessing everyone around you with cell phone “performances” of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies,” rest assured that your cell phone provider won’t have to pay royalties on it. A federal court has ruled that ringtones played aloud in public are not infringing on the content owners’ copyrights because they don’t constitute a true performance. (In other news, children are still allowed to sing songs without paying royalties.)

Joking aside (actually, that’s less of a joke than you might think), the ringtone argument was made by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) earlier this year when it sued certain mobile carriers in the US in an attempt to force them to fork over royalties every time a customer’s ringtone is played. Even though the carriers were already paying for download rights to the songs, ASCAP argued that each ring was a “performance” and therefore those download payments weren’t enough.

Read the whole story…

Roundup: Craigslist adds 140 cities, Facebook cashouts continue, Google’s brand under fire from Bing

Craigslist city coverage gets 25 percent bigger — The destroyer of newspapers added 140 cities to its listings on Thursday, bringing the total to 690 cities. Lucknow, India and Shenzhen, China were the biggest cities added. But many small towns including Oneonta, NY — population 13,000 — also now have Craigslist directories. The New York Times gives an overview of the new cities, and reporter Brad Stone chats up the advertising director of a newspaper in one of the smaller towns now served by Craigslist.

Yahoo’s Launchcast doesn’t need to pay copyright holders of songs it plays — To be clear, Yahoo does need to pay the standard licensing fees for webcasters set by SoundExchange, the nonprofit that collects royalties. But Sony Corp’s BMG Music lost its case against Yahoo that would have required it to pay extra fees. Reuters has the legal details.

Social network profiles are becoming a standard part of job applicant screening – A new study done for CareerBuilder.com found that 45 percent of employers now hit Facebook and other sites to check out potential employees, and 35 percent of employers surveyed had decided not to offer a job to at least one candidate because of his or her overshare on a social network site. Where do they look? Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace were the most-snooped sites. Surprisingly, only 7 percent followed applicants on Twitter.

Can Microsoft knock out Google with its $100 million Bing marketing campaign? — Millward Brown’s annual survey to determine a market value for brands once again put Google atop the rest of the world’s names for the third year in a row. What’s unusual is that unlike Coke, Ford, IBM and McDonalds, Google has spent almost nothing on advertising and marketing. TIME searches for an answer to the burning question in tech marketing: Will Microsoft’s $100 million campaign for its Bing rival to Google succeed in knocking out Sergey and Larry’s creation?

Facebook employee share selloff continues — Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies is said to be extending its $100 million purchase of Facebook employee shares. Rumor mongers say DST is looking to spend another $100 million or more. Why are employees cashing out? CNET social networks reporter Caroline McCarthy calls it a “quarter-life crisis” for Facebook employees who’ve simply gotten tired of working for startup wages without the IPO or buyout they’d expected would make them rich by now.

UK Facebook bully goes to jail — Keeley  Houghton is only 18 years old, but her online threats to kill another student from her school were part of the reason the teenager, who pleaded guilty to harassment. was sentenced to three months in a young offenders’ institution. The Daily Mail explains, somewhat far down in the story, that Houghton had physically assaulted the other girl. So it wasn’t just catty tweets.

Read the whole story…