REBEAT Digital Giveaway: Free Distribution Of Your Single To 300+ Stores

IIt’s a scenario faced by every recording artist the world over. A recording artist with digital recordings and little know-how faces several disadvantages online. Although making music freely available can serve as an appealing tactic for some time, there in turn comes a time when every recording artist wants to make money from recorded work.

Although it’s easy enough to sell music on the web, it’s very often a time-consuming process, and you’ll need to personally master the process of manually submitting your music to a variety of digital stores. That’s hardly an area of interest for a garage band, so don’t even begin to think of the touring musician, wholly immersed in living life in a van.

Distribution for the masses

REBEAT Digital

Enter REBEAT Digital, a user software allowing recording artists to sell songs in over “300 online music stores worldwide (iTunes, Beatport, Amazon, Nokia OVI, Musicload, Napster, Spotify and many more)”. And it’s not just available to recording artists, but to producers, publishers and labels. The claim is that with REBEAT Digital, a music distribution software available for both MAC and Windows, “a global release of music titles is only a few mouse clicks away”.

As you can imagine, there’s a slight matter of cost. At €99 REBEAT’s software isn’t cheap at face value. However, that is a one-time fee for the software. After that it costs from just €1 per song uploaded. That, too, is a one-off payment.

One major positive is that the division of revenues is favorably skewed in the client’s favor: the artist retains 85% of revenues, leaving only 15% to REBEAT. Some might argue that even that is excessive, but let’s be realistic, 15% of revenues is a good deal for the client. Just remember: that’s 85% of revenues, not profits.

You can release a single, free of charge

If you’re unsure about REBEAT’s credentials, there is a basic package for sale, costing just €9.90. It allows the client to upload up to three tracks, with no extra charge per track. But thanks to an offer from REBEAT, Dotted Music readers can try this basic package completely free of charge by acting on the following steps:

1. Click this link or copy and paste the following into your browser’s address bar: https://www.rebeatdigital.com/info-en.aspx?language=en;

2. Enter the free Basic Version code: F96242DAE6;

3. Register and download the REBEAT Digital software;

4. Upload your song;

5. Your song will be available for purchase in potentially more than 300 online music stores.

The 3-song limit is, of course, significant – enough for a single release. Having the capacity to distribute your single is more than desirable; in that respect, Rebeat is the answer.

Specialist sales services

Essential to success in digital selling is ensuring priority to your work. Your recorded work may very well be the greatest opus in human history, but if it’s languishing in the murky latrines of iTunes’ song catalog it simply won’t sell. That’s why REBEAT offers both a prioritization service, which is self-explanatory, and a chart qualification service. What you get is a recipe for success, working with the assumption that the average music fan demands the recorded content you sell.

As is the case with many of these services, there are a few caveats worth exploring, particularly when it comes to the contract. That’s not to say the contract makes unreasonable demands; it’s a foresight that amateur users of REBEAT’s software will be less inclined to paying utmost attention, or to seeking advice, when reading a contract.

According to REBEAT‘s Distribution of digital soundfiles, the User is not entitled to transfer the right to offer the respective track in digital form to any other third-party – you do exclusively grant those digital rights to REBEAT. However, and here is the manifestation of REBEAT’s user-friendliness, you only give to REBEAT the digital rights for an exclusive track at a time. The customer retains the rights to the rest of the songs, which can be published with another company if the artist so wishes. That flexibility is rare in the music industry, and Dotted Music applauds REBEAT’s example. There is, of course, more to the story. Publishing the same track via two different distributors would result in rejections from stores like iTunes, whose huge content management team is particularly aware of the look and the content of their store; double announcements and publications aren’t tolerated. Meanwhile, from an accounting perspective it would be a real mess to publish, through a variety of distributors, the same track several times. Insight like that is yet another reason REBEAT Digital is such a valued distribution company.

Another dominating feature of REBEAT’s worth, particularly to the independent artist, is its processing of all worldwide mechanical royalties. That is part of why REBEAT Digital takes 15% of revenues, and why you should view it as but a nominal fee.

A daily sales overview

A further feature of REBEAT, and perhaps my favorite, is the Dashboard, which provides the client with a daily sales overview. With the importance of up-to-date information in finances, the importance of this cannot be overplayed; it is an excellently innovative move toward transparency unrivaled online. Clients can view where their tracks have been sold, and can adjust their marketing strategy accordingly, with further filtering of data showing the sales in the biggest and best digital stores, such as iTunes and Beatport.

Sign here: talking contracts

It’s also vital to note that, according to REBEAT Digital’s website, the earliest the contract between you and REBEAT for “[t]he exclusive right of sale and marketing especially includes the right to offer the respective track in digital form to third party persons or to provide the track for utilization” can be terminated is after “a one year minimum term starting with the upload by keeping four (4) months notice to the last day of the month”. However, after consulting with a member of the REBEAT Digital team, Dotted Music can confirm that it is possible to cancel the contract with REBEAT Digital at any time. However, REBEAT Digital would be better off making that part of official policy, ensuring that such a view is expressed on the site. Although our source described this policy as an unofficial fact, the fact is that accepting one set of written contractual terms and conditions while verbally agreeing on another is not, by rule of thumb, a wise way to conduct your negotiations. It’s prudent to go by the contract on the site, as those are, presumably, what will count under law. However, talking to Dotted Music, REBEAT Digital said, “[W]e handle things with care and we do respond to the needs and wishes of our customers.” That approach is important, as it means that REBEAT has in the past allowed contract termination without the minimum term being fulfilled; that’s a company with its clients’ interests at heart.

The other vital bit of information is that you shouldn’t change your mind too quickly after your recorded work is made available online: it costs decidedly more to remove content than it does to upload, with a “take down” price of €10.

What you have is a digital company seeking to make best use of your copyright. Similarly, you can make best use of your copyright. REBEAT is, regardless of the contractual qualms above, a futuristic dream for the present independent recording artist. Don’t let the opportunity go to waste. Try REBEAT Digital today.

Samuel Agini is the Editor of Andrew Apanov’s Dotted Music Blog.