As a member of PLUGOLA and as an artist, you no longer have to distribute CDs at live events, or continually announce your MySpace/homepage URL to your drunken audience. Once your music is uploaded to your PLUGOLA media player widget, you may select any track(s) to be available for a free download to your fans. Once selected, you are given an option to print coupons and cheaply and easily distribute these coupons to fans.
Each PLUGOLA artist is given their own randomly generated code that is automatically added to the coupon. With this code, your fans can come to your profile and download your pre-selected tracks for free. Not only will this help potential fans remember who you are and where to find you (coupon also contains your direct URL), but this will lessen the commitment to invest in a full CD and also give them an incentive to purchase more of your music/mp3s. The only cost to you is the paper to print your coupons on and some time to distribute them to your fans.
Your coupon code may also be used to distribute elsewhere, such as; magazine ads, fliers, swag or anything else. Feel free to be creative!
2 comments:
Hey there Plugola:
This sounds like a cool idea. My "band" is actually just myself and my brother who write, play all instruments, sing, record, master and print our own CD's. We are also BETA testing a new concept. 4 years ago I decided to try to create a "band" that did EVERYTHING on the INTERNET ONLY. Marketing, sales, PR, All of it. Now 4 yrs. later our test is almost complete and the data is coming in.
The AC Thundertones are a huge success! We've had over 30,000 downloads of our songs, sold many CD's, have a fan club and street team and all is going great EXCEPT one thing....We got robbed! Over 40 Indie Music internet sites pirated our music (even though it is copywritten and we own the DIGITAL rights as well). These companies buy or steal ONE download of our songs, THEN they offer them for sale on THEIR sites! They don't give us a cent after that.
We can't do ANYTHING about it because jurisdictionally, we'd have to sue EACH company in separate lawsuits AND would have to hire lawyers etc. SO they KNOW that a band can't afford this so they steal with impunity knowing that we can't do a thing.
So far The AC Thundertones is owed over $50,000 for sales of songs, CD's and Ringtones but we can't collect a cent.
Your system at least gives us a tracking number and coupon to BUY Cd's etc. instead of handing out the CD for anyone to pirate and sell for themselves.
Thanks
Wow! Congrats on the success of The AC Thundertones! I've always wanted to do an internet-only 'band' & have wondered many times if it could work. It's good to know it's possible with the right amount of effort. On the other hand, it's horrible that some people steal others' hard work and profit from it themselves. You're right. It will be very tough for you to collect what is owed to you, but perhaps a cease & desist letter from your lawyer demanding these web sites to remove your copyrighted content.
PLUGOLA also has a few other security measures for your content already in place. Please note that these features can NOT stop physical piracy of your content, but are put into place in order to have a bit more control over it.
We're working on perfecting a 'report' system, where users can easily report any copyright infringement or questionable content that may slip-by our moderators. We also have 'Download Terms' feature that is fully customizable by musicians only. Anyone who download's your content must agree to your terms before proceeding to download. This is a way to legally inform other users what they may or may not use your recording for.
We're aiming to protect the artist's content, while not restricting the fans with these features.
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