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Great idea Mark and sorely needed!
Doest it mean something like that an artist can add to his site sort of player with his catalogue and tracks hosted on ML and when licensed ,the process is dome thrugh ML.?
sorry I,m kind of slow when it comes to web tech stuff.
Stuart Moore
Hey soundslikejoe
I’m not sure where you got those figures for YouLicense.com from. I pay $29.95 every six months to upload as much as I like.It states on the youlicense site $29.99 / MONTH for 50 tracks (private label option). I would love the price you’re getting!
Do you know someone there? 🙂Art,
Are you using Licensequote.com for your personal site, or totally custom site?
I am looking for a solution right now! I would love Mark to release something that I know would work on my site. Youlicense looks great, but a little too rich for me. Personally, I like the look and ease of youlicense, and the versatility of licensquote (looks cheesy).
For some of these monthly fees, I am leaning towards hiring a programmer myself.
You’ll see in this pic…. the fee you are paying is for the right to upload 50 tracks. To use the personal licensing solution, it’s $29.95 per month. Just take a look here….http://soundslikejoe.com/images/random_BlogPic/mlr_YouLicense.jpg
It seems that we get a different deal with YouLicense here in Europe, as you will see from this pic. I think this is where the confusion is. I’m also paying $29.95 for unlimited uploads and storage.
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb159/junoman106/Screenshot2013-02-09at0042402_zpse37ff6f5.png
Are you using Licensequote.com for your personal site, or totally custom site?
I’ve been working on my site for a few years all within the context of WordPress. It’s cost me about $1200 so far and that’s only because there were two things I could not achieve with off the shelf plugins. Grouping mixes and saving multiple playlists. It could be done without those options and cost maybe $100 or so.
I have been playing with licensequote and integrating that into my site but right now I’m using the eStore plugin. I still have lots more to do and I’m saving the “look” for last but it’s functioning fairly well. You can check it out here http://www.TuneGorilla.com (music you’ll go ape over, hah!).
Still, Mark’s idea sounds great and I might go that route when available.
Would composers be interested in licensing options as complex as this?
http://www.licensequote.com/LicenseQuote_Demo.aspxIn my experience this type of complex licensing presentation makes customers hit the back button in less than a second
BUT
the composer who might be interested in a white label site like this may not be going after exactly the same market as I am so maybe they need all of these all of these options and tons of pull down menus?
youlicense on the other hand has a much more user friendly page where you can see the uses and the prices, although again complex, in a single glance, no multiple menus and complicated decisions…
http://www.youlicense.com/OfferManagement/QuickLicense.aspx?lid=5&pid=377925I think I’m answering my own question,
maybe a multiple choice system in the admin area where you can click on usage types you want to present to the customer for your tracks and then enter your price.Also, since not all music is priced the same maybe you enter one price and the other uses are automatically calculated from that main price. So that you are not entering 20 different prices for each track you upload.
And there would be an overall default setting for usage and price so that you only have to enter that info once for your entire catalog but if you want to go into individual tracks and change the use options/price you can do that as well.
For the customer the options would then appear in a pop-up window after the client clicks on the ‘add to cart’ or ‘license this music’ button so that they never leave the track page they are looking at (and most likely listening to) and can quickly see what the pricing options are in a list and then either close the window and move on or choose an option and add it to their cart.
If you have any other examples of licensing option presentations that you really like please post them here.
Since the above comment from me was a bit stream of consciousness I have cleaned up the ideas here and added some others, open for your comments and suggestions:
Licensing Options
In the admin area of the white label music licensing project we would have a default licensing setup where you can choose the different types of uses from a multiple choice menu and enter prices for each use. These would then be applied to each song you upload.
You would also be able to go into to each track individually and edit the prices in case you want to charge more or less for a certain piece of music.On the customer side they would listen to a song in a track page and if they like it they would click the ‘add to cart’ or ‘license this music’ button and then be presented with a pop-up window with usage/price choices so that they never leave the page they are looking at, and most likely listening to, when they are considering their options.
They then click on the option they want and the item is added to the cart.Any comments, suggestions or links to other examples of licensing systems you like (or don’t like) are welcome.
Multiple Composers
I think someone mentioned the need to be able to represent multiple composers. The composer site admins on ML already have the basic ability to represent multiple composers but more features would need to be added to make it work really well.
However I think this would have to be available as an upgrade version as this type of platform would move beyond a composer using the site to represent himself and would move more into the realm of distributing software that would create direct competition for ourselves at musicloops.com. So a full ‘multiple composer’ upgrade would be a considerably more expensive option.Audio Watermarking Plugin
I have created an automatic audio watermarking script that runs on the server at ML. I am thinking I would make this available as a separate plugin to provide an integrated one button solution for audio watermarking the MP3 previews.
Otherwise composers would do this locally on their computers or leave out the audio watermark altogether.Bulk Upload Plugin
The basic site would have a media bin type upload system (ML composers know this system and seem to really like it) where you upload all your WAVs and MP3s and then create tracks from the media bin. This would come standard with the package.
I am also thinking of offering a bulk upload system driven by csv files. We have a great system on our sound effects site that could be adapted for the music site as well. This would be an extra fee as again this would appeal more to bigger companies and publishers.Subscription Fee?
Would composers be interested in a subscription fee option where the customer gets access to all music in the catalog for one price for a limited time?HTML5 Player Plugin
We can also provide a version where the site will automatically detect when it is being accessed via a mobile device and would then show an HTML5 player instead of the flash preview player which doesn’t work on most mobile platforms.@andrej
“…with his catalogue and tracks hosted on ML”No, the package would be something you download and install on your own server and it would become your own website. You would need access to php/mysql and you would need a good amount of disc space to host your own audio files. A dedicated server would probably be needed for all options (like automatic audio watermarking) but the basic package would probably work on a shared server as well.
Also, just to be clear, this package would have nothing to do with WordPress. It will be a completely stand alone custom solution.
I just mentioned WordPress because I would like the package to be as easy to install on a server as the WordPress platform is. That would be the goal anyway.Hi Mark,
With your experience in running ML over the years you have a great handle on this. As mentioned earlier the two things that vexed me were grouping alternate mixes and multiple playlists. Because you have a grouping ability on ML I would assume that would be available in this package.
The one thing I don’t believe you mentioned is multiple play lists. The way I have it set up at http://www.tunegorilla.com is that a customer has the option to create multiple playlists for various projects. As they go through the site they add songs to any of the playlists they have created. Once they are ready to check out they can go to a specific playlist and dump the songs into the shopping cart. The play lists are maintained in the system and do not end when the current session ends. They are not required to use play lists and can add to the shopping cart directly.
Another feature I have is the ability to assign every track a “type” of alternate mix (DnB, loop, 15 Second, 30 Second, etc.). The advantage of that is a customer can select a search by genre and type of mix. As an example “Action/Adventure, 15 Second”. Or they could just select “15 Second” and get all 15 Second tracks. I think that is a handy feature.
The only possible downside would be maintaining your software over the years. If you decide to retire at some point (hah!) would there be a path to keeping the software up to date? The advantage with WordPress is that there is a huge community invested in extending and maintaining that platform. Still, I would be seriously interested in your solution, as you describe it.
Thanks for contemplating offering this!
Art
>The one thing I don’t believe you mentioned is multiple play lists.
We would offer our cookie-based save-4-later feature where customers can save as many songs as they want for review at a later time. No separated playlists though.
The main reason being that we do not want customers to be required to create a user account to get access to any of the features.You would also get the Send-to-Client feature which is really popular with our customers (sends a list of tracks to a client with previews, areas for notes, approval or disapproval, but does not show the person approving the price of the track).
You would also get the Temp Download which gives editors a watermarked MP3 preview to pop into their timeline for approval before purchasing. This is a very popular feature on the site.
>Another feature I have is the ability to assign every track a “type” of alternate mix
That’s a possibility. Not for ML because with 150 composers their edits and alt mixes are far from standard. But I guess it would be good for an individual site owner that knows he will be uploading those same types of edits every time for every song.
>The advantage with WordPress is that there is a huge community invested in extending and maintaining that platform
There are lots of disadvantages to using WordPress as well. Mainly because at its heart it is a blogging platform, not an ecommerce platform. It is much harder to program for WordPress than it is for mysql/php (which is also a hugely popular and stable platform).
As for me retiring you would simply be able to hire a php programmer to continue adding features you like to your site. php is a completely open system, not a black box like CGI.
You could edit and customize the site to your liking before I retire as well 😉I will create anproposed list of features that will be available in the white label product and post them here for review before we get started.
Thanks Mark, you have really thought this through and it sounds like a great product.
One small note:
It is much harder to program for WordPress than it is for mysql/php (which is also a hugely popular and stable platform).
Wordpress is based on mysql/php.
Anyway, looking forward to your solution. I think I would probably scrap mine and go for yours.
