Magnatune - Definition and Overview

Magnatune is a small record label that aims at treating both its musicians and its customers fairly. It originally only sold music for download through its website magnatune.com, but added a print-CDs-on-demand service in late 2004. Magnatune was founded in spring 2003 by John Buckman, CEO of e-mail software company Lyris.

Magnatune makes non-exclusive agreements with artists, and gives them fifty percent of any proceeds from online sales or licensing [1] (http://magnatune.com/info/musicians). These kind of policies are very unusual for a record label in 2003-2004. Users can stream and download music in mp3 form without charge before making a buying decision. All freely-available music is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license from the Creative Commons [2] (http://magnatune.com/info/openmusic).

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. It is not yet clear whether this model produces enough profits for Magnatune to run a healthy business.

Magnatune artists

• Cargo Cult - an electronic musician, whose album consists of beat-driven and ambient styles.
• Roots of Rebellion - a hard rock group

External links

• Magnatune.com (http://magnatune.com/) is the official homepage of Magnatune.
• Buckman (founder/owner of Magnatune) 2004-02-01: Magnatune, an Open Music Experiment (http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7220). In Linux Journal, issue 118.