kidmercury

One of my favorite antics of recent history has been was dropping my track, "Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington, Stop Hatin' on Howard Lindzon and the Truth." As I noted in the video in the link, I uploaded the video to TuneCore at the end of July.

When I log into TuneCore to check sales, though, it's still not showing up.


WTF?

Now the song is available for purchase in stores, like eMusic. I don't download products made by Crapple so I don't know for sure, but it should be in iTunes as well, as well as all other major digital music retailers.

So I don't know what the deal is. I'd like to find out so I can make the appropriate donation to WeAreChange. If TuneCore doesn't clarify this for me, I'll just donate some fixed amount at the end of the month.

While I am hatin' on TuneCore a bit in this post, I do want to link to my previous posts on TuneCore, which are very complimentary, as I think the company is outstanding and keeps getting better. TuneCore's strategy is very consistent with Fred's vision of the web, which is like my vision, only not as extreme.

Anyway, one area I hope TuneCore addresses is making it easier for folks like me to sell cover songs. I did actually go through the trouble of getting the rights to my version of "Vogue" and "Real Slim Shady," so I could actually resell them legally in some situations, but intellectual property rights stuff gets complicated and messy very quickly, so it is not worth the hassle for me. If TuneCore could simplify the process of selling cover songs and making sure all parties get paid appropriately, that would be a huge way for them to generate value and profits for themselves and the entire music industry.

Unregistered

Hey KidMerc! I checked for you, and it's not on iTunes, there was a problem. I'm redelivering it right now, and I'll let you know within 24 hours what's up. Very sorry about that--and you're right, it was delivered everywhere else, just the one hiccup with iTunes. A weird one, too, or our systems would have caught it faster. Thanks for mentioning, now we know.

And hey, we totally encourage cover songs! We even put out a booklet to make it easy:

TuneCore: Music Industry Survival Manual

Always write us if there's anything weird (support@tunecore.com) and we WILL answer. You can even write me if you'd like.

I'll be in touch about "Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington, Stop Hatin' On Howard Lindzon and the Truth" ASAP.

Thanks!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

kidmercury

hey blogosphere, is this great or what?!??!? excellent customer support on tunecore's part. gotta give props.