CD Baby

CD Baby is an online store much like Amazon.com or CD Universe, except that it specializes in selling independent CDs. Since 1998, CD Baby has become the largest independent CD store on the internet. It sells CDs by independent musicians (meaning that these artists are not signed to any major record companies but distribute their CDs either through their own small labels or through small Independent record labels).

Unlike most record deals or distributors, CD Baby gives artists a much more generous cut of profits (usually anywhere from six to twelve dollars a CD). In addition, CD Baby is totally nonexclusive and allows anyone willing to sell their products through the website. These methods of consideration for independent artists, as well as excellent customer service, have made CD Baby both an accessible and preferable outlet to artists and consumers alike.

Popular artists such as Jon Brion and Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer as well as lesser known artists such as Balkanarama sell their work through the website.

It is operated in Portland, Oregon, USA and was founded by Derek Sivers in 1997. Sivers is an independent musician himself and was selling his own CD in 1997 when the idea for CDBaby was born. He asked some of his musician friends if they would like him to sell their CDs as well. It was supposed to be a hobby but soon turned into serious business: by now CDBaby has sold over $15 million in independent CDs to people around the world.

CD Baby is the second biggest online store for independent music artists, second only to Amazon.

CD Baby and musicians

Every artist is able to sell his music at CD Baby. There is no minimum of CDs an artist has to sell to stay on their website; even an artist who only sold one CD per year would still remain a part of the CD Baby catalogue. CD Baby offers some helpful resources and tips for their musicians. In 2004, CD Baby signed a deal with Apple and managed to get every artist (who wanted digital music distribution) on iTunes. Some CD Baby artists have been featured as the free song of the week on iTunes, giving the artists exposure (though no direct revenue). Soon thereafter other digital online music stores wanted to have the CD Baby catalogue as well and now CD Baby artists can be found on almost every music platform such as Rhapsody, Napster, MusicNet, etc.

CD Baby and customers

People who order from CD Baby receive a funny and wittily written confirmation e-mail. Returning customers receive a free CD with their next order. Customers can pay by credit card, check, cash and even by chocolate.

Apart from these things, CD Baby offers 2-minute sound files to preview all songs, which is better for customers than a 30-second-sound-file, typical of other online music stores. Also, there is a 14 day money-back guarantee on all CDs.

Successful artists at CD Baby

Apart from the many unknown independent artists, there are several artists now at CD Baby who were formerly signed by a major record label and who, for one reason or another, sell their music through CD Baby now as well. These include Tiffany (who was a major superstar in the 80's), Lory Bianco (who used to be very successful in Germany and Italy in the 1980's), Jack Johnson started to sell his music at CD Baby first (he actually went the other way around and is NOW signed by a major record label), there is even an album with early demo songs by Madonna available that is being sold by her former producer Stephen Bray.

Origins to present

CD Baby began with its founder and president, Derek Sivers in Woodstock, New York. Sivers was a full-time musician who created the website to sell a CD he'd made online. As a hobby, he also began to sell the CDs of local bands and friends. Because he was already making a living as a musician, he was able to be flexible with making CD Baby the "utopian" online store for independent musicians. To do this, Sivers followed four main principles based on his personal preferences:

The musician will be paid weekly for their CD sales
The musician will have the full name and address of everyone who purchases their CD
The musician will always be allowed to sell their CD, regardless of how many copies they sell
The musician will not have to worry about advertising or product placement hurting sales

In addition, Sivers made sure to listen to every CD he sold (currently someone is employed to do this). The operation was run mainly in Sivers' bedroom.

Sivers eventually hired John Steup as his Vice President and first employee. In an interview, Sivers recalls saying to Steup: "This thing might get huge one day. I mean, we might have 100 artists here."

Steadily, CD Baby grew as more artists wanted to sell their music through the website. Sivers always dealt with the artists directly.

CD Baby was somewhat inspired by a website called Songs.com run by Paul Schatzkin. Songs.com, though not having the nonexclusive policy CD Baby does, was also a website that sold primarily independent music. However, six months after Songs.com was sold to Gaylord Entertainment for $1.2 million, the website became defunct. Schatzkin would then send an email to members of Songs.com, recommending CD Baby.

Since 1998, the four main principles Sivers set out to accomplish still stand. Sivers never accepts money to advertise a CD more than any other CD and doesn't negotiate with investors or display advertisements. Currently, there are forty or so employees of CD Baby whose work ranges from warehouse work to customer service to listening to CDs.

Though Sivers is not interested in selling digital music by creating a website such as MP3.com or eMusic, he has been approached by Apple iTunes to put the CD Baby catalogue on the iTunes Music Store as a digital medium. Rhapsody, MusicMatch and Napster gave Sivers similar requests.

Although the majority of artists who use CD Baby are North American, about thirty percent of orders for CD Baby are overseas. For this reason, Sivers aims to create CD Baby warehouses in Japan, Europe and Canada.

In 2003, Sivers won a World Technology Award for Entertainment.

Statistics

CD Baby statistics as of September 10, 2005:

104,744 artists sell their CDs at CD Baby.
1,820,222 CDs sold online to customers.
$17,619,457.35 paid to artists.

External links