Everyone go check out the Ava Star this week, as we featured 8 performances by SECONDtunes artists in our ad!  We’ll see how the next couple of weeks go, as far as whether this will be a regular thing or not, but for now one of the many benefits of signing up with t² is the possibility of being featured in our ads!  The best way to show the product off is to send folks to your shows, so please keep your profiles updated with your current schedules!  We’ll have the events database up and running very soon, which will revolutionize the live music scene in SL, I think.  Imagine not having to depend on Search or Groups to know who is playing RIGHT NOW.  That’s what the t² LIVE HUD is going to provide for live music fans.  We’re also working on the t² SOUNDCHECK HUD, which will provide artists and their trusted “sound engineers” a way to communicate quietly and effectively about sound mixing issues that may arise.  And like everything else in SECONDtunes, these tools will be available at absolutely no cost.

Stay tuned!

OK, I’m working a bit on the backend today, and wanted to let everyone know what things are changing.

• At the request of more than one user, the MP3s that listeners download will have a filename containing the Artist Name and Title of the Song. You can test this by downloading any MP3s you have purchased since registering. It cleans out all special characters (non-alphanumeric) beforehand, so I guess keep that in mind for titles (don’t have them depend on a weird symbol).
• The directory of hosted MP3s is no longer public. This was just an oversight since I didn’t originally plan on allowing hosted files.
• Fixed the “Official Website” link to work when artists do not include “http://” in front of their address. (Just for common knowledge, without http:// the browser thinks that the link is pointing to a directory on whatever server it’s on.)
• You should see your “Artist ID” in your “Edit Profile” section. This will be important soon, because in future updates I won’t create custom vendors for each artist, they will have to edit a notecard with their Artist ID. This will make it MUCH simpler for you to update your vendor, I promise!
• Artist URIs are working now.  To give anyone a link to your SECONDtunes profile, just edit the “Artist URI” line in your profile, and point folks to it!  Mine is http://www.secondtunes.com/artists/bobbyfairweather.
• More small changes coming today.

So a lifelong dream of mine, to own and operate a record store, is about to come to fruition in Second Life.  The second phase of SECONDtunes is implementing a vendor/associates program that allows anyone and everyone to set up shop and sell the quality tunes of SL artists.  It will work like a normal agreement, where they buy for a percentage of retail.  The difference will be that they will set their profit margin.  For instance, consider the following scenario:

JueL Resistance is selling a great live recording of “Cigarette” that she did at one of her Naked Acoustic Sessions for L$400.

If “JayJay’s Record Store” would like to carry this particular tune, and have decided that they’d like to make a 10% margin off of each sale, the vendor in their store will sell “Cigarette” for L$440, and they’ll recieve the L$40 that’s above JueL’s performance-selling price.  The L$400 will be split the same way it always is with 15% commission going to SECONDtunes, and the lion’s share going to the artist.

Another feature I’m considering implementing is shared profits.  To use JueL as an example again (mostly because she’s been such an evengelist for SECONDtunes so far!), she just played a set along with Cylindrian Rutabega.  Maybe they played a killer version of “Hammer and a Nail” (it’s the Indigo girls, and if you haven’t, you should).  So, after sorting all the licensing out, they decide to sell their rockin’ awesome version of the already great tune on SECONDtunes.  Either artist would be able to add the song and “Share” it with the other.  That way, every time JueL sells a copy, Cylindrian gets half (or whatever percentage they agree on) of the song’s revenue.  I know that these things could be worked out outside of the service, but it just seems like one more thing that could be automated to make the experience that much better for the artists!

In other news, I demoed the vendor to one of the founders of Magnatune Records today, and have my fingers crossed that they’ll decide 1) to sell their artists’ songs in-world, and 2) to use SECONDtunes to do it.

Tell all of your artist friends to give me a shout in-world.  I will soon have a teleport spot for anyone to check it out while I’m off doing my crazy real-life thing, but for now it’s up close and personal, baby!

Vendor update coming up in the next couple of days that will eliminate the free t-shirt annoyance (it really seemed like a good idea, I promise) and will spit out a notecard to new listeners to explain the process in better detail.

I’m also looking to join the “Upload Song” function to the “Add Song” page.  I originally didn’t intend on hosting everyone’s MP3s, but it seems to be a real need for the artists, so we’re going to make it happen.  I may be on the lookout for a better server soon as well, so if anyone knows of sweet deals in that department, let me know.

Until next time,
Bobby Fairweather

So thanks to JueL and all the songs she’s already selling on SECONDtunes, we worked out a bug that effects vendors that are selling more than 10 songs.  If you’ve got 11 or more songs listed, contact me in world ASAP for a fix, if not you can probably wait until the next major release.  I’m working on making the vendor auto-updating to avoid the insane amount of inventory I’m currently throwing around, but for now we’re keeping it grassroots, baby!

New artist and quite possibly inhuman vocal talent Cylindrian Rutabaga and JueL Resistance played a set tonight that I totally wish I’d been able to attend.  JueL played the “lead stream” and Cylindrian provided backup piano, vocals, and had a percussionist as well in the mix.  If anyone’s doing cool stuff like that, be sure to record it!  The beauty of SECONDtunes is going to be the cool live cuts available for download by SL listeners, I think!

Speaking of the beauty of SECONDtunes, the object in your vendor SHOULD be mod/copy.  This means that I have no problem with you making it look however you want.  I’m currently working out a way to 1) change to colors of the hover text to whatever you want, 2) have “playlist vendors” that only display specific songs (if you wanted a vendor for different albums, shows, etc. to keep at your venue, house, or whatever), and 3) auto-deliver the script into the object so that you don’t have to do any crazy copy/paste stuff to get your super cool SECONDtunes vendor updated to the latest version of the script.  The good news is that I hope within a month to have a semi-permanent script in place (ie. it will only be updated outside of a 2 or 3-month release schedule for security issues that need to be fixed NOW).

Does anyone have any decent land for a decent price?  I really want to build a record store like very soon, but I just can’t pay what many people are asking for land.  Realistically, I only need enough prims for a small building and vendors for each artist.  I hope to add a small stage and some other cool stuff later, but for now I’m happy with a very barebones place.  One of the really awesome features I hope to unveil soon will depend on me having somewhere permanent to park objects that interact with the website.

Thanks to all the artists and listeners!  We’re up to over 50 people who have bought music from SECONDtunes, and the number is growing every day!  I really anticipate a very slow curve until the average music listener has become accustomed to purchasing SECONDtunes Artists’ music.  The thing about an original idea is that noone knows what to think about it just yet!  Keep spreading the word and plopping that vendor out at shows.  If you’re looking for something to say between songs, make sure you mention the vendor and how it works (it will auto-register them and give them a password, then they can jump on the web and download their music!).   Also, Artists, don’t be afraid to evangelize the vendor to your friends!  Everyone will sell more product when every artist in Second Life is selling through SECONDtunes because fans will be more familiar with the idea from seeing it everywhere.  I’m also starting a “Suggested Features” page that you can leave a comment on with things that you feel would make the experience better for everyone.  Look for that link later this evening.

Thanks again for supporting this project and keep on rocking the virtual world!

Bobby

I’m out on the road in real-life, so updates will be slower and SL appearances fewer.  I noticed some duplicate songs in the database, and it raised (for me) an interesting dillema that I anticipate hearing about from artists:  “How do I delete a song?”

This presents a problem, because if I allow the deletion of songs, it could possibly break the experience for the listener (ie. They purchased the song and haven’t gotten around to downloading it yet and you delete it before they can.)  I want the experience to be as useful, simple, and rewarding as possible for everyone, so the solution I’ve come to is the ability to “Retire” songs.  This will be useful for artists who only want to sell a song for a limited time, or for those who have not purchased a new license for their cover recording.  It will also make an easy fix for “accidents” in the song addition process.

If you retire a song before it has any purchases, I should be able to delete it permanently (so as not to muck up your artist tools page with duplicates).  We’ll deal with that on a case-by-case basis.

I hope that this makes things simpler (yes, that means you, JueL!) and better.  I’ve started working on the ability to create special vendors with only specified songs (rather than your whole library) as well as some alternative ways of accessing the vendor (possibly with a menu system rather than the click-to-change system currently in place).

Also, I changed the welcome message received by new users to (hopefully) make it easier to find their new temporary password and understand that registration is done automatically at the time of purchase.  In the next vendor update we’ll be ditching the free t-shirt in favor of a notecard for new users.

I’ll be working on some code from my laptop when I’m off the stage and not asleep, but it probably won’t be updated until after the weekend.  If anyone has any immediate concerns, please feel free to e-mail me at bobby@bobbyfairweather.com.  You all have a great weekend, and get to selling that music!

We here at SECONDtunes would like to welcome the new artists to the fold!  We’ve added JueL Resistance, Julian Vesta, Ronnie Carr, and Spaceman Opus!  Hopes are high that once the first wave of artists comes in, gets comfortable with the product, and makes suggestions about how their listeners would benefit from changes to the site or the vendor, that we’ll start seeing more and more of the SL music community on board here!  Our goal is to have every performing musician on Second Life with a page here on SECONDtunes, and as many as possible selling their music!

I’ve been asked a lot by artists the details of selling cover versions of songs through SECONDtunes.  The short answer is “Yes, you can, if you acquire the licenses.”  The long answer can be found here: http://www.harryfox.com/public/songfile.jsp.

The summary of what it will cost you as an artist to sell someone else’s song is as follows (assuming that HFA can license it):

• $13-$15 ($US) one-time fee for each song.  This is a processing fee for the agency that does the licensing.
• 9.1 cents per copy sold (minimum of 150 licenses per song can be purchased at a given time)

What this means is that it will cost $28.65 to license 150 downloads of any given song for SECONDtunes.  This is the case with any retailer, and the license you purchase carries to any and all retailers (iTunes, etc.).  You can use the “View Statistics” button in your artist tools to keep up with how many copies have been downloaded, and when you need to re-up your license.  If you anticipate selling more than 150 downloads in a year (which is how long the license is good for) you should go ahead and license how many you expect to sell.  Once it runs out, you hit the $15 processing fee again.

SECONDtunes is not going to require you to submit these licenses currently, but will only accept songs that you mark “Yes, I own or own the license to sell this song” on the “Add Song” dialogue.  Hopefully this will remain the case to reduce the amount of paperwork for everyone, but understand that you may have to produce the license in the event that (1) our policy on this changes or (2) a publisher requests confirmation that the license has been acquired.

I met with NANCE Brody last night, and she’s on board for the first round of Beta testing!  If you see NANCE perform, grab a couple of her tunes and enjoy the show!  Her excitement for the project has given me a new boost to make this awesome!  Artist pages will be working (hopefully) by the end of the day today, as well as the ability to change your password to one that’s a little easier to remember than the random one given to you at your first purchase.  I’m looking into the whole land ownership thing this week, and should have a kiosk available for password resetting if you happen to forget yours between visits as well.  I really don’t want to store e-mail addresses or anything like that, so all of that type of communication will have to happen within SL.

The artist sign-up process is going to remain in-world as well, and most likely through individual appointments for the time being.  I’m very concerned that an automated process would be opening the project up to misuse (consider if someone signed up and sold copyrighted music illegally) and I want to keep it as effective and useful for artists, venues, and fans as possible for as long as possible.  All I need is the RIAA jumping down my throat for someone else’s bad idea.

Speaking of, Artists within the US (and probably most other countries) should educate themselves on mechanical royalties if they intend to sell cover versions of published songs.  Technically you should be making yourself aware of it anyway, because performing copyrighted, published material requres some royalty payments.  Anyway, I’ll do some research into the best way for artists to “stay legal” and I’ll just have to trust that everyone’s doing it.  I could be wrong (and the lawyer I’m meeting with will let me know, I’m sure), but I’m pretty sure that falls into the artist’s responsibility, and not mine.  It will most likely result in a couple of checkboxes when adding a song that say “Is this copyrighted?” and “If so, do you intend to pay the appropriate royalties to the songwriters and/or publishers?”  I know it seems like a pain, but believe it or not there are people that make their full living on writing those songs, and every 8.5 cents helps!

More updates to follow, just wanted to document the occasion of the first artist (thanks, NANCE!) and get some of that stuff out of the way.  Peace.

OK, spent pretty much the entire day getting the SECONDtunes Artist Vendor up and running.  Boy was it a fun blend of loving and hating the Lindens!  Let’s just say that the heaps and stacks, they were collidin’.  Finally, though, the sucker is robust.  I’ve tested it with 1,000 songs (my goal was 100, but as hard as that was to get to, I had to at least see the fruits of my labor as it climbed into the quadruple digits!) and I think it’s safe to say that it’ll work with as many tracks as an artist dare throw at it.

The current situation is that mp3 files will have to be hosted off-site.  I may offer storage for a per-file or monthly subscription (payable in Lindens, of course!).  I want to make it free for artists to begin using it, and remote storage was an absolute must for that to happen.  We’ll see what the interest is, and how other artists respond before delving too far into all of that.

The Vendor is set up to display relevent data (Artist, Title, Description/Album, Price, and whether the price is fixed or suggested) for every song.  You click through to browse, and pay the object to buy the MP3!  It all works pretty seamlessly, I think, but I’m very open to any suggestions as to how I can make it better for listeners.

When a customer buys a tune, the Vendor pays SECONDtunes Sellers (an account I created just to collect Lindens) a 15% commission on the sale.  I thought a lot about what a fair rate would be, and let’s just say that I WISH our real-life band made 85% of our digital sales.

In addition to this website and live performances where the vendor should sit prominently in front of the audience (hint, hint), I’m looking into purchasing some land to have a “virtual record store” showcasing all the t² Artists.  This will include vendors for each artist, as well as a streaming radio broadcast of the tunes being sold through t² (assuming that the artists are all cool with that).

I’ve been amazed at 1) the enthusiasm both from the artists and the listening community in Second Life and 2) the utter lack of quality resources for artists in Second Life.  Hopefully this tool will begin to fill a void and many will follow suit in investing in the Live Music community of Second Life.

I’m going to start drafting a Privacy Policy / TOS and get to work making the web side of things just as awesome as things in the metaverse. But for now…  Sleep.

OK, after the first long day of coding (and learning), I’ve got basic functionality!  Not too shabby, if I do say so myself!

1. Avatar pays Vendor
2. Vendor checks to see if Avatar is already registered.  If not, assigns a temporary password.
3. Vendor grants permission to download the MP3 to the Avatar
4. Vendor sends back a “Thank you” and a reminder of the website URI (and password if it’s new).
5. Avatar goes to http://www.secondtunes.com and Logs in
6. Avatar is given a list of tunes that they have purchased.
7. Avatar can download (the actual address of the mp3 is hidden to the Avatar, and the link they click on only works if they are signed in.)

Hopefully I’ll get some of the “inner workings” more streamlined and get the edit password/profile page up and running tomorrow.  Overall, I couldn’t be happier!  IM me (Bobby Fairweather) in-world if you’d like to try it out by purchasing the MP3 of me performing Coldplay’s “Yellow” on New Year’s at Bibi’s Cafe.

I will be getting SECONDtunes ready for the public in the following weeks, and will need some artists and venue owners to help out in the debugging process.  Please IM me in-world (Bobby Fairweather) and let me know if you’re interested in helping to test this much-needed service out!