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.