Unsigned Artists Make Money Online

On Thursday, Amazon.com inaugurated a “tip jar” by which listeners can volunteer to give cash to artists they like. Amazon’s effort joins MP3.com’s year-old “Payback for Playback” system, where musicians can upload their music to the Net to get a chunk of $1 million a month. For 39 of MP3.com’s roughly 150,000 artists, that’s translated into more than $20,000 they each made off of free downloads last year. And even artists making less dough say they’re satisfied with the rewards they’re reaping from this new phase of the music business. In MP3.com’s payback scheme, $1 million a month is doled out proportionately to the site’s artists based on the number of unique users who’ve listened to their music. Payments can range from zero — if you’ve had fewer than 15 listeners — to last year’s top earner, electronic band 303infinity, which made $165,392.92. MP3.com has financial problems, mostly caused by a slew of lawsuits connected with its My.Mp3.com personal music-storage service: first a set of five copyright suits from major record labels, four of which were settled out of court and one of which, with Universal Music, cost the company $118 million. Rival Emusic.com has also sued the site for copyright infringement. That case is pending. MP3.com gives artists $3 million of its roughly $20 million in quarterly revenues. The site has permission to use all of its Payback artists’ music. Michael Robertson, MP3.com’s CEO, said the site considers its payments to artists to be marketing expenses. Rather than advertising itself, the site gets thirsty artists to advertise their pages on MP3.com in a quest for hits, he said. MP3.com makes its money primarily from on-site advertising.