Capping a week of strange music industry news, there’s this great piece by David Moye at AOL News illustrating the sudden success tribute bands are finding on iTunes.
It’s pretty simple. Real bands like the Beatles, Bob Seger, and AC/DC don’t allow their music to be sold on iTunes. So, tribute bands–really good ones–are re-recording their music and selling it instead. The result? The Sam Morrison Band (Bob Seger) has enjoyed more than 100,000 digital downloads. Led Zepagain had more than half a million before the real Zep finally allowed its music for sale through the service (too bad Phil Collins has his music on iTunes, I was thinking I might be on to something).
Selling your tribute act’s music on iTunes may not hold sway with longtime fans, but it does garner a younger, newer audience. Digital music buyers buy what they like, even if it’s not by the original act. It also helps that the original doesn’t sell music on iTunes or similar sites.
So, the next time someone dismisses your tribute band, go record an album and post it on iTunes. Making a living at music is hard enough. There’s nothing fake about making a little scratch from your talent.
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This sounds so great to me, beacause I have a telent to hear instruments from music an making it sound like an original playing it like in the song from the artist. But is there anything I have to be up to or what I have to do before I upload this track to tunecore for example? Is it legal?
Hi Daniel,
Typically, you would have to obtain a mechanical license to sell any cover songs you upload digitally. Services such as the Harry Fox Agency here in the States can help with that. There are similar licensing organizations in Europe and elsewhere as well. This article could be helpful: http://www.cleverjoe.com/articles/music_copyright_law.html.
Thanks for writing, and best of luck!
Lee