March 30th, 2007
Disc Revolt, The Future of Digital Sales
I have been hearing a lot about this company, Disc Revolt. I even checked it out a few times, but it wasn’t until my buddy Seth from Negative Progression called me this morning to tell me more about it that I actually gave it some thought. He even mentioned speaking to someone at Disc Revolt. We discussed it quite a bit and when I asked a few questions that Seth could not answer, I decided to call Disc Revolt myself.
I called the number on the site expecting to leave a voice mail. To my surprise I got a live person and not just anyone, but CEO Mike Shamus. He was super courteous and helpful and helped me to get a lot of answers. Here is what I found:
Disc Revolt allows bands to sell digital downloads at their merch table. They give artists/labels plastic cards that they can sell enabling fans to get a one time download of up 15 songs. They offer promotions that give new accounts 100 free cards, but after that, you can buy cards in the following increments:
- 100 cards = $99.00 (99 cents each)
- 250 cards = $187.50 (75 cents each)
- 500 cards = $250.00 (50 cents each)
- 1000 cards = $450.00 (45 cents each)
That is the only money any artist or label has to pay for the opportunity to sell their music digitally. Disc Revolt does the rest; they host the songs; and enable customers to download tracks. The price the cards are sold at are up to you, but it is pretty open. As Mike discussed it, he said that artists have been giving them away as promo and selling them between $5.00 and $10.00 on their merch table. As a label, you could sell them to your bands just like you sell them CDs. I, for example, sell CDs to my bands for $5.00 and they sell them for $10.00. There could be a similar price set up for the cards.
I asked Mike how they make money as I could not believe that they could make enough money on cards alone. He said that their business model is set up much like a CD manufacturer and it is the hope that these cards one day will replace CD manufacturing. If bands and labels in the future switch over to Disc Revolt and they are one day making millions of cards, their business would succeed on card revenue alone.
I seriously think that this can become a great new outlet for artists and I plan to tell everyone I know about it. I will also be doing an interview with Mike shortly so stay tuned. For me, probably the absolute coolest part of all of this is that I will now be able to offer an inexpensive way to bundle downloads with my vinyl sales of Suburban Home artists. I will just put a download card in each record and now people will get both the vinyl and a full album download.
Artists and Labels though could use these cards for all sorts of purposes. You could use these as promotion instead of sending promo CDs. Mike mentioned an artist that had an Album release show, but instead of CDs, they sold the cards. This honestly could be the future of digital sales at your merch table.
Please check out the site now and set up an account. You will be stoked you did.
Written by Virgil Dickerson
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On March 30th, 2007 at 10:48 am
PS said:
I would totally buy a bundle card/vinyl. That is exactly what I’ve been hoping would happen with indie labels. I am very excited about the prospect of buying my music like this. Right now I use emusic to get my digital version and if I really like it then I buy the LP, which I usually do. I would much rather buy it as a package. How about you start with Josh Small’s new album? :) I’ll be watching for developments………..
On March 30th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Tom said:
I heard about this a little while ago and thought it sounded interesting. The card/vinyl idea is a great one, i love to buy Vinyl but don’t buy that much simply because I can’t put it on my ipod, if I could get a download with it as well though, I’d buy a lot more.
On March 30th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Mike said:
amazing idea! Glad somebody finally thought of a way to help indie bands sell their music. Man if bands don’t get in on this soon they are sure missing out! It’s times like these that I wish I played music..haha
On March 30th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Sean said:
a guy i work with has used this with his band (http://ashorelinedream.com) and said it worked out great. He showed me one of the cards and they look really cool.
On March 30th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Bill said:
I met them at SXSW. Very very cool.
On March 31st, 2007 at 6:17 am
Steve-o said:
Man, your bands are going to lose these things fast!
But seriously, the bands can take cards for all of your releases too. Now if there were a way to get kids t-shirts without having to take a trailer full of them…
On March 31st, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Jordan Pastepunk said:
The idea of bands taking other bands’ cards on tour with them is great. That’s more or less how I discovered Indecision Records’ entire roster while living on the east coast. Every time one of their bands toured College Park, MD, they always had a slew of other IND releases with them. Since you couldn’t find them in stores it was perfect and I always felt that it built up the community of the label.
On April 3rd, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Andy Zipf said:
I sell Disc Revolt download cards now, instead of CDs. I’ll have to have a very good reason to ever go back. I save money by not manufacturing and shipping CDs. They are amazing people too. I wish them and everyone that works with them well.
On April 17th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Disc Revolt - Digital Sales/Marketing at a quiet revolution said:
[…] I first saw Disc Revolt on some industry blogs and made a quick visit and a mental note to return alter and take a more detailed look around. Then Virgil at IndieHQ did a post Disc Revolt, The Future of Digital Sales. […]
On April 27th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Tobin Jennings said:
wow, thanks for posting this. i just started an account for my label. i think this could really get vinyl going again. i will always do CD’s and vinyls but this will be great for promo, samplers, and free envelope stuffers. i can’t wait to get started.
On June 20th, 2007 at 6:58 am
Aaron said:
There’s already a company that’s been doing this, called Dropcards. They had a booth at SXSW. I also got a dropcard with the new Polyphonic Spree vinyl…
On June 25th, 2007 at 6:51 am
willie nicholas said:
this is cool i wish this technology had existed 20 years ago…..i will put out meet the geazers on this plan….hooorahh
On May 9th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Lauren Zelgewicz said:
Yeah well guess what there is another company that just came out last year. Its called SoundLoad Music and they are WAY ahead of Disc Revolt and Drop Cards.
First off every card is reported to Nielsen Soundscan. So everytime someone redeems an artsit SoundLoad card, they get the sale of an album or single, just as if it was bought in a Best Buy or FYE
Their digital download cards drive traffic to the artist website. they are not trying to create another new music infrastructure on the web bc if a person is taking the time to sit down and redeem a card to get your music, shouldnt the card be directing a fan to your website and not to a company’s website. Why build their brand, when the artist could be doing the same thing.
So here is how their system works different- when the person gets to your website or MySpace they click a “Redeem your SoundLoad card Here” icon. That takes them to a generic redemption page. They scratch off the pin number.
The content is then downloaded to the users computer. Presto, Done! No new website to search through or sign up with.