Case Studies/Magnatune Study
Open Music is music that is shareable, available in ‘source code’ form, allows derivative works and is free of cost for non-commercial use. It is the concept of ‘open source’ computer software applied to music. — John Buckman
This case study incorporates text by Michael Holloway at the Open Rights Group and is licensed CC BY-SA.
CC+ implementation
As with most record labels, the business model is part business (B2B) and part consumer (B2C) sales, with income divided roughly equally across the two revenue sources. This means that for John and his artists, half their income is from the fans that love the records and the other half is from licenses for commercial use, such as in film, TV or advertising.
Magnatune has been a leader in implementing the CC+ protocol. Lisa DeBenedictis is a popular music on Magnatune. Debenedictis released an a capella version of "Girl and Supergirl" on ccMixter. The a capella vocals were remixed into 76 songs, and Magnatune picked the best remixes at the time for "Mixter One", an compilation album where Magnatune signed distribution agreements with all the chosen remixers. Both the remixers and the original musician (DeBenedictis get paid for sales of the compilation. One of the remixes from "Mixter One" was then picked up as a commercial license by a bicycle company for a promotional CD, which they in turn sell.
