Magnatune, Indie Label With a Revolutionary Business Model

Magnatune’s tag line is “We Are Not Evil.” I love it.

Magnatune is the first for-profit record label to adopt Creative Commons’ copyright licenses into its core distribution strategy.

Anyone can listen to all of their music at no cost. And get this — If you decide to purchase a CD-quality version of an album, you decide what you pay, between $5 and $18 per album.

Magnatune also encourages non-commercial projects (like student films) and commercial projects in pre-production to use the music at no cost — a smart way to create buzz and virally distribute independent content.

According to John Buckman, Magnatune’s CEO, for every 40 listeners at the site, they convert 1 buyer. That’s quite a conversion rate, and reflects their great music selection (which I highly recommend checking out).

Remix artists, be sure to read about Magnatune’s Remix Contest (submission deadline = July 31st, 2005), which was announced two weeks ago.