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 1. What is Digital Distribution? 2. What Music Stores can you get my music into? 3. How much does it cost for your service? 4. How often will I be paid? 5. How will I be paid? 6. Will I be able to see how many songs have been downloaded? 7. How long does it take for my album to be made available online? 8. Do I lose ownership of my music? 9. What if I have 'covered' someone elses song on my album? Can I still use your digital distribution service? 10. I don't have a CD of my music, can I still have my songs digitally distributed? 11. What if I don't want to mess with royalties. Can I only submit specific songs that I want digitally distributed? 12. Do I have to have a UPC or Barcode to have my album digitally distributed? 13. Can you explain the payout level percentage and how it is determined? 14. Can I upload the audio and cover art for my album(s) instead of sending in physical CDs? 15. Can I submit a single? 16. Do you offer any additional services? 17. Is there a phone number I can call to talk with someone at Catapult? 18. What are the Cover Art requirements for an Album? 19. Can I provide my own ISRC codes for my album's tracks? 20. What types of audio files do you accept for encoding? 1. What is Digital Distribution? Digital distribution is the method by which your music is distributed to various digital music stores which then sell downloads of your music for iPods, iPhones, Zunes, Sansas, or any other number of portable music devices. Where a traditional distributor would ship out your physical album to stores, we will distribute digital copies of your music to stores such as iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, AmazonMP3, eMusic, Zune, Best Buy Digital Music Store, etc. Major digital music stores such as iTunes require artists and labels to use a digital distributor such as Catapult to make their music and content available in their stores. 2. What Music Stores can you get my music into? Currently, we offer digital distribution to over 60 major digital music stores including: Apple's iTunes (All World Stores), Rhapsody,Napster, eMusic, AmazonMP3, Zune, Puretracks.com, Best Buy Digital Music Store, and so many more. While iTunes continues to have the predominate share of the music download market, Catapult is always in negotiations to provide even more distribution to other major online music stores to maximize our artist and label's sales. The following link will display the current stores that your album will automatically be delivered to: Click To View The Stores We Distribute Into 3. How much does it cost for your service? We charge a one time setup fee of $25 for each album submitted for digital distribution to cover the cost of the time spent encoding/transcoding, scanning of the artwork, and metadata delivery to each music store. After that, we pay you 91-95% of the profits received from the respective retailers. There are no hidden fees or charges.
For example: If iTunes sells one of your songs for .99 cents and they pay us .70 cents, we would then pay you 91-95% of the .70 cents. The percentage rate that we pay is based off of an artist's All Time Track Downloads for each album. 4. How often will I be paid? We disperse payments to our Artists and Labels once a month. Each music store is different and they all have their own payment intervals (monthly, quarterly, etc), however, once we have received payment from a music store, we will then pay you at the end of the next month for the previous month's sales. 5. How will I be paid? We pay all of our artists by way of PayPal, the global leader in online payments. It is free to sign up for and regardless of which account type you create (personal, premium, or business) it will cost you nothing to receive money from us as we cover all transaction fees. Once the money is transfered to your PayPal account, you then have the option of depositing it into your bank account electronically for free, or for a small fee PayPal will mail you a check. To learn more about setting up a PayPal account, please visit www.paypal.com. 6. Will I be able to see how many songs have been downloaded? Yes. You can log into your control panel and view detailed reports of your sales figures for the previous months. 7. How long does it take for my album to be made available online? Once you have uploaded or shipped us your album(s), it should take no longer than 7 business days for us to encode the songs, scan the artwork, and digitally distribute all of the album's metadata to iTunes and the other music stores. From there, each music store's time frame is different. Once we distribute it to iTunes for example, it may still take several weeks (Normally averages between 4-8 weeks) before it appears in their music store. For some of the other music stores it can take anywhere from several weeks to several months. *If time is important, we do offer a 14 day expediting service (iTunes Only) for a nominal fee available during the album submission process. 8. Do I lose ownership of my music? No Way! By agreeing to our Distribution Agreement, you allow us to become your exclusive digital distributor of your music for a time specified in the agreement. We do not take ownership of the music, but only help facilitate the process of spreading your music digitally. 9. What if I have 'covered' someone elses song on my album? Can I still use your digital distribution service? In order for us to distribute your music digitally, you must own the copyright for the sound recordings OR have permission from the owners. Even if you have covered someone elses song (ie: a song you didn't write or don't own the rights to), we can still submit it to iTunes. However, it is YOUR responsibility to determine if you have permission and pay the applicable royalties once you have received payment just like if you were selling CDs physically at a concert or store. 10. I don't have a CD of my music, can I still have my songs digitally distributed? Yes. You may digitally distribute any of your music even if you have never had a CD printed. However, your songs will be considered an album and will need a unique UPC code as well as professional cover art. 11. What if I don't want to mess with royalties. Can I only submit specific songs that I want digitally distributed? Absolutely. However you will have to do the following: 1) Purchase a UPC ($20) because this album will become a new product. You can get a new UPC from within your Control Panel at Catapult.
2) Follow the normal procedure for submitting your album online and list the tracks in the order that they will appear on your new album (This cannot be changed once they are distributed).
12. Do I have to have a UPC or Barcode to have my album digitally distributed? Yes. UPCs (or Barcode numbers) are required by every major music store. It is the universal method by which various companies and organizations are able to uniquely identify a product. If you don't currently have a UPC, that is fine. We can provide you with one for only $20. 13. Can you explain the payout level percentage and how it is determined? We offer several payout levels for our client's albums. This can range anywhere between 91% to 95%. The percentage level is determined individually for each album, and is based solely on All Time Track Downloads of each album. So, for example, if you have more than one album submitted for digital distribution, it is possible for each one to have a different payout level. It should be understood that All Time Track Downloads do not consider "streams" as downloads. A "stream" is used by many online stores who utilize subscription based plans to allow customers to listen to an entire track while browsing their site, however the customer cannot download it to their computer or burn it to a CD (think of it as listening to a song on the radio). Once an album's All Time Track Downloads meet a new payout level, you will receive the new payout level for that album at your next payment dispersement. Here is a reference table of our various payout levels:
14. Can I upload the audio and cover art for my album(s) instead of sending in physical CDs? Yes, once you have submitted your album for digital distribution, you will be able to upload your album's audio and cover art via your control panel at Catapult. 15. Can I submit a single? Yes, you can submit a single (ie: An album containing only one track).
Please note that since "singles" are still albums, they still require their own UPC (Which we can provide during the album submission process) as well as unique industry standard cover art.
16. Do you offer any additional services? We offer the following additional services that can be purchased during the album submission process:
17. Is there a phone number I can call to talk with someone at Catapult? We regret that the nature of our business as well as our incredibly discounted payment rates make it impossible for us to handle a call center to field questions pertaining to our digital distribution service. All questions must be submitted via the "Contact Us" links located on our homepage or from within the Artist or Label control panel. Once a question is received via the "Contact Us" a link, a representative from Catapult will e-mail you back. Please allow 24-48 hours for us to research and respond back to your query. 18. What are the Cover Art requirements for an Album? Cover Art Requirements: (i.e. 600x600 not 620x600)
-track listing -biographical information -contact information -copyrights -Website links -Production notes/credits
If you do not have digital artwork, but you do have physical cover art for your album,
you can ship it to us following your album submission and we can scan it for you. Please note that the same rules above apply to physical cover art as well. 19. Can I provide my own ISRC codes for my album's tracks? Yes. During the album submission process, you will have an opportunity to submit your ISRC codes for each of your album's tracks. If you do not have ISRC codes for your tracks, our system will automatically generate them during processing. 20. What types of audio files do you accept for encoding? You can upload .wav or .mp3 files (.wav files are recommended for posterity since they are not compressed). |
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