A: Currently, we offer digital distribution to major digital music stores including: iTunes (All Regions), Rhapsody, Napster, eMusic, Amazon.

A: Artists and Labels maintain 100% of all Royalties.

There are two ways your music (and one way your music videos) can earn you money in the stores and services you choose:

PERMANENT DOWNLOADS

A Permanent Download means someone bought your music or your music video from a store and downloaded it to their computer, cell phone or some other media device. Each time your music is bought, you get paid. There are currently two ways that you get paid by Permanent download:

You get a Fixed Pay Rate every time someone purchases your music or music video for download, where you receive an unchanging, predetermined amount of money each time your music is bought. The Fixed Pay Rate remains the same no matter what the store sells it for. Even if the store sells your music for a hundred dollars or a penny, you still get the Fixed Pay Rate.

You get a Subscription Pay Rate every time someone purchases your music (not music videos) for download, where you receive a variable amount of money each time your music is bought. The Subscription Pay Rate is different every pay period, and is typically based on four things:

How many songs were downloaded in a set period of time (monthly or every three months)                                             How much money was made by the store in the same time frame,                                                                           What "expenses" are deducted by the store, and                What percentage of the remainder is contractually owed to you.

The following stores all offer a Fixed Permanent Download model

iTunes (all stores)

iTunes Video

Napster

Rhapsody

MusicNet  

Groupie Tunes

Amazon 

Each of the International stores pay in their native currencies. The banks will handle all of the currency conversions before it gets to us, based on the worldwide daily exchange rates.

A: You should expect to wait approximately 8-12 weeks for your music to start appearing on the retail sites. Although, we have seen albums show up in as little as 6-8 weeks. We can't guarantee that your music will show up that fast, but it does happen on occasion.

Once you have uploaded or shipped us your album(s), it should take no longer than 10 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.

A: Sales reporting and royalty payments get sent to us once per month. Please view the schedule below to see when your sales data arrives and when you get paid for your music sales.

A: Charges are $0.99 per track, $0.99 per store per album, Annual Fee $35 per album maintenance and service fee (all song(s) will be charged per album-even if it is just one song). This is to store and potentially redeliver your music to stores and services you chose or may opt for in the future. Also, we store your music in case one of the stores/services has a problem and requires we resend music files or information.

For example

Say you've got a five-song Album you want for sale in the iTunes U.S., Japan and iTunes Canada stores as well as on the Rhapsody service. The costs would be:

Annual Fee $35 per album maintenance and service fee (all song(s) will be charged per album-even if it is just one song). Store and potentially redeliver your music to stores and services you chose or may opt for in the future. Also, we store your music in case one of the stores/services has a problem and requires we resend music files or information.

All delivered albums or music videos have a yearly maintenance and storage fee. When you first deliver your content, the yearly fee was included in your initial payment. After twelve (12) months, the maintenance and storage fee is due again, always at the same set rate: $35 (U.S. dollars) per album/video

music-forever also charges a one time per album setup fee of this charge covers the time and expense of encoding your audio tracks, converting and processing your album tracks, and managing your albums with the download retailers.

A: An album is simply a collection of songs. It doesn’t matter if it’s only 1 song or as many as 25! So even if you’re submitting just one song, it's still considered an album. An album can't be longer than 74 minutes, no matter how few or many songs it's divided into.

We call a "song" (some people call them "tracks") any piece of music or sound that appears on an album, even if it's the only item on the album. No matter how short it is, it's still a song: every audio file you send us is considered a song, even if it's called "Part One" of a larger work. Songs are separate from one another, even if artistically they belong together as sections of a larger work.

What makes up an album?

We call an "album" anything from one song to as many as you want. Even if it's an EP or a Single, we still call it an "album." If your album has dozens and dozens of songs, you can still upload them, but remember, an album can hold no more than 74 minute's worth of songs, no matter how many songs it's divided into. For example, you can have an album with ten songs, each song about 7 1/2 minutes long. You might have an album with only one song that's 74 minutes. You might have lots of songs and they add up to less than 74 minutes. The only rule is, an album can't be longer than 74 minutes.

If you don't have a full album, you can sell just a single, an EP or a full length album if you do have one.

A: No! You maintain the rights to your music and recordings at all times. music-forever is not a record company. We are simply a distribution service that puts your music up for sale on digital download sites. You can back out and cancel at anytime. This is a non-exclusive agreement.

If you signup with music-forever and distribute your content through us, and later change your mind, just let us know and we will cancel your account. A $35 album takedown fee will apply to each album that has been 'live' for less than a period of 6 months. All music-forever fees are non-refundable.

A: Albums with explicit lyrics are permitted on iTunes and other stores (except GroupieTunes), but the album must be marked explicit. This is voluntary, but if it is later discovered your album has explicit lyrics and you failed to indicate it, both Music-Forever and the stores/services reserve the right to remove your album at any time, or your album may be rejected right from the beginning.

IMPORTANT: Although you can mark individual songs explicit, right now if even ONE song on an album is marked explicit, the ENTIRE ALBUM will be marked explicit. There is no way to restrict it to a single or select few songs. It works just like the sticker affixed to the covers of CDs: it indicates the ALBUM has explicit content, not just any given song on the album. Please be aware of this when you make your choice.

IMPORTANT: GroupieTunes will not accept any explicit content. If you mark even a single track explicit, the whole album is explicit, and no part of the album can be delivered to GroupieTunes.