Description of service

Available as a beta release since August 2004, Arkade www.arkade.com turned on its payment gateways in May 2005 and is already making a mark in the world of digital music distribution. But to describe the Arkade as simply a MP3 distribution store would be missing the point.

Representing artists as diverse as Gina G and Thunder as well as some of the best unsigned music in the UK, the Arkade provides a digital solution for musicians, bands and labels that gives them real control of the distribution of their music.

Your Music :: Your Income :: Your Label

The essence of the Arkade is that it provides real control to the artists and bands that subscribe to the service. The Arkade is a digital distribution system that the artist has full control of.

Your Music

We don’t presume to be the arbiters of taste. Therefore we don’t pass applications through an A&R stage for vetting. We believe the music fan, the downloader, should be the judge of whether they enjoy the music.

An artist decides what music they put on the site. They can, through their personal control panel, upload whatever tracks they like to their Arkade microsite and they describe the genre and add notes and credits as they see fit. Equal control is given to the removal of a track: at the click of a button artists can remove a track or totally deactivate their Arkade microsite.

Additionally they can bundle music in whatever combinations they wish. For example an artist could supply three tracks individually and then also provide them as an EP bundle perhaps with a bonus live track (that’s not available separately) or an interview track.

Images relating to an album, EP or track can be added to the site establishing the personality of the artist’s Arkade microsite.

Artists have full control of their music through our non-exclusive terms and conditions which confirms they retain all their rights in their music.

Your Income

Artists pay an annual subscription to use the Arkade. The current rate for this is just £10 for an EP Pack. This allows artists to have up to five tracks on sale at any one time and they can sell 168 downloads. When the 168 limit has been reached artists can top up or upgrade their subscription to provide more capacity.

Unlike most digital music stores we do not operate on a pre-determined pricing structure. The artist decides the price of downloads and bundles. They can change the pricing at any time they wish through the control panel.

There is also a great promotions feature which allows the artist to run special offers that are driven by limiting time or quantity. For example an artist could market a track as “60p for the first 20 purchases” and when these have been sold the price would automatically revert to the normal price or the track could be removed from sale (a digital ‘limited edition’).

But the thing that really distinguishes the Arkade is that artists receive 100% of the download price they set. Therefore if they sell 168 downloads priced at £1 they would earn £168. There is no split of earnings that the artist has to giveaway.

Your Label

The Arkade embraces the contemporary concept of eLabels. Music has always tended to be delivered in a form suited to its carrier e.g. 8 track, vinyl, compact cassette, CD etc. With the internet the rules are changed and the old album concept is no longer relevant.

We encourage artists to produce and release regular EPs of three or four tracks. This means that an artist has more frequent releases and can maintain more relevant dialogue with their fan base.

The Arkade artist control panel provides statistics of visits, track previews, track sales and bundle sales. Quarterly reporting is delivered in the same manner as a label which allows the artist (or label if they are the subscriber) to correctly account for their business.

Technology

The Arkade uses bespoke ASP.NET code and Microsoft SQL database to provide a stable and robust platform.

Provision has been made to locally cache popular content in the UK and around the world as the demand grows. This ensures fast delivery of content and reduced bandwidth costs for the future.

By giving the subscriber a control panel that can be accessed and used from any web browser artists are able to manage their sites when they want and wherever they are.

While uploading music our custom developed encoding system automatically creates a lo-fi version for consumer preview and a hi-fi version for customer purchase.

Each week sales and preview charts are automatically generated from the database of activity. These charts can be filtered by genre.

Relevant Links

Quick Links

Overview of the Arkade >>> information

Help pages >>> help

Learn about the team behind the Arkade >>> details

Go to the main Arkade website www.arkade.com

Useful Music Links

Musicians' Union www.musiciansunion.org.uk

BPI www.bpi.co.uk
The British Phonographic Industry is a trade body and an authoritative source of industry information.

MCPS www.mcps.co.uk
The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society Ltd represents composers, songwriters and music publishers.

PRS www.prs.co.uk
The Performing Right Society administers the performing right in musical works.

Features Arkade Artist Sites

Thunder. Preview the albums 'The Magnificent Seventh' and 'Shooting At The Sun' >>> visit

Puggy "an energetic acoustic rock trio blazing their way through the London live scene" >>> visit

Newvolution "high-octane chemical rock" >>> visit

Verisma "classical crossover" >>> visit