By: Staff Writer
October 22, 2021
Digital music is now the mainstream medium by which people receive music. If it is not on Spotify, then more often than not it is on YouTube and can be shared instantaneously with people around the world.
One Jamaican recording artist tells us how independent musicians can track their royalties and not get ripped off form people pirating their intellectual property.
Janine Coombs, also known as JKuhl, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that sales for her second album “Sweet Sway” could be better but more people need to share the digital content and she needs a chance to be booked for performances.
With the COVID-19 still bearing down on the world, live performances have dwindled down to next to nil. However, it is slowly starting to pick up again as over the last few weeks Miami had their “Best of the Best” concert as well as had annual Miami Carnival. The New Jersey Caribbean Association had their South Jersey Caribbean Festival in July, so things are starting to get back to normal.
JKuhl also said: “Most of my sales are from digital downloads now. Digitally I get a wider audience from all around the world as opposed to having my albums on the shelf where it is targeted more towards local consumers.
“The albums are for music enthusiasts who want to have the CD for a memento or a keepsake. But digital downloads is where it’s at now.”
She actually prefers both modes of sales, digital and traditional record shop sales, because there is a certain demographic that doesn’t do digital downloads at all and “those are the people who want to buy the album as a souvenir.”
She added: “But digital gives you more options as you can play the music anywhere, in your house or in your car, on your phone or on your computer.”
Learning the digital network for record sales have been tricky for Caribbean artists, with some not understanding there are mechanisms in place to ensure that your intellectual property is not pirated. For example there are online music distributors that monitor the digital imprint of your song and organise how an artist will be paid, whether the song is played on YouTube or downloaded from the Apple store or anywhere on the internet.
JKhul said about online music distributors: “There are multiple ways of getting paid digitally. There are sales from the digital sales and then there are sales from the royalties that you collect as well.
“So when you sign up with digital distribution companies like CD Baby and a few others, they can distribute your music for you to ITunes, to Spotify or to Tidal, you name it. They can send your music to all of the streaming sites and they take a percentage of your sales. They can also monitor your music on YouTube and on an advertisement and get you paid. And if it is being played on iTunes or Spotify they can get you paid from them too.”
Monitoring the digital sales and revenue streams is hard work, but JKuhl is now experienced in doing it having dealt with it through the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic where digital sales was all there was.