WIRED Staff

Ropeadope Label Goes 100% Digital

Ropeadope, a seven-year-strong record label that has released albums from DJ Logic, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Medeski, Martin, & Wood, King Britt, Jazzanova, the Skerik’s Syncopated Taint Septet (my guess is that their sound is "neither here nor there"), and more, has announced that it is going 100% pure digital. Every release will be […]

Ropeadope
Ropeadope, a seven-year-strong record label that has released albums from DJ Logic, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Medeski, Martin, & Wood, King Britt, Jazzanova, the Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet (my guess is that their sound is "neither here nor there"), and more, has announced that it is going 100% pure digital. Every release will be available on ropeadope.com in the MP3 format, as well as the major online music retailers.

In addition to online-only distribution, the label also plans on a simple/modernized approach to business dealings with its artists, who will retain the rights to their masters, which rules. Royalties will be based on a straight profit share, and there's no advance to recoup. The program starts in February with digital releases from seven bands (Aunt Jessica, DJ Klock, Electric City, The Frequency, Skip Heller, Larval, and Reminder/Josh Abrams) with at least 18 more to come during the remainder of 2007.

I asked Ropeadope founder Andy Hurwitz why he's taking his label digital, and what he expects the pluses and minuses to be.

He responded,

"Why digital? It's funny, I almost feel like this is what they askedRykodisc back in the '80's when they started going exclusively with CDs overvinyl. [Digital is] not just the future, it's the present, at least amongst our fans.
We've seen our traditional sales plummet and our digital sales skyrocket. But on top of a purely economic decision, it's anamazing opportunity for us to find and expose tons of great music andfantastic artists.

"Advantages? We now make money on every single project fromrecord one. We don't have to deal with returns and reserves, we can sign andrelease a new band in a matter of weeks, and it helps bring traffic to ourwebsite.

"Disadvantages? I'm really searching for some here. I guess theonly disadvantage is the learning curve--folks are still trying tounderstand why we're doing this and how it works. But once we're up and runningI think it will become obvious."

Ropeadope

Correction: Ropeadope still plans on releasing a very small number of albums on CD.