For all you Fangbangers, Bloodsuckers, and iTunes Whiners

JE - 10:41 am

The True Blood Season 1 DVD and Blu-Ray discs are on the shelves. Hell, they are flying off of the shelves!
The Soundtrack is also now available, which of course features “Bad Things” as the lead track.

iTunes has made the soundtrack and the show available as well. A lot of folks have been whining about the “album only” designation iTunes frequently uses on compilations such as this. As a huge iTunes customer and someone who has benefitted greatly from their business model I’d like to explain this a little more clearly to you the consumer.

The “album only” designation is not some corporate malfeasance on the part of greedy Steve Jobs and his evil iTunes elves. In fact, they usually have little or nothing to do with that decision. The owner(s) of a given recording license that recording to iTunes. In the case of the HBO “True Blood” soundtrack there are 19 tracks by 14 artists. Each track is owned by a record company. All of these songs existed before they were put on this soundtrack.

However, now Atlantic Records has licensed all of these songs for the soundtrack. Now there is yet another mouth to feed!

I’ll use “Bad Things” as the example, but please understand that every record is different. Their like snowflakes… only plastic.

So, I recorded “Bad Things” in 2004 while under contract as a recording artist with Sony Music. Therefore, Sony Music owns that recording.
I wrote the song while under contract as a writer with EMI Publishing. Therefore, EMI owns the publishing (I own a nice little chunk of it too).
In 2008 Alan Ball chose to license the song for “True Blood”. Now HBO has to pay a licensing fee to Sony and EMI.
Sony and EMI still own what they have always owned, but they are “leasing” the property to HBO.
Now HBO, via Atlantic Records, has released a soundtrack. They do another licensing deal with Sony and EMI. This license agreement would likely include the caveat that “Bad Things” must be sold as “album only” on digital download sites. Why? Because Sony and EMI are already selling “Bad Things” as a single. The soundtrack, in some ways, is competing with their existing product. Furthermore, they don’t have to split the money with Atlantic or HBO when “Bad Things” is purchased form the Sony album. So why do it? Because “True Blood” is more popular than “Jace Everett”. Even though they will make a little less per unit off of the soundtrack sales, due to the popularity of the show, they are likely to sell a greater volume of units and make up the difference.

You know… the Wal-Mart model.

Sorry for a boring post, but I’ve been inundated with emails from angry folks crying about the evil Apple empire.
Just thought I’d clear some things up.

As far as the soundtrack goes; there are some really, really cool tracks on the record. Buy it!!

And when “Red Revelations” (my new album) hits iTunes in a few weeks don’t be surprised to see “Bad Things” as an album only track!

Peace,
JahSay

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7 responses so far, want to say something?

  1. 1. Mary May 28th, 2009 at 3:08 pm

    If those people wanted those tunes sooooooo baadd they-Like I did_ went Immediately to itunes to hunt them down…Pay attention to the ending Credits on TRUEBLOOD and they give you name and title…Hell even some fansites had links directly to the Itunes download singles….That why Im ahead of the game…Ive had “Bad things” on my ipod and phone after the very first episodes aired!!! So PAY ATTENTION!!!

    VIXXEN

  2. 2. JE May 28th, 2009 at 11:45 pm

    It should also be noted that Sony has been VERY,VERY cool to me and allowed it to be on my new album (“Bad Things” that is). They don’t have to do that. I’m grateful they did. The fact is, everybody is just trying to keep their heads above water in a brave new digital world.

    There. Enough already!

    JE

  3. 3. Shadaliza May 29th, 2009 at 6:35 am

    Thanks for explaining that, I am no Itunes expert and really didn’t understand anything about how it all works with the licenses to the songs.

    And of course also I did get Bad Things right at the start. I can’t believe that there are still peeps on the message boards asking about True Blood’s opening song, they must have been living under a rock :)

  4. 4. Rose-Anne May 29th, 2009 at 10:50 am

    What is this “True Blood” of which you speak? Some of us really do live under a rock :-) But I’m just here for the music. The new album sounds AWESOME! I can’t wait for the release.

  5. 5. JE May 29th, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    I once lived under a rock. It’s not so bad really.

    Thanks for your posts everybody. I get so lonely….

    JE

  6. 6. Vinicius June 23rd, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    Hi! I met your music on the HBO show and I liked it SO MUCH (the music, of course) that I ran after some more music from you and got here. It is a shame that here in Brazil I cannot buy music from iTunes, the local online stores are lame and I don’t think your album will be release here too. Maybe I will try to import from Amazon… Anyway, great work! I wish you finally get what you deserve and be more popular than TB.

  7. 7. NV Wyte June 30th, 2009 at 10:02 am

    This wasn’t a boring post at all! Thank you so much for the intelligent explanation. If you’re ever thru Memphis, TN and want to play small show, feel free to get in touch. We’d love to have ya, we don’t believe in the Nashville/Memfris one ups. =)

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