Tunecore Japan partners with Spotify, helping indie musicians reach global audiences

SHARE:

TUNECORE Japan spotify

See the original article in Japanese

Tunecore Japan, the Japanese version of the US-based music distribution service, started providing its music to users of Spotify, one of the world’s biggest music streaming services. Musicians on Tunecore Japan are now able to make their songs available to Spotify’s 24 millions users in 28 countries.

On Tunecore, users can reach listeners in 111 countries. The Japanese version started the service in October 2012, enabling users to list their songs on other online retailers such as iTunes Store, Amazon MP3, music.jp, Oricon Music Store, and Tapnow Music Store. Now that Spotify is added to this list, Tunecore’s reach extends even further.

The fee for musicians to serve their songs on Tunecore Japan starts from 1480 yen (about $15) for a single song and 4980 yen for an album. It pays the musician all sales revenue and deducts only the service fees of music retailer.

Spotify provides more than 20 millions tracks for free streaming, with approximately 20,000 tracks added every day. It has 24 millions non-paying users. It has launched its service in Singapore and Malaysia, but has not begun service in Japan yet. However this new alliance between Spotify and Tunecore Japan makes it easier for musicians in Japan to distribute their songs overseas.

Iichro Noda, the CEO of Tunecore Japan, explained:

Developers of smartphone apps started targeting the global market because apps can be easily distributed around the world. For the same reason, I thought it possible to bring more a global perspective to musicians as well. There are many services musicians have to go though to distribute their music to listeners. I want to reduce them and build a sort of infrastructure for supplying music.

When Noda initially got the idea to start a music-related service, Tunecore was the closest thing to what he envisioned as an ideal service. After spending time in the US for direct negotiations, Tunecore Japan was launched, largely thanks to his own bold actions in acquiring the license to operate the service in Japan.

It will be good to see it expanding possibilities for musicians in Japan.

tunecore japan