Is Sonicbids' Pay-for-Play Music Promotion the New Payola? (Updated)

A new generation of middlemen is emerging in the music industry as it continues to morph into whatever it is going to become. A reader recently e-mailed us an accusation that Sonicbids, which assembles and distributes electronic press kits to websites that discuss music, is gaming the system to the detriment of artists and music journalism.

I asked Sonicbids whether they share artists’ fees with the websites that use bands’ content, because it would hardly be fair to post the e-mail without giving the company amplechance to respond. I also asked the reader, a former user of the service who wishes to remain anonymous, to identify sites whose policy is only to post content from Sonicbids.

Here’s the e-mail, edited for length and clarity, followed by links to sites and forums and a response from Sonicbids CEO Panos Panay. Below all of that, you can vote on whether Sonicbids is good or bad for the digital music ecosystem in our poll.

I heard your interesting recent interview on Fresh Air about thechanging digital music landscape [ed. note: stream available]. It occurred to me that perhaps youmight want to consider writing an article on the pros and cons of Sonicbids’s music submission model as it affects artists.

As I understand it, the company charges artists to submit their music electronically to variouswebsites. More and more sites are refusing to accept submissionsunless artists go through Sonicbids. Why? It appears thatthose websites get a portion of what each musician pays Sonicbids, or maybe it’s a flat amount per submission [ed. note: I am checking on this].

Here is a scenario. Someone sets up some sort of music website — anonline radio station, a label, a songwriting contest, a CD magazine, a reviews site or anything else that offers a promotionalopportunity for aspiring artists. The website then contracts with Sonicbids and sits back asthe money rolls in as impoverished artists pay Sonicbids in ordersubmit their music. The website and Sonicbids get paid, and the only real losers are the artists.

Sonicbid’s argument is that it would cost the artist something to physicallymail a CD for consideration. They claim their fee [$6 per month] is less than that would cost. But given today’s technology, there’s not muchcost associated with sending an MP3 file to a websitethat is soliciting music.

There’s at least one big difference between Sonicbids and the US Postal Service: If an artist uses the postal service, there’s noconflict of interest because the postal service is not receiving a kickback fromSonicbids for delivering the CDs. The Sonicbids model seems like a distributed version ofpayola.

For instance, there’s currently a flood of music contests on the web. Mostare done through Sonicbids. Thousands of artists wind up payingaround $30 each to enter these contests and the vast majority will win nothing. Contests for the sale ofmagazines through physical mail have historically been barred from requiring entrants to buy a magazine in order to enter (see Publisher’s Clearinghouse).

I view Sonicbids as a spreading cancer. Luckily there are now alternatives which do not charge a submission fee [he mentioned AirplayDirect as one alternative].

In mygut, it feels unethical to me for any website to announce that theywill accept electronic music submissions only if the artist paysSonicbids [I’ve asked which websites he thinks require the exclusive use Sonicbids submissions — see Google links below]. It may turn out that Sonicbids is doing nothingillegal but that, rather, the fault lies with the websites who only mention only music from Sonicbids-promoted artists. Even in that case, artists need to be madeaware about the pros and cons of their business model.

I have never worked for Sonicbids nor with any competitor of theirs, soI don’t think I have any kind of axe to grind. I did join Sonicbids atone point as an artist and used their "services" until I had misgivings about possible conflict of interest in theirbusiness model.

When I asked the reader which sites required the use of Sonicbids, he recommended that I google "only via sonicbids," "only through sonicbids," "exclusively through sonicbids," and "exclusively via sonicbids." He also recommended checking out the Sonicbids forums (The Beginning of the End, Sonic Bids Sucks, Goodbye Sonicbids…, Sonicbids needs an overhaul and Bad promoters – again).

Here’s the response from Panos Panay, CEO of Sonicbids, who has been remarkably polite about this whole thing considering the criticism leveled at his company by this user and some of the forum commenters:

I have had the chance to review the article. Clearly your reader does not understand what Sonicbids does or how it works. Let me start from the beginning:

We are a website that makes it easy for bands and music promoters to find and do business with each other. We have over 150,000 bands from 100 different countries that are members of Sonicbids. Some 13,000 music promoters actively use us to book bands and these include colleges, music festivals, clubs, coffee houses, wineries, cruise ships, music supervisors, song contests, music conferences, podcasters, video game companies, couples getting married, etc. Many of the world¹s biggest festivals and brands use Sonicbids as their preferred way to find and book independent music on their stages: South By Southwest, CMJ, Summerfest, Warped Tour, Bumbershoot, All Good, etc.

In the past 6 months, over 30,000 independent music gigs have been booked through Sonicbids in three continents. I hardly see how this is a "spreading cancer" (unless the reader feels that independent music is a problem, but that’s a different topic). Bands have used Sonicbids to book tours in China, Scandinavia, UK, US, Australia and many, many other places. I was an agent prior to starting Sonicbids and trust me, for an independent band to book a tour of China on its own without an agent was unimaginable 10 years ago. I have had many artists stop and tell me that Sonicbids changed their lives because they¹ve been able to quit their jobs and play music full time.

How does Sonicbids make money? Simply: we charge membership fees (to bands), listing fees (to promoters), and submission fees (to applying artists). Places like song contests (Billboard Song Contest, John Lennon Song Contest, etc.) and music conferences like CMJ, SXSW, etc. have always charged these fees which range between $10 – $30. I did not invent them. In fact, they are commonplace in every domain like poetry contests, architectural contests, college applications, etc. (Try reviewing thousands of band submissions like SXSW has to do each year for the 1,700 slots they have.) We simply process these fees on their behalf, take a percentage, and pay them the rest. The artist does not pay a dime extra for the convenience (ask Ticketmaster, or MovieTickets the same question). For listings that do not have a pre-existing submission fee, we charge a fee ranging from $2 – $10 which we sometimes we share with the promoter of the event as an incentive to book and pay selected bands. With over 150,000 bands, this fee acts mostly as a filter and yes, it pays some of our bills.

I am not sure what "websites" your reader refers to. If we have them, they are by far a small minority of the thousands of gig listings that Sonicbids has. I will not pretend that we are able to screen every single listing on Sonicbids but whenever there is a suspicion of fraud or blatant exploitation, we take the listing down (I would be happy to review your reader’s complaint personally). We do however take the view that we have an open marketplace here and we let our users decide whether something is of interest to them or not, both on the band side and the promoter side.

Payola? Perhaps your reader should Google the name Alan Freed and then he or she can truly learn what payola means.

So, what do you think?

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