Beatport has long been the online store of choice for many of the worlds working DJs. With their huge selection, format variety and speedy downloads, they have truly been almost impossible to compete with. Beatport has become so powerful that many consumers and industry insiders consider the “Beatport Top Ten” the only true validation in Electronic Dance Music sales these days, but that very same sentiment has also created some unsavory and controversial practices, most recently with Mixmash records.
People have been trying to jack this chart for years for several reasons. There’s the importance of the chart and, of course, the visibility for labels in the store itself (or what used to be paid End Caps and key positions in the brick and mortar days). The promotional banners and positioning can have a significant impact on a new release, and are, in this case, the heart of the dispute.
In a move of defiance over a recent dispute about this positioning, the rapidly growing Italian record label Musical Noize has decided to draw the line and remove their entire catalog from Beatport. In what many might consider a somewhat suicidal move, Musical Noize is fairly optimistic about it. We caught up with the label’s founder to get the complete story.
“…We have removed Musical Noize from that store because this conduct has been really unfair.” – Musical Noize
Musical Noize recently has made some strong statements against Beatport on its Facebook page about Beatport’s business practices. Can you please elaborate on this?
About the Quentin Mosimann “Happy Ending” release: After we had seen that Beatport didn’t give it an adequate feature we decided to remove the exclusive on it and on all our upcoming releases as well. Since Quentin Mosimann’s release “Happy Ending” has been supported by many of the most important DJs all around the world and we, along with the manager and other people involved have done a really big promotion on it, we didn’t accept that Beatport didn’t give it the feature it would deserve.
Moreover, Quentin Mosimann is ranked #69 in the Top 100 DJs in the world poll (DJ Mag), he had a double gold record in 2009, has been elected Best Dance DJ in 2011 (Only For DJs) and then recently elected Best French DJ 2014 (Fun Radio European DJ awards). Musical Noize has also reached great success in 2014 supported by some of the most important DJ’s, blogs, newspapers and radios all around the world.
After sharing this [see screenshot below] on the Musical Noize Facebook page, we received an e-mail from our distributor Label Worx, in which it was reported that Beatport decided to remove the release for juicing reasons (Autobuy).
Musical Noize Facebook post about removing exclusivity on Beatport
About this, you should know something: the track was released exclusively for Beatport on the 5th of January and since this date it has done just 90 sales: 24 on Monday, 17 on Tuesday and 49 on Wednesday. Also, in spite of the huge promotion that all of us have done, these sales seems to be few, even with Quentin Mosimann’s relevance all around the release, Beatport talk about juicing… COINCIDENTLY all of this happened the day after we said what we thought (the truth about the inadequate featured release) and after we removed the exclusive on it.
As the people also know, most of our tracks have been on the Beatport chart so far, due to the enormous promotion, advertising and the quality of them. Moreover, some of them have enjoyed around 100 sales a day, but COINCIDENTLY, none of them have ever been banned! That said, we didn’t want to succumb to the fake hearsay, passing over silently, so we have removed Musical Noize from that store because this conduct has been really unfair. We worked night and day to create this label and to bring it to this level because we love our job so much and the return is the result of our huge love and commitment for Musical Noize.
2. You have since pulled your label from the Beatport store? How has this affected the retail sales and availability of your music?
Yes we did. Logically, the major sales were on Beatport, but we are starting a big promotion on iTunes and on all the other musical stores where the tracks are still available.
3. Do you think other labels have similar issues with Beatport?
Surely, but we think that none of them have ever had the stoutness to react to the Beatport injustice, even because as the people well know, for EDM labels it is difficult to work without Beatport.
We will welcome comment(s) from Beatport.
Follow Musical Noize on Facebook | Twitter
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