Controlling album-only tracks on iTunes

December 24, 2008 4:19 AM

I am handling the production and digital distribution of the soundtrack for a movie. Are there any digital distributors that will allow me to exert control over which tracks are album-only on iTunes?

The soundtrack features licensed music, and it's a stipulation of the agreements for those licenses that the tracks not be available to download as single tracks. This is not something we can change, as much as we would like to, and is typical for soundtracks.

iTunes typically only allows one track on an album to be "unlocked" when you buy the whole thing. Our usual digital distributor, Tunecore, can only do this if a track is longer than ten minutes.

Other films seem to have gotten around this somehow (e.g. Juno is mostly album-only, Lost in Translation and Twilight are entirely album only).

Does anyone know any digital distributor that supports getting this kind of release on to iTunes? My question is about iTunes, not other options. And please, I know album-only tracks are consumer-hostile and reduce sales, but the licensed music is owned by major labels stuck in the 90s and we need it, so there's nothing we can do about this clause.

posted by caek to media & arts (3 comments total)

A Colbert Christmas currently has its first track available as a free download, but last week, the entire thing was album-only. I'm guessing you'd be more likely to be able to find out who their distributor is than I would.
posted by oaf at 6:54 AM on December 24, 2008

Oh, exactly like Lost in Translation. Has its distributor been less than forthcoming with details?
posted by oaf at 6:56 AM on December 24, 2008

Oaf, both of those are probably released thru a major label, and so are going direct from the label to iTunes. I would suggest emailing CD-Baby, and asking what it would take. I know they had the capacity to mark tracks as album-only when they sent them to my former employer.
posted by nomisxid at 9:07 PM on December 24, 2008