Brand new online music company NovaTunes just opened up their new business. With artists like John Batdorf, Jackson Browne, Chris & Thomas, Kelly Dalton, Simon Lynge, Graham Nash, Crofton Orr, The Red Button, Leon Russell, Jack Sundrud, Allan Thomas and John Vester, NovaTunes are ready to take on the world.

Not every band can “pull a Radiohead,” but thanks to NovaTunes, it’s at least becoming easier. The Venice, California, based company has built the platform to distribute and sell music to a global audience of music fans in high quality digital album format. “But we take the ‘Radiohead model’ to a totally new level”, says founder & President Hans Veldhuizen. “In such a way that up-and-coming artists can also enjoy the benefits of the changes in music distribution.”

Many artists are experimenting with selling music directly to their fans. Veldhuizen: “World famous bands can pull that off, but it won’t work for up-and-coming artists who don’t have a big fan base yet. That’s where NovaTunes comes in. We’ve developed a model in which we leverage the fan bases of all artists on NovaTunes – the famous ones and the ones who are at the start of their career. By doing that, we add something very valuable to the model: an instant audience of music fans around the world, who are interested in quality music from great artists”.

NovaTunes embraces a ‘Hear, Like, Buy’ approach: users can hear each album in full and if they like it, they can buy and download it directly. Music fans can also join ‘artist networks’ where musicians and their audience meet. They can discuss music, write reviews and recommend other NovaTunes artists they like. This type of ‘social network’ is a great way to discover new music and new artists.

Music icon Graham Nash, who has joined the Board of Advisors of the company, is a firm supporter of the NovaTunes model: “The music industry is in dire straits and solutions are coming from companies like NovaTunes. The people at NovaTunes understand the internet and take advantage of it by creating a space for musicians to connect to their fans and to release new music instantly to them, wherever in the world they are. It’s a fabulous business model and that’s why I wanted to join in and help them and push them as far as they can go, because this is the future”.

The music on NovaTunes is sold in a new digital album format called the ‘DP’, which stands for Download Pack. Each DP comes with high quality DRM-free music tracks playable on any device. The package also contains printable artwork, with a bio, lyrics, credits and liner notes and an iPod-ready video.

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