Changes to indmill.com

We think we've just made Indmill even better. But we'd like to know what you think.

Firstly, we've put artists in charge of when they get paid. At the end of every month, as before, we provide a sales report on the month's takings. We now promise to do this within 15 days, leaving a delay to protect ourselves against card fraud and to allow funds to clear between our different currency accounts (previously it was 30 days). Artists are now able to choose when they want to get paid. We guarantee to transfer any money owing within 15 days of their request, which can be made via the 'Pay Me' tab on the artists' dashboard.

So this new system is no slower, just much more flexible. We'd like to assure artists (and customers who use their Indmill wallets) that they can leave their money with us month after month, safe in the knowledge that we have separate bank accounts for their money and ours. All sales revenue goes into one set of accounts in different currencies, from which we pay artists and charities and where we leave customers' wallet money. We transfer Indmill's share of the revenue - and no more - into a separate bank account before using it to pay bills. If we ever ran out of money in this account to pay our way (and we don't ever plan to), there will still be ringfenced cash left in the other account to pay all artists and refund all customers in credit.

In a second change, as we will be paying artists by hand from now, we've decided to indefinitely suspend our 24p/50c fee for paying artists. This fee used to cover what HSBC charged us for making BACS payments. Dropping those fees means an even better deal for artists, with no deductions from their 90% of revenue (excl VAT on EU sales). If we get to the stage where we once again have to automate our payroll, those fees may have to be reintroduced, but we'll do our best to avoid it.

The third change will affect our customers. Last year we added PayPal to the site as a payment option and it has proved so popular that we are dropping our old HSBC-run card processing facilty from the site. It wasn't an easy decision but it made sense. Since we signed up with them, HSBC have doubled our monthly fees. Those one in three Indmill customers who we know prefer using their cards will still be able to via PayPal without creating an account. Nobody should lose out.

PayPal will also make it easier for us to roll out Indmill for artists and customers around the world, just as soon as we can iron out a few technical and legal music licencing issues.

The above changes mean some alterations to the agreement all artists have signed with us. The new artists' agreement can be viewed here.

Indmill Team

Small new feature

Just a little one... artist and album URLs are now much prettier :)

So instead of http://indmill.com/artists/123 you'll get http://indmill.com/artists/123-I-am-an-Artist. Simple but effective.

Told you it was small.

The young people

Now this is interesting. It confirms what we at the 'mill have long suspected.

According to secret research by UK Music, most consumers of online music find streaming "useful but no substitute for download services".

Chief exec Feargal "my ma said they cost a packet" Sharkey reckons the "young people" will buy tunes for keeps if they are cheap enough. But they are not, so they nick 'em:

"The young people revealed in the survey that they enjoyed using streaming services but still participated in illegal downloading because they liked to own material. Many illegal downloaders said they would use a legal service if it was cheap enough...

The emerging popularity of streaming services such as Spotify has given the industry some hope, but the participants in UK Music's survey made it clear that they felt streaming services were useful but no substitute for download services."

Which is where we come in. Hopefully. We've made a few big changes to the site over the last month. More about that soon.

VAT cut

Indmill.com now offers an even better deal.

We are passing on December 1st's VAT rate cut to our customers, reducing our UK prices from £1.25 to £1.22 for albums and from 45p to 44p for singles.

This will not affect revenue for artists, charities or Indmill Ltd.

Our prices for American customers are unchanged.

Featured Artists' Coalition

We urge all artists to sign up and join the Featured Artists' Coalition.

This brand new organisation, launched today, aims to place artists exactly where they belong in the new age of digital music - right bang at the centre of everything.

As Radiohead's manager Brian Message puts it:

"The digital landscape is changing fast and new deals are being struck all the time but all too often without reference to the people who actually make the music."

Too right. The more musicians sign up, the better the chance that the Coalition will have of achieving its three key demands:

• "Artists always retain ultimate ownership of their music"
• "All agreements between artists and others are conducted in a fair and transparent manner"
• "Rights' holders have a duty of care to the originator of those rights, and must always explain how any agreement may affect how their work is exploited"

We at Indmill support these basic tenets.  We don't make any money on the back of music uploaded to the website without the artists who made it getting the lion's share (90% exc. VAT on EU sales - unless the artist voluntarily chooses to donate some or all of their share to charity). Indmill artists retain their copyright.

It's free to join the Coalition and you can do it here.

New album previews

We'd had a few complaints about the way album track previews were done on the site originally so we've done something about it. No longer do we have a play button per track, but instead a rather lovely player. This has two immediate benefits; no more tracks playing simultaneously (apologies to our budding remixers), and just a single object to load on the page to speed up the page loading.

Hope everyone thinks it's an improvement - we certainly think it is.

Oh, and finally, credit due to Fabricio Zuardi for his rather wonderful Flash MP3 player. (http://musicplayer.sourceforge.net/)

Indmill website launch

After a couple of years' thinking, planning, meeting and programming, indmill.com finally went live on Friday 1st August 2008.

We're now entering the stage of seeing how the website works and, if it doesn't, fixing it so that it does.

For people coming to the site to check it out and maybe buy some music, thanks and please let us know anything that might be improved to make the process simpler for purchasing, browsing and recommending music.

For artists signing up and releasing music on the site, please give all your friends a link to your indmill band page so that you can start selling your music as soon as possible and let us know of any features you might want to see implemented.

We've had a few comments regarding the payment system on the site and are currently looking into simplifying it. We are also looking at offering PayPal as an option in the very near future for those of you who are concerned about giving your card details online.