BeatPick

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**BeatPick**

Opened:	Feburary 2, 2006
Pricing:	USA: $3-$7 per album
Platforms:	Platform independent
Format:	MPEG Layer 3 (.mp3), OGG Vorbis (.ogg), WAV (.wav)
Restrictions:	Creative Commons License
Catalogue:	approx. 100 artists
Preview:	Entire song
Protocol:	Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http://)
Availability:	Worldwide
Website:	www.beatpick.com

BeatPick is a London-based music project launched in early 2006 to promote a fair way of doing business in the music industry. It was set up with the objective of creating a business model which seeks to redress the balance between musicians, customers and record labels. Working under the Creative Commons licensing system, the label combines current ideas on information sharing with a framework which aims to support musicians in their attempts to market their music. All artists receive 50% of the profits made from music sales.

BeatPick allows musicians to retain full ownership of their music and terminate their contracts at will. No Digital Rights Management is applied to downloaded music files, enabling tracks to be used for podcasts or samples. Music can be streamed for free before a user decides whether to buy; once purchased, it is compatible with any computer, iPod or MP3 player.^[1]

Businesses that wish to acquire commercial licenses have several to choose from. They can get a quote, pay, and download a valid agreement as well as a CD-quality WAV file.

BeatPick encourages its artists to get in touch with each other and engage in creative collaborations, which is one of the aims of Creative Commons licensing. Filmmakers, Open Source developers, audio-visual artists, students and small charities may use music downloaded from the website for free in their not-for-profit projects.

As of March 2007, around 100 artists have signed with BeatPick, and the company receives several thousand submissions a year. ^[2]