CD Baby eyeing Australia: “Asia Pacific has a growing market of independent artists…”

US-based online distributor for independent musicians, CD Baby, is looking at expanding its presence in Australia as part of its move into the Asia-Pacific.

It has just set up a regional office in Singapore under Keith Tan who will also oversee Australia.

Tan says Australia is one of the potentially high growth markets for the company, alongside Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippines.

“Asia Pacific has a growing market of independent artists that are putting out content and music at a very high rate,” he pointed out.

“We look forward to working with artists from these parts to assist them in their artistic journey.”

Heli Del Moral, CD Baby’s VP for international development added: “CD Baby is committed to becoming a global leader and to serving independent artists around the world.”

The company makes indie music available on 150+ streaming and download services around the world, including Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon, Pandora, YouTube, and Deezer, all for a one-time setup fee.

CD Baby was set up in 1998 by musician Derek Sivers, originally as an online store.

At a music industry conference in Sydney at which he spoke, Sivers revealed he wanted to set up operations in Australia.

But that never transpired, and in 2008 he sold the company to Portland, Oregon-based Disc Makers for $22 million, most of it going to a charitable fund devoted to music education.

CD Baby now represents over 750,000 recording artists, 170,000 songwriters, and over nine-million tracks across 800+ genres.

Last year, its artists earned over US$100 million.

That’s a substantial chunk of the total $643 million generated by self-releasing’ artists last year, according to an estimate by MIDiA Research – up 35% from 2017 when the figure was $472 million.

At the start of 2017, CD Baby expanded its Pro Publishing — its publishing administration service for songwriters — to Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, it noted, “Australia represents the 4th biggest national demographic of CD Baby artists.”