Reports: GhostTunes to amalgamate with Amazon Music

After two years since American country singer Garth Brooks created online physical and digital marketplace GhostTunes, the platform is reportedly folding into Amazon Music, according to Billboard.

The service thanked its users in an email and announced that it was entering into a “new partnership with Amazon Music.” Users were instructed to transfer their entire library to the e-tailer’s music platform for “free.” The note encouraged GhostTunes users to “check out Amazon’s Music Unlimited” service for which their users can get a free 30-day trial.

The GhostTunes store was contracted with all Universal, Sony Music and Warner Music Group, allowing for autonomous pricing and distribution format, resulting in the most proper royalty payments for artists and songwriters.

As the recent trends in IFPI reports suggest, streaming is on the rise while downloads are falling. This trend doesn’t bode well for Brooks and GhostTunes, who is firmly opposed to the streaming phenomenon.

Brooks originally set up GhostTunes in 2014 in opposition to online streaming, citing that services such as Spotify and iTunes “had their own rules” when it came to the sale and distribution of music.

The Oklahoma native announced last October that he was moving his entire catalogue out of GhostTunes and exclusively to Amazon.

Penned as an “iTunes alternative”, GhostTunes sold million of pieces of content, including T-shirts, posters and CDs. The service, however, differed from other online sellers by allowing labels to choose price, formats and royalty payments. Brooks offered a bundle of his own back catalogue, live material and a new album for only US$30.00.

According to the RIAA (Recorded Industry Association of America), Brooks is the best-selling solo albums artist in the United States with 135 million domestic units sold, ahead of Elvis Presley, and is second only to legendary act The Beatles in total album sales overall. He is also one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 160 million records.