Hypebot broke the story earlier this week of a letter from digital distributor IODA to its labels that updated them on unacceptable indie liscecning offers from prominent music 2.0 services imeem, lala.com and others and cautioned against making indivudual deals. (full story).
Now, IODA CEO and founder Kevin Arnold has written:
I'd like to clarify a point or two about the message in the letter IODA sent to our labels that was leaked to your site yesterday.
IODA is not refusing to do deals with Lala or imeem or any of their peers, nor is it warning labels not to do business with them. With the proper terms in place...
...we believe these new types of services can provide a lot of value for both the labels and their fans.
The intention of this confidential note to our clients was to let them know our concerns about some unresolved issues we're working on and to ask them to hang tight as we resolve them, rather than entertain approaches for direct licensing. IODA's labels are free to work directly with services if they choose, but we believe we're all better served if we stick together towards a common resolution.
We're not saying "No Deals", but rather "Please bear with us as we try to get a fair deal done". We are confident that we can and we're working on doing so quickly - for everyone's benefit.
Kevin Arnold
