FAQ
General
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What's Mavaru?
Answer:
Mavaru is an online music store that lets you choose the price you want to pay for the albums you download. Mavaru exists to bring artists together with their fans—and potential new fans in a slightly different way. Our pay-what-you-want pricing model empowers music fans, while the information we collect helps artists get to know their fans better, resulting in a sustainable model for independent music careers.
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What makes you different from other online music sites?
Answer:
While some other independent music sites allow listeners to set their own prices, none offer a full store that also gives fans the ability to tell artists who they are and what they like. And by giving fans this option, Mavaru eliminates the risk that artists won't benefit much from the donation model. It's a more enlightened way to get your music and support the people who make it.
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Can I really name my own price for music?
Answer:
Yes. Mavaru operates on the honor system. Pay what you think an album is worth. You can pay less or more than full retail—it's entirely up to you.
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Aren't you going to force me to pay a minimum price? I can't just download songs for free, right?
Answer:
Some of our artists choose to require a minimum price for each download, but many allow our users to download their music for free.
If you want to try something out for free, go right ahead. We all know what it's like to pay $13.99 for an album, only to find that there's only one good song on it—which happens to be the one you already heard on the radio.
We do hope, though, that if you like something enough to pay for it, you'll support the artist with future purchases. Finally, due to fixed transaction costs, if you are going to pay for your downloads, there's a minimum price of $1 just to make it worth it to process your credit card.
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OK, so why should I pay more than nothing for a song or an album?
Answer:
Why should you tip servers, valets or bellhops? A silly question, right?
Put simply, if you love music (and obviously, you do or you wouldn't be here), you also appreciate the hard work artists do to bring their songs to your ears. We think that's worth something. We bet you do too.
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What's in it for you? What's in it for your artists?
Answer:
Mavaru's a business, of course, but we're different from other businesses because there are no fixed prices in our music store. We get paid only if both artists and their fans find real value in what we do, through a percentage of sales. As matchmakers go, we're pretty reasonable.
Our artists are here because they appreciate our pricing model—and the fact that this kind of pricing flexibility acknowledges that music is readily available on the Internet—while using that to connect them with rabid fans. At the end of the day, it's going to be the fans that enable them to create a career in music, so it makes sense to relate to them more directly.
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How much of each purchase does an artist actually get?
Answer:
As artists ourselves, we're very aware of what we can earn while selling our music through the many available online retailers. That's why we're happy to say that Mavaru artists earn 80% of each sale. Compared to all the other online music stores, this is very competitive.
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Why do you need to know anything about me?
Answer:
Mavaru doesn't need to know a thing about you—but our artists do. The reason they offer their music here is that, in doing so, they can learn more about the people who love their music. So naturally, they'd like to know where you are, if you'd pay to see them live (and possibly how much) and a little bit about your taste in music-related merchandise. Putting it bluntly, this is information that helps them make a living.
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Why should I give you real answers to anything you ask?
Answer:
If you'd like to tell us that you live in Outer Mongolia and would gladly pay $500 for VIP seating at a Bucket List concert, go right ahead. But that doesn't help our artists. And if an artist chooses to skip your town because you were in “Outer Mongolia” when you were actually in Dubuque, Iowa, well, that doesn't help you either, does it?
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If I download something from a band here, am I automatically on their mailing list?
Answer:
Nope—it's up to you. Each time you download an album, you have the option to be added to that artist's mailing list by checking a box.
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Do you curate the artists that are on Mavaru? Or is it “come one, come all?”
Answer:
While we don't favor specific genres or select artists based on our own musical tastes, we do care about the quality of music here. We created Mavaru for professional artists, and we recognize that this means local artists too.
We also do our best to ensure that artists own all rights to the music they upload. If you have reason to believe that there is an artist on our site who doesn't own the rights to the music we're distributing in their name, please notify us and we'll investigate the issue immediately.
For Artists
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I'm in an indie band, but we're already on a good half-dozen other sites. Why should I bother with you guys?
Answer:
There are plenty of great tools for artists to track and manage fan information – but none of them give you a clear metric that measures fan loyalty like ours. At Mavaru, know who is paying the most for your music, while also gaining the ability to correlate this data with other fan information.
Plus – everything is exportable in .csv – so you can use your data however you choose.
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How do you get paid? And how do I know I'm getting real value before I give you any of my hard-earned cash?
Answer:
As artists ourselves, we're very aware of what we can earn while selling our music through the many various online retailers. That's why we're happy to say that Mavaru artists earn 80% of each sale. Compared to all the other online music stores, this is very competitive. Mavaru keeps 20 percent of each sale to cover our own operating expenses.
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Does Mavaru take ownership rights in my music or my band? Anything in the fine print that might come back to bite us?
Answer:
Absolutely not. You own your music, your images, your information, your copyrights and all your existing licensing and royalty arrangements.
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What rights am I granting to Mavaru?
Answer:
The only right you're granting to Mavaru is the right to host and distribute your recordings on your behalf and host images and information about you.
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OK, I'd like to see the fine print for myself. Where's your legal statement?
Answer:
Sounds like you've been around the music business awhile. Sure, we don't blame you. Find all the fine print you need here.
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How often do you provide us with a sales report?
Answer:
All sales information and analytics are updated regularly. Just log in to your Artist Dashboard anytime to view your information.
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How do I direct people to my site on Mavaru?
Answer:
You can paste a link to your artist landing page anywhere you want. Your fans can find you at either www.mavaru.com/band-name or www.mavaru.com/bandname.
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Do you do any Search Engine Optimization to help my band be found on Mavaru?
Answer:
One of our primary focuses in the development of Mavaru was to implement the site to take advantage of SEO, using best practices to allow search engines like Google and Yahoo to find us, you and your music easily.
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Are there any plans to host anything besides our music, a pic, and basic biographical information on Mavaru?
Answer:
That's all the information we're providing at this point. But the site will continue to grow and evolve, so if you have any suggestions for features that we should add please let us know.
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How do I upload my music to Mavaru?
Answer:
Click on “Register” at the top right corner of any page. After you sign up, you'll be prompted with instructions for how to upload an album.
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Are there any format/bit rate requirements for uploads?
Answer:
There are no bit rate requirements, however, we recommend that you use higher quality sound files (192 kbps or higher). We only require that your sound files are mp3's no larger than 15MB.
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How do I upload my artwork to Mavaru?
Answer:
Once your band has a Mavaru account you can create an album, upload your artwork, upload your tracks and then change them at anytime.
Process and Technical Info
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Mavaru would be so much better if you added this one really cool feature. How do I suggest that?
Answer:
Hey, no one has a monopoly on good ideas. If you think of something that might make Mavaru a better experience for you, please share it with us here.
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What format are your sound files?
Answer:
All sound files are downloaded as mp3's.
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OK, mp3s are cool, but can I get downloads in VBR? OGG? FLAC? AIFF?
Answer:
At this point, we're only offering mp3's of the music on our site. That means your album downloads will work on virtually every mp3 player.
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Do downloads from Mavaru come with Digital Rights Management (DRM) or any usage restrictions whatsoever?
Answer:
Nope. Mavaru's downloads are in widely used, non-proprietary digital formats with no DRM whatsoever. So you don't have to worry about how many of your devices you've loaded with your favorite song—there are no artificial limits here.
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If I take a song from Mavaru and share it on a Peer-To-Peer network, can I get in trouble?
Answer:
Hey, we know it happens. We also know better than to try to erect easily defeated technological barriers to keep it from happening. (And no, we won't send a platoon of attorneys after you if you do it). But instead of sharing your new discoveries on torrent sites, we'd rather you send your friends back to Mavaru. After all, you can get free music here, too. Legally!
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OK, I downloaded a song, but it's not playing on my computer/mobile device. What's wrong?
Answer:
Please notify us here. Tell us what files aren't working, what program or device you're using, and we'll look into it as soon as we can.
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I've noticed this one little glitch. How do I let you know about that?
Answer:
Uh oh! Yes, we'd like to know about that, the sooner the better. Please tell us what you've found here.
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How do I go about downloading a song on Mavaru?
Answer:
Mavaru only offers album downloads. It's up to the artist to decide how many songs are on an album. If you only want one song, then download the album anyway—hey, maybe you'll like the rest! You can download an album by entering the price you want to pay for it on the artist's album page and following the steps to download.
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Is my credit card information safe here?
Answer:
Absolutely. We take credit card security seriously, so seriously that we only store relevant small pieces of your credit card data for your convenience while using the technology and security of a PCI Compliant partner. All credit card transactions use SSL certificates, the standard and secure way of handling payments online.
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Help! My song/album isn't downloading!
Answer:
That's strange. Please notify us here. Tell us what files aren't working, a brief description of the page you're on (artist, album or both) and we'll look into it as soon as we can and try to get back to you with some answers.
