Selling Western Music Legally in China With 88tc88

Thomas Reemer is the co-founder and CEO of 88tc88, a start-up which helps artists and record labels sell their music legally in China.

Reemer told me that there are basically three steps that 88tc88 takes to bring western music over to China: 1) Translate the music, 2) Gain approval from the ministry of culture, 3) Distribute the music with telcos in China, particularly, China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom.

He said that in China, only 2.5 percent of western songs are sold legally in China and many western folks have the misconception that it is expensive and sometimes impossible to get it done in the middle kingdom. For those lost souls who wish to distribute their music legally in China, 88tc88 is a good blackbox solution.

88tc88’s business model is pretty straight forward. An artist can translate and distribute an album of songs in China for just $100 (can you believe it?). And for bigger labels with more than 5,000 tracks, there’s a pay-per-track system. Each song will be sold through the telcos for about 2 RMB (approximately US$0.31). The telco will get 1 RMB and 88tc88 will get the other half. 88tc88 will then share the earnings on a 80:20 ratio with the artist getting the bigger piece of the pie.

As for its upcoming plans, 88tc88 could be looking at Shanzhai phones (cheap fake phones) as a mean to distribute music in China. Reemer noted that most Chinese change their Shanzhai phones quickly, and it’s a similar cycle for listening to music.

Reemer isn’t new to the music industry. He was working as an artist in Germany back in the 90s and started Artist First in 2002 which helps artists set up online stores. He then sold his stake to Bob Geldof after four years.

Reemer moved to China in 2005 and was freelancing for about five years before launching 88tc88 in March 2011. 88tc88 raised Euro 500,000 of angel investment and Reemer said that he is in this start-up for the long haul.