GhostTunes was an

online music store A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings without ...

and

digital library A digital library, also called an online library, an internet library, a digital repository, or a digital collection is an online database of digital objects that can include text, still images, audio, video, digital documents, or other digital me ...

. Founded by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

singer

Garth Brooks Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) is an American country music singer and songwriter. His integration of pop and rock elements into the country genre has earned him popularity, particularly in the United States with success on the co ...

Randy Bernard Randy Bernard (born January 31, 1967) is the former CEO of Professional Bull Riders and IndyCar. He is currently co-managing Garth Brooks. Career Professional Bull Riders Bernard previously served as the CEO of Professional Bull Riders, serving f ...

, and Chris Webb, it launched in September 2014 and featured singles and albums from a variety of artists, including Brooks' entire catalogue. GhostTunes varied from other online music stores such as the

iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...

by allowing the individual

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

s to choose their selling format, such as entire

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

s or

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

s (all 320 kbit/s

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

s), as well as prices, with an emphasis on fair and proper

royalty payment A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...

s. Its digital library could be synced across multiple devices, creating a multi-platform collection encompassing all user-downloaded music, regardless of the store used to purchase. On March 3, 2017, GhostTunes was absorbed into

Amazon Music Amazon Music (previously Amazon MP3) is a music streaming platform and online music store operated by Amazon. Launched in public beta on September 25, 2007, in January 2008 it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights man ...

History

Following widely covered disagreements with

music streaming A music streaming service is a type of streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to stream d ...

founded GhostTunes in 2014 to coincide with his return to live performing and album releases. Its

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...

version launched on September 4, 2014, with the full version rolling out two months later. While GhostTunes' original purpose was to exclusively showcase Brooks' music, Brooks made a push to allow many other artists to sell their music in the online store, allowing it to evolve into an

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

site containing more than 10 million songs available for purchase. Fittingly, the first albums available for purchase through the music service were Brooks' entire catalogue, available digitally for the first time, along with the exclusive release of his album, ''

Man Against Machine ''Man Against Machine'' is the ninth studio album by American country music artist Garth Brooks. It was released on November 11, 2014 by RCA Records Nashville and Pearl Records. Brooks confirmed the album in July 2014 while announcing his comeback ...

''. GhostTunes remained the only online means by which to purchase Brooks' albums until his 2016 partnership with

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

. The service's name, "GhostTunes", was derived from founder Brooks' first name, Garth, and his " hosting" of the site ("G-host"). Brooks announced on October 19, 2016, in an interview with ''Billboard'', that he was moving his music to the "Music Unlimited" streaming service from

, stating that he was unsure what the future held for GhostTunes. On March 3, 2017, GhostTunes ceased operations and began to redirect to Amazon Music.

Clients

Desktop

GhostTunes featured an online music store and library. The library consisted of all songs and albums purchased via the GhostTunes store, available for listening immediately after download within the application. Purchased and downloaded music could also be synced directly with a user's

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

, creating a cross-platform library.

Mobile

GhostTunes was available via

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and Android on mobile devices. The GhostTunes application allowed for music purchases to be made within the Android application, and downloading songs and albums directly to the device. It also syncs with the user's local music library, combining internal downloads with GhostTunes purchases for offline listening.

Royalties and pricing

Royalty payment A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...

s has been a pressing issue in Brooks' career, and GhostTunes reflects these concerns. When announcing the service, Brooks remarked, "This is a site that treats music with the utmost respect, where our job everyday is to offer music the way the artists want to share it to the listeners who live for and love it." GhostTunes allows individual

s the freedom to sell music without financial restrictions. Additionally Brooks, a long-time supporter of

sales (as opposed to

s), cited the ability of record labels to distribute with the flexibility of selling both singles and albums, or only albums. The music service had a distribution deal with many content owners, including

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...

Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...

The Orchard The Orchard may refer to: * The Orchard (company), American music and entertainment company * The Orchard (band), Canadian country music duo * ''The Orchard'' (Lizz Wright album), 2008 * ''The Orchard'' (Ra Ra Riot album), 2010 * The Orchard (t ...

, all of which pay 80 percent revenue back to artists and writers (as opposed to the traditional 70 percent). Freedom in pricing allows for some albums to be sold at lower price on GhostTunes. For example,

Sam Hunt Sam Lowry Hunt (born December 8, 1984) is an American singer and songwriter. Born in Cedartown, Georgia, Hunt played football in his high school and college years and once attempted to pursue a professional sports career before signing with MCA ...

's ''

Montevallo Montevallo is a city in Shelby County, Alabama, United States. A college town, it is the home of the University of Montevallo, a public liberal arts university with approximately 3,000 students. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city o ...

'' sold for $6.99 (less than its standard

price of $9.99). Nonetheless, while such autonomy promotes lower prices in some cases, the majority remains the same across all selling platforms.

Critical reception

Harley Brown of ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' praised the service, noting its resembling "a cross between

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

and

eMusic eMusic is an online music and audiobook store that operates by subscription. In exchange for a monthly subscription eMusic users can download a fixed number of MP3 tracks per month. eMusic was established in 1998, is headquartered in New York Ci ...

". Jonathan Robles of '' Variance Magazine'' called GhostTunes "a win-win" for Brooks, praising the selling of full digital albums in an era of which singles take priority. ''R-tools Technologys John Cook said GhostTunes "is worth a look", calling it "one way to get your music a bit differently" than the competitors. On the contrary,

Zack O'Malley Greenburg Zack O'Malley Greenburg (born March 8, 1985, New York City) is an American writer, journalist and former child-actor. He is a senior editor at ''Forbes'' magazine, where he covers music, media and entertainment. He is also the author of three books ...

of ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' disagreed with the GhostTunes' lack of

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

, as well as Brooks' restricting his entire catalogue to the service, stating, "streaming is the future of the music industry". Glenn Peoples of ''Billboard'' remarked "consumer behavior" impacts a lack of interest in GhostTunes, citing the average person's objective to purchase music through a major, more familiar retailer (such as

). Despite many critical comparisons between GhostTunes and other online music stores, CEO

maintains the stance that GhostTunes is to serve as an alternative, not a direct competitor.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:GhostTunes Android (operating system) software Download websites IOS software Online music stores of the United States Retail companies established in 2014 Internet properties established in 2014 Software companies based in Tennessee Music streaming services Defunct software companies of the United States 2014 establishments in Tennessee 2014 establishments in the United States