Threshold:

The amount of money you must earn on the deal to trigger a payout. If you do not earn that amount each month the company keeps all the money. Although these numbers might seem small they deserve some consideration. The company almost always deducts their Vig first before calculating the balance against the Threshold. So a Threshold of $200 and 15% Vig nets out to about 336 downloads per month before you get paid. (Example: For a 99-cent download on iTunes, about 29 cents goes to Apple, leaving about 70 cents that is passed on to the aggregator. Then the aggregator takes its 15%, leaving 59.5 cents. 59.5 cents divided into $200 is about 336.)
 

Vig:

The percentage the company keeps of your earnings through all digital sources . This is very important because many think that these deals are just for things like iTunes, but in most cases, they are for all digital means, including performance royalties earned from Satellite Radio.
 

Opt Out:

Many companies offer "Opt Out" clauses that suggest that you can get out of the deal easily by just notifying them. For example a "30 day opt out" implies that if you send them a letter saying you want out that you will be released within 30 days. This is rarely true. Since the advent of digital distribution, many people have tried "opting out" of old deals in favor of newer, better ones only to find that now there are multiple copies of their same masters on download services months later, each paying different royalty rates and thus tangling their credit history. The chart shows which companies offer this feature and what they claim is the amount of time it takes to be released from the deal AFTER notification.
 

Length:

The amount of time you are committed also known as the "Term." When you see "perpetual" this means that the deal is forever unless you notify the company within a window of time to cancel.
 

Exclusive:

Some companies insist that you do business with them and ONLY with them during the Term. Others are more flexible. However, the use of the word "non-exclusive" is often designed to instill false confidence in the customer. For example CD Baby offers a "non-exclusive" deal but the methodology of their software makes it virtually impossible to use them in conjunction with other companies. Most insist on commitments that are from six months to three years. Not only is this a lifetime in a recording artist's emerging years, it's a lifetime in the world of digital technology.
 

Fulfillment:

Does the company offer sales fulfillment of CDs along with their Digital Distribution deals? Yes or no.
 

On-Demand Printing:

Printing a small number of CDs is becoming more popular. This column shows whether or not the company offers this service along with their Digital Distribution agreement.
 

Marketing:

This column shows whether or not the company offers marketing services in conjunction with their Digital Distribution services.
 

Rating:

The ratings in the last column are done from the point of view of the emerging artist weighing their options for self-distribution while keeping their options open for a traditional record deal on a label. Therefore, for example, IRIS, or DRA, both perfectly legitimate companies who rate low from this perspective, might rate much higher from the point of view of a band that is already signed to an indie label and is looking to use them for "cross-aggregation" or marketing regarding a particular area of Digital Distribution.
 

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