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Free is good, but Artists still gotta eat. Disc Revolt makes cards like credit cards, that have art on the front like on the front of a CD, and a code on the back. The, once enter on thier website gets you to the artists page, where you use the credits on the card to download the artists music. The artist make money by selling the cards just they would a cd, except the cards cost the artist less, have a much smaller carbon footprint, and the artist keep more of the money.
IMHO DISCREVOLT IS THE FUTURE
But the problem I see with subscription based crap as Rick Rubin suggests is that I want to own a copy of my music. What he suggests reminds me of “On Demand” services that the cable companies have – you’re limited to what they have on tap at the time. So that doesn’t work for me…I like my ipod.
As far as “Pay what you think it’s worth” – I think that is great, and for the artists who can afford to do that or are inclined it will be interesting to see how it works out – but I don’t see that as an adequate solution for everyone.
What I think is that the record labels need to do the following:
1. Embrace digital technology.
2. Stop fucking with DRM – it causes more headaches and creates so many problems for the the users.
3. Make their albums/CDs special with art, add ons, special goodies that cannot be downloaded.
4. Realize that piracy IS NOT the same as theft, it CANNOT be claimed that every pirated song is a lost sale; in fact, I would say that MAYBE 5% of pirated CDs cost a sale if that. There are many inherent benefits of free digital distribution.
5. Stop suing or otherwise attacking music lovers (EG their customers)
6. Give the artists a fair share and stop taking advantage of them (see “Some of Your Friends are Already this Fucked” to understands how a first time major label deal usually affects a new band http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
7. Charge a fair price for products, and make both digital and brick and mortar version available (this relates to #3 somewhat), the digital version is just the music and a picture, etc…the special physical version would be as described in #3
8. Those labels which can’t adapt, and are clinging to the old ways and doing things t hurt the business, the artists and the consumers (music lovers) should be shunned by artists and the other progressive labels. They will then die out businesswise.
This way everyone gets what they want. Everyone makes money, the labels progress, the artists progress, the fans get what they want without being treated like criminals, people stop trying to claim filesharing is inherently illegal or has negative connotations.
I'm 40 years old and can easily see myself spending $30-60 per month on music. There's lots of music I remember and can't easily find in a store. How much music is the industry sitting on that baby-boomers and Gen-Xer's remember and can't easily find. Make it easy, make it fun and make it reasonably priced. Can you imagine all the iPod owners being able to get music from other sources as easliy as iTunes? What about other MP3 player owners and the older crowd that still has CD's? Allow us to use what ever media we want and keep a library of hundreds or thousands of songs that we WANT. What a concept.
Again, I can see them making thousands from me alone in a 5 year period, rather than the last 5 years when I have bought exactly 5 compilation CD's. And I can't be alone in this. I've boycotted music purchasing in general as a protest agains the DRM crap and legal suits that the music industry has been engaged in. They are insane and I refuse to put more money in their pocket it they are crazy enough to sue their own customers.
Give me the music I want at the price I'm OK paying and encourage your industry siblings to do the same so I can get all the music I want and not be concerned with who is or is not using DRM. You'll be making money hand over fist and your biggest issue will be the taxes you'll own on your newly made billions. Napster proved the model years ago and you've all been too pig-headed to see the writing on the wall. You'll either realize that you're in the music distribution business and distribute music or someone else will do it for you and you'll be selling the equivalent of buggy whips. Good luck with whatever decision you make. Don't say that no one ever explained it like that.
:The biggest change is that the model is moving away from selling units to selling access. That means that at first you have to give access, in some cases for free. You provide a way for people to find it on the Internet, blogs and social networks like MySpace and Facebook. You provide access for the larger communities in return for an ad-revenue split, so that money is made from the web site but the music is free for the user, very much like radio is done. No one pays for radio, but there’s still money being made...." Cheers Gerd Leonhard
It's the behavior of the young people will drive mass consumer behavior. To young people born into WiMaxed internet ubiquity, "owning" an mp3 file is a blurry concept.
I personally think we're headed towards a ad-rev share free model, with subscription services filling the niche need for superior services and/or no ads.
Steve, I'm surprised you don't mention Imeem. They're really pushing the ad-rev share / streaming concept.
eMusic isn't a subscription service in the strictest sense, since you don't have access to all of eMusic's catalog, just a certain number of tracks per month. It's more akin to a pre-paid model, like a pay-as-you-go mobile contract, whereby you pay for credit up front. Although, yes, you do get to keep the music you've downloaded, even if you stop being a "subscriber"
Rhapsody, on the other hand, gives you access to the whole lot, so long as you stay a subscriber.
There are lots of services that didn't get a mention, instead I tried to get the main alt. models across. Imeem and other music-based social sites, are certainly pushing another aspect to the ad-revenue side, along with doing a great job of music discovery.
What's clear is that the three main costs of the music biz are falling dramatically: production, distribution, and marketing. The social networks are helping with the last two.
As for thethe Spiral Frog model, to me, seems unsustainable, becuz they're monetizing off of a single transaction. By streaming, you're able to monetize each and every time a song is played. There's great potential in that, I feel.
Anyhow, I forgot to say, great entry! And I didn't even know about Jamendo or Magnatune, so thanks for that heads up!
I think the future of music is along those lines. We could use different levels of subscription and the music would come right to your home, to use anyway you want.
The labels would make more money than they are now.
Radio went to subscription with satellite radio and everyone thought that would never catch on. It did.
Radiohead and other established artists can afford to give away their music for free. There is a huge fanbase who will buy the real thing. New artists can't afford to... they need to pay the bills (and eat). Without covering their recording costs they can't continue to make music..... look out for them working at your nearest McDonalds while you listen to their music on your car mp3 player.
Subscription.... dunno. How do you fairly distribute the money to the artists? Or is it like communism where they all should get an equal share, no matter who is the best worker or most popular?
Thanks a lot for mentioning us to the web, that's great.
Hope you like our site and more and more will get to know it.
Musically,
Charlotte
free music, free to download, drm free - artists get paid through ads!
We Mac users live in a Windows world ;)
No, seriously, sorry about that. It's another Windows-only DRM affair. Do you see a pattern here?
So, let me purchase the songs I want. I'd prefer no DRM, even though I don't share files. I'd ideally prefer to purchase the music directly from the artist, although this isn't very practical, especially when the artist is dead. There has to be some distributor, but the historical model is obsolete.
But music isn't consumed like cheese (even though a lot of music is cheesy). No, it pretty much lasts forever now. It's given away for free (via advertising) on the radio, and in shops, and between friends. How many times might one recording be "consumed"? Once it's made, music can go on and on without restriction.
So the industry created these artificial restrictions, and they try to enforce them, but this will never work until the day they manage to have decoder chips implanted in our heads. And still we listeners believe that music must be paid for one unit at a time. It's unnatural!
So how do I think music should be paid for? Well, if you hear that music for free and it convinces you that you want to hear more from an artist, why not pay the artist just for doing what they do directly? It's easy for a few thousand people to support one person just by sending them some money every year. It's almost like a subscription to the artist.
Imagine the "exclusives" such an arrangement could bring- you and a few thousand other sponsors would have the inside scoop on new music, who the artist is listening to, what they had for breakfast...
The music is free, it's the advertising for the person making the music. Step up to the plate, put your money where your heart is, and pay them for being the wonderful, creative people they are. Hell, listen to my music- and join my sponsors. It's easy, it's fun!
somewhereoutwest.com
Check it out here: http://www.nextgreatthing.com/2007/10/22/artist...
We're using an excellent service called bandcamp (www.bandcamp.mu) that lets us offer music streaming and downloads to fans. The service also offers fans the option to 'pay what they want' for a higher quality download. For us, the killer function is the data: we can see how many tracks are being downloaded and streamed, so we've a real sense of the success of our campaign.
I think we'll see a lot more services like bandcamp springing up, not copycats, but other complementary 'components' in a band's toolkit that can enable them to have a successful independent music career.
You should check out this out: http://peoplesmusicstore.com
It's completely new business model because on this site, it is people who choose what to stock, promote, and sell DRM-free mp3s from their own personalised store.
Its really innovative because we can sell music we love directly from our site or social network profile, and each time someone buys something from our widget store, we get a cut - "10% in the form of points which can be redeemed by purchasing music on the site"
The guy who has started people's music store is also the one who founded bleep in january 2004. Bleep was the first online music service to offer high quality DRM free files at a crucial time - there were no alternatives to peer-to-peer networks.
cheers
ludi
http://peoplesmusicstore.com/rose_is_a_rose
Offering users to chance to invest for something back in return is a very innnovative and appealing way of operating. Then there's so many other ideas. Just take a look at all these websites:
Grooveshark
Sellaband
Slicethepie
Formyband
Bandstocks
Song People
and of course my own website,
Bandengine