You Give Free A Bad Name
GUEST POST by Kyle Bylin of indie label 50 Entertainment.
Free is a dirty, angst
filled, and hatred-driven word that circulates the music industry today.
Simply put, because instruments, amps, rent, sound engineers, and MacBook
Pros are not. On the other hand, the information, the applications,
the software, and the services that aid musicians on-line have been
free all
along. The problem is that time and attention
are now the scarcest, most expensive commodities in the world
and the competition for them is daunting. To the average music
fan, not only 
do they not care about your music, but you are completely
invisible.
You find two common narratives
on-line, either you the musician are empowered with the opportunity
of a lifetime (to connect and interact) or the
proverbial sky over the music industry fell five years ago (MySpace
and piracy). No matter what side of the fence you are on, there
are countless examples fueling your world view every day. On some accounts,
it’s simple, because Halo, World of Warcraft and Second Life are far
more engrossing to digital natives than anything on your website or
chat. With over 8 million bands on MySpace, 112.8 million blogs
indexed by Technorati, and 78.3 million videos on YouTube it seems impossible
to get attention, yet with almost zero economic momentum musicians still
conquer the odds.
It’s not fair to say…
that Bo
Burnham started to propel
himself into the YouTube spotlight without economic momentum back in
December of 2006. After all, his parents were paying the mortgage,
his piano might have been a Christmas present, and that t-shirt was
either a hand-me-down or a Salvation Army grab. Regardless, the
13 videos on his channel have garnered a staggering 21,545,875 million
views. Leading him to being signed with Gersh, 3 arts, and
Comedy Central.
The power of free
lies is in its unique ability to get rotation on the radio. Not
the one full of DJ chatter, advertising, gatekeepers, middlemen, and
a long history of payola. No super bowl tickets, money, or favors
required. As Bruce Warila of Unsprung
Media states in his post,
“iPods, mobile phones, and MP3 players in general, are the new
radio that everyone carries in their pockets now. Every artist
has to obtain multiple spins on the new radio to convert listeners into
paying fans.”
Through understanding
this concept, Making
April went onto sell 1,000 singles a week on
iTunes, but not without doing
the leg work. They found similar artists, pinged every person
on their list, got personal with each comment and reply, talked to fans
through instant messenger and ran contests. By engaging their
audience consistently they were able to build relationships
and increase fan participation on MySpace. After a year
of giving their music away, doing on-line promotions, and getting a
song placed on MTV’s Laguna Beach, they started to push their iTunes
page and went on to get a record deal.
Chris
Anderson goes onto illustrate
in his up and coming book that there are four
kinds of free:
- Direct
Cross-Subsidy: The cost of joining The Spill Canvas Fan Club
is $19.99, but if you join you get a 20$ Gift Certificate and exclusive
content free. - Ad-Supported:
Downloading Kid Rock’s new song American Warrior is free, but it is
ad-supported by The National Guard. - Freemium: Radiohead’s
In Rainbows was based on a freemium because those who paid subsidized
those who got it for free - The Gift Economy:
Prince gave his album Planet Earth away in The London Daily Mail in
order to gain attention, boost reputation, and spur ticket sales.
Alex Grange’s great analysis
of the one year anniversary since Radiohead’s
In Rainbows Freemuim brought
to mind an even more monumental event that shaped the “free” music
industry as we know it today. About seven years ago the case filed
against Napster had been partially settled and the entire network was
shutdown. This event was followed by the fragmentation of the
entire sector of illegal downloading. Before the users spread
out and created more complex downloading tools, could we have handled
the situation differently by isolating piracy
through the initiation of a subscription based or
ad-supported models earlier?
More from Kyle: The Fall Of Communization And The Rise Of The Music Fan and We Are The Curator, The Light and The Frame.
Does this post have a point?
Jeremy P—Thank you for commenting on my post. I’m sorry if I left you hanging at all with the point. This is a continuation of 3 previous posts. My last post “Consumer or Music Lover: You Decide” got a little flack for it’s Better Than Free reference, so I sought out to do an overview of how artists are overcoming piracy, the business models of free, and an introduction to the concept of new radio. I’ll admit, it’s length might have buried the lead, but I’m excited for the feedback. I’ll try to do better next time.
I agree with the general perspective, but it seems to me that you somehow ruin your own point when you state that the proof of eficency of digital promotion ,is that it leads artists to be signed to a major, or to have a song added on Laguna Beach!!
For Chrissake ! That´s as old model as it gets!
The question to me is: Artists that develop their audience through social networking, can live off their work??
We all know that ,at this point in time ,getting signed or getting exposure on MTV is not the way to reach financial independence, don’t we?
If the music industry had respected the internet as a viable medium and then sought to provide a very easy and convenient way to buy music online, they could have drastically reduced illegal downloading. They could have encouraged people to buy a relatively new technology (MP3 Players) by partnering with someone like Rio and offering free songs.
Unfortunately, they decided to sue Rio instead.
It’s impossible to say at this point, but if they had gotten on the ball early and tried to nip it in the bud with a dual-attack plan: both providing a way to buy music online at a reasonable price, as well as doing things like PSA’s (NOT suing) to make downloading illegally culturally frowned upon, the music industry would be in a very different state.
People should read this.
Benji—Great point, I got caught up in ‘writer mode’ and didn’t realize that’s what I was eluding to. I think there is a place for artists to live off their work, but it depends on how you define living. With the pride and joy of a teacher with a low salary? Its all in perspective… There’s always those artists whom we hope fade away. However, the Laguna Beach reference is debatable since we all know there is lots of money to be made in licensing your music. After all, during terrible shows is the only place to hear music on their station.
Ryan—Awesome outlook, your right it is impossible to imagine. We were all ready for digital, even way back then, but it took a long time for them to catch up.
Delta—Thank you.