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.

Comments

[Jeremy P]

Does this post have a point?

[Kyle Bylin]

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.

[Beni Borja]

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?

[Ryan Sprute]

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.

[Delta]

People should read this.

[Kyle Bylin]

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.