There’s Just One Territory For Releasing Music Now: The World
Guest post by Michael Brandvold of Michael Brandvold Marketing.
I came across this on Bravewords.com this morning: Starting at roughly 8:00am EST on Thursday, February 2nd, VAN HALEN's new album A Different Kind Of Truth will reportedly be available via the Australian iTunes store (12:00 midnight on February 3rd Sydney time). Go to www.apple.com/au/itunes for more information.
A Different Kind Of Truth, will be released in North America by Interscope Records on February 7th. Audio samples from the entire album can be found at this location (click view in iTunes).
As I suspected you can already find the album on the torrents for free. Many U.S. and rest of world fans who would buy it today from iTunes CAN'T BUY IT. Why? Because we live in the wrong country. I have my iTunes preorder, but I can't listen until next Tuesday, but fans in Australia can listen today. Explain why this makes any sense? Don't complain about your music being pirated when you decided only certain regions of the world are allowed to buy it. Is there a really solid reason why the album could not have been released worldwide at the same time? Does the U.S. label really need until February 7th to get ready? Is the label in Australia that much more prepared that they didn't need a few extra days? Or is it just because that is the way it has always been done?
Remember, there is only one territory for releasing music now…the world. You can't restrict music to borders, there are no borders.
Whose fault is it that many U.S. Van Halen fans are now downloading the new album?
WORD!!!!!!!! Thank you, Clyde, for finally saying this.
If the record companies are serious about combatting pirating, they are going to have to seriously rewrite all these territorial contracts. I’ve had to wait as much as a YEAR for music released in the UK to be legally available in the USA; sometimes it never gets released here at all.
Newsflash, label mooks: if you don’t find a way to make your product available LEGALLY in a TIMELY fashion, people are going to find a way to acquire it. (And I’m not even sure the courts would uphold that as an “illegal” download. If the label doesn’t make the product AVAILABLE for purchase, nobody can be accused of STEALING it, now can they?)
Consumers want to be able to discuss new releases with their friends, just as they have always done since the beginning of recorded music. The difference nowadays is, those friends are very likely to be in another country.
It’s not the consumers’ problem to figure out how to solve this; it’s the labels’ and the artists’ problem to figure out how to solve it. Consumers can’t write your contracts FOR you, but if we could, we would demand simultaneous release in all territories.
Thank you.
I love your statement:
It’s not the consumers’ problem to figure out how to solve this; it’s the labels’ and the artists’ problem to figure out how to solve it. Consumers can’t write your contracts FOR you, but if we could, we would demand simultaneous release in all territories.
Hey, Michael Brandvold actually wrote this. I guess we need to figure out a way to make that more obvious.
I was just doing secretarial blogging duties on this and posted it.
Michael definitely cuts to the chase and I think a lot of people are feeling this way right now. Why focus on taking people to court when you haven’t even made your music available in a timely manner?
Major labels should try the obvious first before they start feeding the lawyers while killing their brand.
To help you understand it from a different point of view, (Europe) when we release an Album here there are 2 major things we have to take into consideration:
1st the UK and rest of Europe have different release dates (which are important for the chart seekers)
The second is that Europe like Australia take considerably less time to adjust the physical Album in shelves and in order not to upset the giant US Market the release in the US is almost always a notch later…
Not to mention that Itunes has (still) to wait until the physical product is available before they can open their digital gates…..
It is therefore still a matter of politics, because Digital sales turn far too little revenue even if they are growing and Labels still depend heavily on the physical product to survive, being that said, the royalties paid by Itunes for download and all the stream sites have no regulation whatsoever creating almost a monopoly where they literally control and retain huge profit paying Indie labels and artists peanuts….
Tommy I do understand, but to me that is the core problem a digital product is being sold in a environment created for a physical product. Physical products have needs and requirements that digital does not have. Times have changed, but the it seems the industry is interested in keeping things the same rather than evolve and change.
Hey Clyde, you can’t get much more obvious than, “Guest post by Michael Brandvold of Michael Brandvold Marketing.” 😉
Hey Michael, I understand and agree with most of what you are saying here. Well, all of it actually, except the last line – “Whose fault is it that many U.S. Van Halen fans are now downloading the new album?” It’s almost as if you’re condoning stealing from the artist because the label/distributor/whomever is making you wait a few extra days. I mean, it’s streaming free on MOG, no need to download it illegally, right? 😉
hahaha OK, I’m a dumb ass, not paying attention to the dates. Scratch the MOG comment, but I stand behind everything else.
Piracy is a growing blight on genuine artists ability to make a living in a very tough sector.
When I wrote the article it was not available in any format, download or streaming, to the US as it had just been released in Australia. US fans had to wait five days before they could get it legally. Now it is streaming, but for five days US fans really only had one option if they wanted to listen to it… piracy.
It is necessary that physical albums a/k/a CDs also be released at the same time in all territories. Not doing that has been annoying fans for much longer than when the initial run of the Original Napster took place. Michael Brandvold is spot on here, but how can this be news for music marketing people when it is so utterly common wisdom to every music fan around the globe?
And even worse: How can anybody just release their album in only one territory on iTunes and block out possible sales from other territories? After all, it’s the World Wide Web. CDs and downloads should be shipped / be available to all territories since famous producers with their own worldwide fanbases are used to working with artists from various niche markets and territories, and it did happen that it has been quite the struggle of getting those when you are based in one market the product was not targeted to.