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
BoBurnham
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
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,
April
went onto sell
1,000 singles a week oniTunes
, 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.
Anderson
goes onto illustrate
in his up and coming book that there are
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
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?
