Entries from January 2008 ↓

David Byrne looks at the different ways artists can deal with a world in which “recording costs have declined to almost zero” and “manufacturing and distribution costs are approaching zero”.

The most relevant section for the artist who wants to let fans choose to give voluntary payments concerns the DIY model:

Finally, at the far end of the scale, is the self-distribution model, where the music is self-produced, self-written, self-played, and self-marketed. CDs are sold at gigs and through a Web site. Promotion is a MySpace page. The band buys or leases a server to handle download sales. Within the limits of what they can afford, the artists have complete creative control. In practice, especially for emerging artists, that can mean freedom without resources — a pretty abstract sort of independence. For those who plan to take their material on the road and play it live, the financial constraints cut even deeper. Backup orchestras, massive video screens and sets, and weird high tech lights don’t come cheap.

Radiohead adopted this DIY model to sell In Rainbows online — and then went a step further by letting fans name their own price for the download. They weren’t the first to do this — Issa (formerly known as Jane Siberry) pioneered the pay-what-you-will model a few years ago — but Radiohead’s move was much higher profile. It may be less risky for them, but it’s a clear sign of real changes afoot. As one of Radiohead’s managers, Bryce Edge, told me, “The industry reacted like the end was nigh. They’ve devalued music, giving it away for nothing.’ Which wasn’t true: We asked people to value it, which is very different semantics to me.”

The article ends with some very inspiring words:

For existing and emerging artists — who read about the music business going down the drain — this is actually a great time, full of options and possibilities. The future of music as a career is wide open.

Here it is - QTrax, an application that lets fans download music for free. Rumours have it that some of the top labels have signed up for the service, though some labels have come forward and denied their association with QTrax.

QTrax says it provides

1. Free peer to peer downloads for fans
2. They insert ads between songs so fans end up downloading ads into their iPods (urgh)
3. Revenue for labels comes from the ads
4. Revenue for artists? The same old less than five per cent of the revenue for the label.

So there, labels are being forced to think of allowing peer to peer downloads for fans, for free. Good for the artists who are tied to labels, but what about independent artists? Can they distribute their music on peer to peer networks such that their fans have access to the works for free?

We at Karmafan want to encourage free availability of arts by independent artists. This is one sure way that fans will “give something back” if they like the artist’s works. We are also convinced that some artists want to give away their music, especially in the wake of Radiohead’s “In Rainbows.” The question is can we provide a service to such artists so they can distribute their works to fans for free? Would be nice to see hands up from artists who would appreciate such a service. Maybe you can help us define such a service with your suggestions and comments.

There are a few services out there that let you distribute your works for free. Not just that they seem to imply that they’ll generate enough revenue so that a part of that revenue will be enough to sustain creative efforts of artists.

I want to address two such services, one is Tunesquare and the other is a very popular streaming audio site - last.fm. First,. I’ll explain what these two are services provide to the artist and then will talk about our model of encouraging fans to make a payment straight to the artist.

TuneSquare say they will distribute your music for free. The only thing they do is show ads on the website as fans are waiting for the download of music they’d like to listen to again and again. That is an excellent idea as such. What makes it even better is that they say they will share the ad revenue generated from the pages hosting your music. All well and good and we know creative people will appreciate any income to sustain their creative efforts.

Last.fm has had a recent tie up with CBS, an old school recording and distribution company. The tie up between the two says you can listen to any music from CBS’ collection for free - up to three times. If you like the music, well you should go buy the CD - giving 90% or more of your money to CBS for their excellent service of bringing you the music (sarcasm intended). Again last.fm and CBS say the costs of allowing fans to listen to your music will be covered by - you guessed it - advertising.

I guess both the efforts (TuneSquare and last.fm/CBS) hope advertising will generate enough revenue from ads to sustain the livelihood of artists. So what are fans expected to do - click on Viagra ads hoping 10-40% of the 20 cents generated by each click will reach the artist?

We at Karmafan believe fans should step forward and give something back straight to the artist. A dollar from a thousand fans can help the artist pay for that art work, the costs of producing and distributing their works, even make a living.

Stop clicking on useless ads selling you Viagra, give something back to the artist.

TorrentFreak mentions an incredibly relevant speech by Paulo Coelho (author of best-selling The Alchemist).

Coelho understood the potential of getting his books to more people and took the brilliant step of pirating his own books.

It makes perfect sense if you consider that one of the biggest obstacles facing artists of all kinds is actually getting the attention of potential fans. If people never hear your music or read your books then you never have a chance to be noticed or appreciated. You have to reach them first.

Violinist Tasmin Little embraces the idea of giving away music with this three step challenge:

Step 1: Listen to my spoken introduction and download my CD.
Step 2: Take some time to listen and get to know these pieces. Then write to me and tell me what you like (or don’t like) about each piece.
Step 3: Go to a concert, buy a CD or write and tell me what barriers still remain to prevent you from wanting to do either!

The download page is really well-presented and the music is available in lots of different formats. Her introductory PDF explains the principles behind the release and gives a huge amount of background info.

The recordings are excellent. It’s inspiring to see an artist take a leap of faith like this. I’m sure it will lead to more fans who want to attend concerts and either buy her CD or just give something back!

Check out The Naked Violin here.

Techcrunch has an interesting post about Trent Reznor’s comment on the idea of a music tax. Reznor was discussing the recent Saul Williams experiment. He produced The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust by Williams and they decided to make the album available for download either for free or for $5. The $5 version was higher quality but only 18.3% of fans were willing to pay.

The CNET interview with Reznor covers how he feels about this, and promises an interview with Saul Williams next week to hear his side of the story, but the mention of a music tax was the focus of the Techcrunch article:

“I think if there was an ISP tax of some sort, we can say to the consumer, “All music is now available and able to be downloaded and put in your car and put in your iPod and put up your a– if you want, and it’s $5 on your cable bill or ISP bill.” [Reznor interview at news.com]

Michael Arrington argues very convincingly this would stifle innovation in the music industry, but that it seems likely that such a tax will be a “last stand” for the music industry as it tries to find a way to survive in the digital age.

Check out the post - and the comments from readers - at Techcrunch.