Inspiring patronage is the only hope - Colie Brice

David Rose who writes for KnowTheMusicBiz builds another case for allowing music fans to download MP3s for free. He says -

In a very unscientific test, I selected 10 of my favourite albums that have been released in the last year or so. I then checked the websites of those 10 bands* to see if they had a MP3 download store. Surprisingly only three (Big Head Todd, Kings of Leon and Matthew Ryan) had any MP3’s available for download at all. A quick check of the websites from several popular independent artists in my area found none of them had MP3 downloads available. Unfortunately several of the local artists didn’t even have their own website.

He goes on to point services like Musicane, Indie911 and easybe that allow musicians to ’sell’ their music from within other sites like MySpace.

What we find even more strange that not many musicians on MySpace use the free download facility available on MySpace. Why not let your fans get your music? They will only appreciate it more and spread the word about you to your friends, maybe even share it with their friends thanks to the numerous ways to share it straight from their music players (via a PC of course).

Interesting this week David’s post is the second one to talk about giving away music, digital audio insider called for a debate on how it is best for musicians to give away their music. Amongst the comments on the digital audio insider blog two stand out,

Someone from universal indie records says -

I’d rather give the music away to create that fanbase in the hope that down the line they’d be willing to purchase something.

The way we see things is of course how Colie Brice captures it so well by saying

“Inspiring patronage is the only hope.. Whether giving away free files or playing live..”.