Does Free Music REALLY Hurt Us?

[richardmac]

We have about 3,257 different threads on here about giving your music away for free and why it's either a great idea or the stupidest thing you could ever do. So here's thread 3,258! No thanks are necessary.

 

Let's start with a clarification - I am referring to artists who give away their ENTIRE CD for free, not artists who give away a song or two. I'm talking about people who give out, usually via downloads, the entire contents to their album, for free.

 

So I'd like to suggest the following theories, which are my theories, written by me. Ahem.

 

1. Free CD's are not hurting the big name artists. Yet.

2. Free CD's are not making it harder to find good music.

3. Free CD's do make it slightly harder for amateurs to sell music.

4. The secret to success.

5. A formula for knowing when to make a CD.

 

My reasons?

 

1. 99.9% of the free CDs I've heard are bad. OK, that's very subjective, but my point is that I don't see the general public saying, "Look, I don't have to buy that new Keane CD because I just downloaded the Joe Nobody CD for free!"

 

People recognize that the free stuff is junk. And so long as it IS junk, it does not devalue the pro music that is already for sale. If the free music ever gets to the point where it IS as good as the for sale music, THEN the pros are in big trouble. We all will be.

 

2. If everyone who is currently giving away their music for free started charging for their music, we would still have a kabillion no name artists out there vying for the public's attention. Whether they charge does not matter, the music is still out there and still has to be waded through. Which leads to...

 

3. The general public is confused - "This guy is giving his CD away for free, and THIS guy is selling his, and they both suck. The guy who is selling his CD must be greedy." This type of mindset is not only possible, but I've heard people say it. However, if your music is fantastic, this will not be an issue as much. If people love your music, they're still willing to pay for it.

 

So free CD's probably harm other amateurs who are trying to sell their music, but only those amateurs who make mediocre music. There's no more sales market for mediocre music. It's gone, for us. It's still available for Disney and the record companies. But not us. You need to make REALLY good music to sell CD's today.

 

4. Everyone here, including me, who bitches about lack of sales needs to go back to the drawing board and write better songs. As BlueStat has said before, your sales are an indication of how your fans like your music. If you write fantastic songs, you're going to sell music. Maybe not millions of CD's, but you're going to sell.

 

5. The problem with most CD's is that people make them before they are ready. If you make a CD and no one buys it, then you shouldn't have made it because you're not good enough yet. You're not ready. The old methods still work. First make a song that is good enough that people would be willing to pay money for it. (Why? Because the world does NOT need your mediocre songs.)

 

Then work really hard and make 9 more songs that are good. Then record the CD. And then sell it. And if it doesn't sell at all, and you've marketed it properly, the odds are the music is not fantastic. Go back and write better songs. This is the approach I'm taking. If I never sell a lot of CD's, I'm betting it's because I never got my music to the "fantastic" stage.

 

Where am I right or wrong? Comments? I'm here to learn, not just preach!

[stratocaster202]

My name is Stratocaster202 and I endorse this message!

[BlueStrat]

 

1. Free CD's are not hurting the big name artists. Yet.

I think they are, in a macro sense, in that as the more giving away free Cds become standard practice at the grassroots level, the more it only reinforces the notion among the general public that all recorded music should be free.

 

I pretty much agree with everything else you said. But you cannot underestimate the basic principle of cause and effect. Actions have consequences, no matter how unintentional they may be or how subtle the effects may appear to be at first. At some point, "free" becomes embedded into the cultural psyche, and once it's there, it's hard if not impossible to dislodge.

[Adam.M]

Giving out free, physical CD's is never a good idea. It's costing you money to make them, and it's one of a bands main products, it's just bad business.

 

When you give something out for free, you're directly stating it's not worth anything.

 

All that hard work... for nothing?

[TieDyedDevil]

 

1. 99.9% of the free CDs I've heard are bad. OK, that's very subjective, but my point is that I don't see the general public saying, "Look, I don't have to buy that new Keane CD because I just downloaded the Joe Nobody CD for free!" People recognize that the free stuff is junk. And so long as it IS junk, it does not devalue the pro music that is already for sale. If the free music ever gets to the point where it IS as good as the for sale music, THEN the pros are in big trouble. We all will be.

 

 

OK. First, define "bad". You're right: it's very subjective. Perhaps rather than bad: "music I wouldn't listen to whether I have to pay for it or not." Or even "music I'd go out of my way to avoid were I to hear it."

 

I really can't agree with you about the free music being "junk". What's your criterion? Production quality? Packaging? Popularity? Quality of the writing and composition? Originality?

 

Maybe it's just me, but there's a *lot* of free music that I'll listen to in preference to the so-called "professional" productions.

 

 

2. If everyone who is currently giving away their music for free started charging for their music, we would still have a kabillion no name artists out there vying for the public's attention. Whether they charge does not matter, the music is still out there and still has to be waded through. Which leads to...

 

 

This is really the crux of the matter. It's so easy and inexpensive to produce and record music that *anyone* can do it. Hundreds of thousands of bands known only to a handful of supporters have not just one, but *multiple* recordings.

 

Gone are the days of the gatekeepers who enforce musical taste by granting access to recording and production...

 

 

3. The general public is confused - "This guy is giving his CD away for free, and THIS guy is selling his, and they both suck. The guy who is selling his CD must be greedy." This type of mindset is not only possible, but I've heard people say it. However, if your music is fantastic, this will not be an issue as much. If people love your music, they're still willing to pay for it. So free CD's probably harm other amateurs who are trying to sell their music, but only those amateurs who make mediocre music. There's no more sales market for mediocre music. It's gone, for us. It's still available for Disney and the record companies. But not us. You need to make REALLY good music to sell CD's today.

 

 

I believe that you've heard people refer to an artist who sells a CD as "greedy". That kind of mindset is nothing new. From my perspective, the comment is more likely motivated by the greed of the speaker, who either doesn't want to be encumbered by the need to pay for music or doesn't want to have his conscience bothered by ripping off someone's CD.

 

 

4. Everyone here, including me, who bitches about lack of sales needs to go back to the drawing board and write better songs. As BlueStat has said before, your sales are an indication of how your fans like your music. If you write fantastic songs, you're going to sell music. Maybe not millions of CD's, but you're going to sell. 5. The problem with most CD's is that people make them before they are ready. If you make a CD and no one buys it, then you shouldn't have made it because you're not good enough yet. You're not ready. The old methods still work. First make a song that is good enough that people would be willing to pay money for it. (Why? Because the world does NOT need your mediocre songs.) Then work really hard and make 9 more songs that are good. Then record the CD. And then sell it. And if it doesn't sell at all, and you've marketed it properly, the odds are the music is not fantastic. Go back and write better songs. This is the approach I'm taking. If I never sell a lot of CD's, I'm betting it's because I never got my music to the "fantastic" stage.

 

 

I honestly don't think that any of this is true. I hear plenty of well-written, well-produced songs that I wouldn't buy. If an artist made songs that were somehow ten times better, I wouldn't be any more likely to buy the songs.

 

The issue is not quality. The issue is finding, connecting with and growing an audience.

 

I think it's sad that so many people believe that success as an artist is obtained by reaching certain standards: of writing, of composition, of recording, of production, of distribution, of packaging, etc. Most of these lofty goals serve primarily to enrich various providers of goods and services.

 

One reaches an audience not by following a formula, but rather by communicating with and engaging an audience through one's art. Yes, it's true that there are very large audiences that will respond to certain treatments. If that's what you want you're going to have to go through the proper channels (major labels, grooming, management, ...) in order to have even a chance at success. You may as well play the lottery, even if you do fit the demographic that the majors seek for these markets.

 

As an independent artist you're responsible for your own success or failure. If your goal is to sell product, you're going to have to put on your sales and marketing hat. Who's in your demographic? How do you reach them? How do you get them to spend money on *your* product in preference to the 3,700 other choices that may interest them? How do you keep them coming back for more? Finding the right answers to *these* questions is far more important than "are my songs 'good enough'"?

 

You can polish your song writing craft until you're old and gray. The only way to build an audience is to put yourself in front of them and find out what works and what doesn't. I think it's the notion that a "good" recording will somehow attract an audience that bothers me the most. A recording is - in today's world - just a file on someone's computer. It's easily acquired and more easily forgotten. You'll be remembered not for your recordings, but for how you interact - as a person - with your audience.

 

Here's an imperfect analogy: Suppose the goal is not to sell music, but rather to effect some kind of social change at a national level. Imagine your favorite hot-button topic. Now imagine two people who have a passionate interest in this goal. One is a highly-educated professional writer without a publisher. The other is an aspiring politician who spends a significant part of every day talking with people - face to face - about the issues and challenges related to this particular goal. Who's going to make a difference?

 

 

Where am I right or wrong? Comments? I'm here to learn, not just preach!

 

 

I don't know whether you're right or wrong, but I appreciate your having started the discussion.

[richardmac]

Wow. Your post was a combination of stuff that I totally agree with and totally disagree with. Which definitely makes it interesting. I think you were reading stuff into what I wrote that wasn't there.

 

Some minor points:

 

Regarding the majority of most free music being junk and the subjectiveness of it. You and I have a different opinion about the quality of the majority of free music, but I bet most people would agree with me. The average person is more likely to listen to "professional" stuff than free stuff for a very good reason, and I think that's the point here. A simple test would be to grab 10 people off the street and examine their iPod content. The percentage of music on there that people give away for free (legally) is going to be extremely small. It's not just my opinion, it's the majority opinion, I believe.

 

We both agree the gatekeepers are gone, and I think we both agree that's a good thing. The downside is that there are millions of songs to wade through that, OK, in my opinion, are not very good.

 

Regarding the quality of songs. Most amateur music I hear, I hear bad rhyme schemes, totally forgettable melodies, songs that don't make an emotional connection, often bad production, out of tune vocals, totally predictable chord progressions, boring lyrics, and so on and so forth. And as amateur music, this is to be expected!

 

We need to learn, and keep learning, and keep improving. To suggest to any of these people that getting better is not important is... counter-productive. An artist who says "I don't need to grow" is arrogant and probably living in a fantasy world.

 

Finding your audience IS extremely important, but making the best music you possibly can is, to me, the most important, unless you've got so much talent that your hand me down songs are way better than everyone else's best effort - but I'm not seeing that in the majority of amateur music I hear. What I see and hear are people writing mediocre songs and then bitching in forums that free downloading is killing their chances at success in the music biz.

 

My whole entire point is "Don't blame everyone else. Go back and write better music." That message may not be what people want to hear, but I definitely believe it.

[slight-return]

 

Regarding the majority of most free music being junk and the subjectiveness of it. You and I have a different opinion about the quality of the majority of free music, but I bet most people would agree with me. ... A simple test would be to grab 10 people off the street and examine their iPod content. The percentage of music on there that people give away for free (legally) is going to be extremely small.

 

 

It would be a simple test, but not a very good one for a variety of reasons (some that come to immediate mind) :

 

-a sample size of 10 is thin, even for small sample tools

-the sample selection methods (off the street, ipod users) can introduce all kinds of selection error

-The test is looking at

A) what people put on their ipods for their 'on-the-street' content from their current access pool

as opposed to

B) perceived quality as it varies with free/pay.

 

 

eh, not a comment on the positions -- just a comment on the experiment design

[slight-return]

 

Finding your audience IS extremely important, but making the best music you possibly can is, to me, the most important, unless you've got so much talent that your hand me down songs are way better than everyone else's best effort - but I'm not seeing that in the majority of amateur music I hear. What I see and hear are people writing mediocre songs and then bitching in forums that free downloading is killing their chances at success in the music biz. My whole entire point is "Don't blame everyone else. Go back and write better music." That message may not be what people want to hear, but I definitely believe it.

 

 

One or two areas that may (as in maybe, just some food for thought or a question to explore more than some kind of answer) fall beyond the scope of that :

historical music (early, classic, etc as periods as opposed to just styles, some trad jazz, etc) where the repertoire isn't so much generated by the current performer (though arrangement/orchestration can sometimes vary depending on what you are doing)

 

other-than-listener-native ethnic music

 

In both cases, there is the possibility of popular perception of high quality that doesn't correspond to a drive to consume.

Perhaps, in those situations, 'finding the audience' could be somewhat more important.

[richardmac]

 

One or two areas that may (as in maybe, just some food for thought or a question to explore more than some kind of answer) fall beyond the scope of that : historical music (early, classic, etc as periods as opposed to just styles, some trad jazz, etc) where the repertoire isn't so much generated by the current performer (though arrangement/orchestration can sometimes vary depending on what you are doing) other-than-listener-native ethnic music In both cases, there is the possibility of popular perception of high quality that doesn't correspond to a drive to consume. Perhaps, in those situations, 'finding the audience' could be somewhat more important.

 

 

 

Yeah, definitely, as is also the case with cover bands. A cover band is successful based on a number of factors, some of which is non-musical. You can be a brilliant musician and play covers perfectly but if you choose music no one likes, you're not going to make much money. If your band name is really stupid, that can hurt the number of people who will come to see you. Stuff like that.

[richardmac]

It would be a simple test, but not a very good one for a variety of reasons (some that come to immediate mind) :

 

Not to mention the fact that not everyone owns an iPod.

[slight-return]

Not to mention the fact that not everyone owns an iPod.

 

yup - that's part of the error cause by selecting folks with ipods

[TieDyedDevil]

 

Wow. Your post was a combination of stuff that I totally agree with and totally disagree with. Which definitely makes it interesting. I think you were reading stuff into what I wrote that wasn't there.

 

 

Thanks for your comments.

 

It's possible that I'm misinterpreting you, but more likely, I think, is that we're looking at things a bit differently and reaching conclusions based on our individual perspectives...

 

 

Regarding the majority of most free music being junk and the subjectiveness of it. You and I have a different opinion about the quality of the majority of free music, but I bet most people would agree with me. The average person is more likely to listen to "professional" stuff than free stuff for a very good reason, and I think that's the point here. A simple test would be to grab 10 people off the street and examine their iPod content. The percentage of music on there that people give away for free (legally) is going to be extremely small. It's not just my opinion, it's the majority opinion, I believe.

 

 

I guess this depends a lot on where you are relative to producers of free music. Where I live, it seems like a full 10% of the population is somehow involved in writing, recording or producing music. There's a lot of good music to be had around here, much of it free or barely covering the cost of materials.

 

Your iPod test, I think, would almost certainly fail in Portland. Portland is probably not representative of a larger sample. It does, however, skew my own perspective on the problem...

 

 

We both agree the gatekeepers are gone, and I think we both agree that's a good thing. The downside is that there are millions of songs to wade through that, OK, in my opinion, are not very good.

 

 

This is a problem, but not a new problem. A good analogy would be to consider music buying behaviors before the internet, during a time when you had to spend money to get music. Most of us had a limited budget for music and relied upon recommendations from our peer groups (and auditions of the music they'd already purchased) to help us buy music we'd like.

 

Now that we can get music for free, we no longer have the problem of running out of money buying stuff we won't like. There *is* a problem of time, however. It's far quicker to download music than it is to listen. How do we decide how to allocate our listening time? Still: we rely upon recommendations. Now we have not only peer group recommendations, but also online aggregators for recommendations and larger peer groups made possible by social networking.

 

Yes, there *are* millions of songs out there, some portion of which I'd never want to hear. But I don't wade through millions of songs, and neither does anyone else. It's a physical impossibility: there are only about a half-million minutes in a year. How many songs do you think someone could reasonably audition in a year?

 

There are no gatekeepers (or rather, the ones that still exist don't have much power over what music most of us hear), but there are still *filters* that help us choose our music.

 

 

Regarding the quality of songs. Most amateur music I hear, I hear bad rhyme schemes, totally forgettable melodies, songs that don't make an emotional connection, often bad production, out of tune vocals, totally predictable chord progressions, boring lyrics, and so on and so forth. And as amateur music, this is to be expected!

 

 

I think this is the biggest disconnect between your viewpoint and mine. The amateur music I hear is produced by competent, sometimes accomplished, musicians who write, compose, perform and record for the love of their art. There's no important difference in the quality of the amateur's music as compared to the musical output of a professional musician. From a strict business perspective, these amateur musicians are hobbyists. None of them would pass the IRS test for operating a business. (I may have this wrong - I don't play a tax lawyer on TV. The gist is that they can't operate at a loss for more than three years and still write off their expenses, so they use their day job to finance their art with no reasonable expectation of a return on their investment.)

 

I get the impression that when you talk about amateurs you're thinking more of the kids who started playing a couple years ago and use their computer to record and post half-baked musical first-steps in the many venues that cater to this kind of music. Again, there are simple filters that let me avoid virtually all of this class of free music.

 

 

We need to learn, and keep learning, and keep improving. To suggest to any of these people that getting better is not important is... counter-productive. An artist who says "I don't need to grow" is arrogant and probably living in a fantasy world.

 

 

I certainly wouldn't suggest that; I'm sorry if I gave that impression. As artists we all need to continue to grow no matter our experience, standing or success.

 

I said, "The issue is not quality. The issue is finding, connecting with and growing an audience." Here I'm assuming the kind of hobbyist musician I described above who has honed his craft for many years but has not attracted a large enough audience to have become self-sustaining as an artist. I'm assuming that an average listener wouldn't be put off by the quality of the amateur musician's writing or production.

 

If you haven't yet developed your craft at least to the journeyman level, by all means concentrate first on that...

 

 

Finding your audience IS extremely important, but making the best music you possibly can is, to me, the most important, unless you've got so much talent that your hand me down songs are way better than everyone else's best effort - but I'm not seeing that in the majority of amateur music I hear. What I see and hear are people writing mediocre songs and then bitching in forums that free downloading is killing their chances at success in the music biz. My whole entire point is "Don't blame everyone else. Go back and write better music." That message may not be what people want to hear, but I definitely believe it.

 

 

I get that, and it's a good point.

 

I'm closer to the people who *have* good material and are still struggling to build an audience. For these artists the problem is less about the quality of their output and more about finding a way to expand their audience. These artists still have the problem of being recognized among a sea of equally competent competitors. I believe that, for these artists, there's a bigger payoff in working on audience relations than in polishing an already adequate musical product for an audience that hasn't yet materialized.

[BlueStrat]

I would agree that it depends on where you live, to some degree. Places like Portland (with a GREAT blues, jazz, roots and alt scene) and Austin and LA and NY might have a lot of great free downloads from unknowns on ipods. Places like Butte, MT and Ephrata, PA, not so much.

 

 

The gist is that they can't operate at a loss for more than three years and still write off their expenses,

Kind of a side issue off topic, but yes, they can, IF they can demonstrate that they're rolling the money they make back into the business and it's expanding (making bigger production CDs, paying an agent, legal fees, expanding their region, wider and better promotion, etc etc)

[richardmac]

 

The amateur music I hear is produced by competent, sometimes accomplished, musicians who write, compose, perform and record for the love of their art. I get the impression that when you talk about amateurs you're thinking more of the kids who started playing a couple years ago and use their computer to record and post half-baked musical first-steps in the many venues that cater to this kind of music.

 

 

Yes. And also a lot of the musicians who nag me on MySpace to "check out their tunes." We are definitely talking about two different things. But most people don't live in Portland. I think you're talking Portland and I'm talking Online (Internet) and they're maybe two different things, yes. That does clear some things up, I think.

 

There are definitely talented amateurs out there. I just seem to have a hard time finding them. I have discovered, though, that it is much easier to find music I like on CDBaby than on MySpace.

[TieDyedDevil]

MySpace seemed like a good idea for about 5 minutes.

[arclight_music]

 

There are definitely talented amateurs out there. I just seem to have a hard time finding them. I have discovered, though, that it is much easier to find music I like on CDBaby than on MySpace.

 

 

Yes, this is my main whinge, both as a musician and a music fan. There is a gulf between listeners and musicians whereby the onus is on the artist to promote their work (along with the thousands of other artists of varying quality), combined with an onus on the listener to find it (which usually involves wading through thousands of artists of varying quality).

 

There seems to be a lack of quality control in the intermediary space. Some websites compile their "top tracks" or "most popular" which are naturally the first place for listeners to click but it is a self feeding mechanism whereby those who are in the top X consolidate their positions by virtue of being in the top X in the first place! Such a small thing as being an early adopter of a particular website, for eample, could have a huge impact.

 

I used to quite like Electromancer (rip) since they actually listed to the newly uploaded tracks, and would put it on the front page if they thought it was any good - nothing to do with automated processes (though of course very subjective).

 

I know it's a little off the original topic, but, well, thoughts for the day (I don't have many)!

 

Cheers,

[Poker99]

MySpace seemed like a good idea for about 5 minutes.

 

THE MUSIC REVOLUTION

[BlueStrat]

THE MUSIC REVOLUTION

 

More like THE MUSIC DEVALUATION!

[richardmac]

 

Yes, this is my main whinge, both as a musician and a music fan. There is a gulf between listeners and musicians whereby the onus is on the artist to promote their work (along with the thousands of other artists of varying quality), combined with an onus on the listener to find it (which usually involves wading through thousands of artists of varying quality). There seems to be a lack of quality control in the intermediary space. Some websites compile their "top tracks" or "most popular" which are naturally the first place for listeners to click but it is a self feeding mechanism whereby those who are in the top X consolidate their positions by virtue of being in the top X in the first place! Such a small thing as being an early adopter of a particular website, for eample, could have a huge impact. I used to quite like Electromancer (rip) since they actually listed to the newly uploaded tracks, and would put it on the front page if they thought it was any good - nothing to do with automated processes (though of course very subjective). I know it's a little off the original topic, but, well, thoughts for the day (I don't have many)! Cheers,

 

 

+1

 

Agree totally. If someone ever figures out how to solve this issue, it will be amazing.

[Blackwatch]

 

3. The general public is confused - "This guy is giving his CD away for free, and THIS guy is selling his, and they both suck. The guy who is selling his CD must be greedy." This type of mindset is not only possible, but I've heard people say it. However, if your music is fantastic, this will not be an issue as much. If people love your music, they're still willing to pay for it.

 

 

I think the reality of the above situation is more like the guy selling his sucky CD will not sell any more CD's and then the guy buying them will go to myspace and check out any new CD's before he buys again.... While the guy giving away his CD is getting nothing and is telling the receiver of the CD that his music is worth nothing, while at the same time lowering the bar for everyone else putting out CD's. & Because so many are giving their music away for nothing, the message is.... it must be worth just that......

 

Personally, I think that people give away their music for the

same reason they post videos on the web, they want praise, and they want their self esteem stroked.

And I don't think there is really anything wrong with that per say, except it screws it up for artists that are trying to make a living with their craft.......

[danosongs]

I am a long-time programmer and Webmaster, let me give you an analogy that led to the entire model my danosongs.com music site is based on:

 

Open source software. Give away the product for adaptation and collaboration, build a critical mass community and charge for any and everything else. Open source, affiliate marketing and list/community building are classic, proven Web business models and Internet Marketing basics.

 

Is PHP bad for Microsoft? Is MySQL bad for Oracle? Nah, just different, and without "free" this forum would be running on ASP (yuck).

 

Two years ago I got laid off from a company that went out of business because an open source solution ate up the market. To me this is the exact analogy of what is going on in the music business, and I made the connection.

 

If I had to estimate I would say that most of the music industry is always at least 2-3 years behind the most recent advancements in the Internet Marketing industry's utilization of Internet technology. A great example is that almost no record companies are using SEO to promote their artists. Also, the artists that take time to blog have no understanding of keyword optimization as do the very top bloggers on the net like Darren Rose and John Chow for example.

 

I'd say the only guy in music who has any clue about Internet Marketing for starting musicians online is Derek Sivers (started CD Baby), now take an IM veteran like Joe Vitalie, and apply his knowledge to music and watch out.

[richardmac]

 

Give away the product for adaptation and collaboration, build a critical mass community and charge for any and everything else.

 

 

That model can work great for open source software. I admin Moodle for my entire school district. Moodle is open source courseware - you use it to create an host online courses. It's free. But an entire industry has been built around hosting, training, programming, and so on and so forth. That would be the "everything else."

 

In my case... I don't have any "everything else." I'm not trying to sell my tips on how to write great songs, or make great recordings, or make it in the music biz, or my award winning methods for jazzing up frozen pizza. Italian seasoning, if you must know.

 

I don't want to be in the business of selling online books or products about the music biz. Some benefits of giving away free songs include gaining fans, getting gigs, possibly having someone contract you to write music for their project... but IMHO those can all be accomplished by putting a few free songs on a site, not by making your entire catalog free.

 

But I don't really want to debate this yet again, because we do this over and over and over. The thread asked a simple question, so let's put it into perspective - you give away your music online. I sell mine. Does your free music availability hurt my chances of selling my music? And my opinion was no, it doesn't, and some agree and some disagree, and there are lots of valid opinions. And I could be wrong. If enough people do what you're doing and give all their music away, it could very well be that it destroys the market.

 

But I don't think so. I think it just raises the bar. The music people charge for has got to be so good that people just LOVE it and HAVE to have it. If that's the case, they won't mind paying ten bucks for a CD, especially at a show. I don't think that will change.

[Mecedes]

Free music does not hurt the fans but it does hurt the bands and artsits i think. Just ask prog band Marillion and they will beg you not to download any free music of thiers

[slight-return]

 

Free music does not hurt the fans but it does hurt the bands and artsits i think. Just ask prog band Marillion and they will beg you not to download any free music of thiers

 

 

I'm a bit confused here - did they contract some of their rights away that they now regret OR are you talking about piracy?

 

the second case, piracy, is a little beyond the scope of this convo as it's not really "free", rather, it was simply taken.

[BlueStrat]

 

That model can work great for open source software. I admin Moodle for my entire school district. Moodle is open source courseware - you use it to create an host online courses. It's free. But an entire industry has been built around hosting, training, programming, and so on and so forth. That would be the "everything else." In my case... I don't have any "everything else." I'm not trying to sell my tips on how to write great songs, or make great recordings, or make it in the music biz, or my award winning methods for jazzing up frozen pizza. Italian seasoning, if you must know. I don't want to be in the business of selling online books or products about the music biz. Some benefits of giving away free songs include gaining fans, getting gigs, possibly having someone contract you to write music for their project... but IMHO those can all be accomplished by putting a few free songs on a site, not by making your entire catalog free.

 

 

 

You nailed the crux of the issue here. Giving away free music to entice people to avail themselves of your other products is one thing. Giving away free music when it is the only thing you are selling is quite another.