Comments on: ‘Free Isn’t Working …’

By: SteelWolf

SteelWolf — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:55:24 +0000

The reason why dinosaurs think “free doesn’t work” is because their business model still revolves around selling the same free stuff. Advertising, “converting” to CD sales, all of that fails not because of anything to do with free, but because of bad business models. Why listen to ad-supported music streams when you can have the actual files, sans ads, for free?

It’s wonderfully convenient to be able to blame your own business mistakes on others, but in the end it’s you who lose. If free isn’t working for you, you’re SOL, because that’s the only model that has a chance of surviving.

By: gubatron

gubatron — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:07:30 +0000

The Google Adsense model should be applied to music, cutting out the middle man.

Ad Sponsored music. That way you get people to play and discover as much music as possible. It’s in both the interest of the musician, as the advertiser to get their content in front of as most people as possible.

Music has the power to be heard by a lot of people every day. What a waste of ad placement in my opinion.

By: Monkey D. Luffy

Monkey D. Luffy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:46:39 +0000

@Indiana

most of the rights holders in the world are actually the artists

True, as you don’t lose your rights till you sign them away and most artists are unsigned. I stand by my statement regarding third party rights holders though.

It doesn’t sound to me like Robbie Williams made the brightest business decision. From what I understand an advance from a label is a loan that the artist has to pay back. So he essentially got a bigger loan from his label, and they get a cut of everything he makes, which will increase the time it takes to pay back the advance. Even after it has been paid back they still have their hooks in everything he makes.

By: Indiana Gregg

Indiana Gregg — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:52:26 +0000

@monkey actually, most of the rights holders in the world are actually the artists. There are thousands upon thousands of artists who have the rights to their music compared to the number of artists who are on labels currently. It’s just the back catalogues that some of the labels still hang onto that hasn’t reverted back to the artists that is the main problem. But, with the 360 deals that kicked off some years ago, more and more of the label deals are 360. (I think Robbie Williams was one of the first to do a 360 deal. It used to be considered ‘unethical’ for a label to do those kinds of deals. But, Robbie got a hefty advance for it. So, he’s sorted.)

By: Quantam

Quantam — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:38:42 +0000

To extend what Andrus asked, how does the profitability for artists of concerts compare with recordings? I recall Jon posted a graph a bit ago that showed the vast majority of artist revenue comes from concerts (and is growing faster than album sales are shrinking), but how do those compare after factoring in costs?

By: Monkey D. Luffy

Monkey D. Luffy — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:42:28 +0000

Rights holders and creators need to be compensated

Sorry, this site is about looking at alternatives from the current system for getting ARTISTS paid, most of the “rights holders” are the RIAA leeches. To anyone under the illusion that ANY of the p2p crowd is looking for an alternative way to hand money to the RIAA or any other third party “rights holders” read the damned quote at the top of this web page – “cut out the middlemen”

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:35:46 +0000

@Andrus, 1:
Record companies are now trying to push 360 contracts where they get a cut in everything from record sales to concerts to merchandise. Madonna’s contract update in 2008 revealed this.

By: Andrus

Andrus — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:04:07 +0000

I’ve got a question, I have heard that to go and see the artist perform was a good way to support them, that alot of their revenue came from concerts. Is that true? Is it because it cuts out the costs of the record companies?