Slashdot Mirror
Online Business Model for a Band?
Backes asks: "I've seen a lot of submissions about P2P, iTMS, DRM, piracy, and the RIAA, lately. Apparently everyone has an opinion on this and most seem think that the recording industry are a bunch of greedy people that stick it to the consumer as well as their own artists. After hearing some of the stories, I'm not even sure that getting signed to a label would be the best course of action for an aspiring musician or band. So what is a better option? What would you, the Slashdot community, do to make it big on your own using the Internet?"
"What kinds of features would a site need? Would you pay for downloads of MP3s from a band's site or not? At what price? Would donations work, or would everyone just freeload? How often would you need updates or new songs to keep you coming back? If downloads were free, would you then buy a full length album from the site just to get the CD? What special features should the CD include? How would you get your name out? What do you think is the best course of action for a band that wants to completely circumvent the whole music industry process and do it themselves?"
Groupie model first, then business
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
How to protect your music/lyrics from being stolen. If I have a band and we publish music on the web (for free, or a price, whatever) how can I protect them from being stolen and used by another band?
Check out Magnatune. Motto: We're a record label. But we're not evil.
Illegal? Samir, This is America.
"After hearing some of the stories, I'm not even sure that getting signed to a label would be the best course of action for an aspiring musician or band. So what is a better option?"
Don't be stupid. If a label offers you a contract take it. If your career goes anywhere, you can renegotiate a better contract after the terms of the first have been completed
Vote for Pedro
Remember... information wants to be free. You have no right to earn money. Just provide all of your music. We will download it, and then tell you that if your music weren't crap, we'd pay for it.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It seems to have worked for some 'indie' bands recently, using viral marketing - offering demos or live versions of their songs via p2p, or even the full song to get publicity
After they get a name for themselves with fans who download music to check out new stuff, they make an effort to get signed, the problem here being the production of new material if they used their best to get a name for themselves online
I don't think the internet would ever top the playing in bars to get your name out, but if mixed with services such as download.com - while sharing live or demo versions on p2p, you could build yourselves a name quickly. A lot of things would also depend on the type of record label who would sign you, the 'indie' kind who give out songs online for promotion, or the big labels who try to stop download and have huge budgets for promotion
Business Voyeur
Get one of your fat friends to do something really stupid, videotape it, and put it up on newgrounds with a music track. Then sell t-shirts.
Well, I am not famous, yet.. but I am working on exactly what you speak of, and here is a simplified version of what I am doing:
I have a living room studio where I record all of our practices and jam sessions to firewire harddrives. I use 24 channels to mix down about 6 different sized diaphram condensers and a few 57s here and there. There's all the gear we need (amps, bass, guitar, two keys, and a trap set), effects, a PA, and we have and now own the only copies of all our material. We all learn and teach each other to engineer.. play.. compose.. we all treat it democraticaly when decisions are to be made about lyrics, composition, song selection, mastering, mechandise, etc. With all this in our own hands, we all sell CDs and merch at our gigs and in our spare time (running to local record stores and getting things on consinement), and reinvest certain monies from band oriented sales into necessary things like legal docs or advice.. expensive promotional materials such as ads, cds, etc. Repeat.. profit. we've removed the need for a label at the expense of not having everything all at once. But with a bit of work, the band can work like a sucessful startup company, and we're having one hell of a time while we're at it!
pego the jerk
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
Unfortunately, I don't see a band making more than a moderate regional success without the aid of a lebel. The industry is just too closed to outsiders. You won't get your album shelved in Sam Goody, Wal Mart, and the like without the aid of a high-powered record company. The only other option is to join a smallish, "indie" label. While you still won't make MTV (most likely), a good indie label will be able to get you some exposure in independant record stores, radio stations, and the like. Some idie labels even band together in loose organizations, and can manage to get more clout that way. With this setup, you might be able to get a regional distribution in major outlets, but you still won't make the billboard charts. Sad to say, but if you want to be a rock star, you still have to play the label's games. At least until I get my plan to revolutionize the record industry underway...
That's right, I read at +2 and post at +1. Not even I care what I have to say.
I don't know all the details behind becoming a big band, but one thing is for sure: If you go on your own, and you suck, you're going to go nowhere. (Hopefully you would realize this, though.)
There have been 'big names' that were mediocre groupd/people that their labels hyped like crazy (and who also generally had looks to help them out.)
Anyone looking for wide recognition would do well to become local stars. Especially if you live in a bigger city, being a local star, with fans who will post on the internet, will help your career if you try to be independent.
"What would you, the Slashdot community, do to make it big on your own using the Internet?"
Having a site with your work isn't enough these days. Unless you are the best of the best out of the billions of sites with the same type of content as yours, you won't be recognized. Although it might sound like a joke, but doing something wacky and weird will get you all the attention on the internet, as people start propagating and promoting your site to others. Take Star Wars Kid, realultimatepower.net, Yata, etc, for example, instant fame in a matter of days. Now, shifting from wackiness to the content you are promoting might be a more difficult challenge.
I'm currently considering being my own label and selling CD's through CD Baby. My experience with them has been positive so far.
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
play shows.
:)
:D
That's all.
The "recording artist" is becomming something of an anacronism - or will become so IMO.
We are returning to a time when musicians get payed to actually perform their music, not just record it.
Ask a signed band, and the record company always, always gets the biggest cut of the money from record sales.
the band just counts on the sales driving concert attendance...but it's not really SALES driving the attendence, it's the people hearing the music.
and that hearing can now be achieved without the expenses of distribution from a decade ago.
that's truely why the Recording Industry is going to the toilet. The fleets of trucks driving to the stores and the warehouses of duplicatation equipment are already outdated - and that was really all that we needed those guys for. They didn't MAKE artists, the found and held them - like a zoo animal.
Give your music away, if you love it set it free. They will come to see you play if you rock
and I hope you do
link to your bands website?
1. Offer decent quality samples or one or two(more as I made more music) full tracks, ABSOLUTELY NO "Digital Rights Management" (DRM), it has proven itself to be nothing but a worthless, overcrackable piece of shit. 2. Price the individual songs, or singles, and full CDs at low prices. - Single songs: $0.99 - $1.10 - "Singles" CD: $5 - "Full CDs": $7 - $10 3. Use a website to promote my stuff, try to get music on as many sites (pay-per, or free) as possible, including Dmusic.com, ITunes, Napster, etc. 4. If piracy helps you, truthfully show it. If piracy hurts, truthfully show it too. If they have both a negative and positive impact, hell, show that to your fans as well. Don't call them theives or robbers, or make analy incorrect analogies to compare to copyright infringement to. Don't go to making false "losses" clainms or do anything to make yourself look like a whiny baby. Show them that while you have a firm stance, it is truthful, and you can actually prove/back it up, unlike the **aa/BSA/MPAA/CRIA/ETC
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Give the music away for free, with URLs embedded in the MP3 ID3 tags etc. Sell the things you can control access to, like concert admissions, copies of CDs for people who want that (many still will), t-shirts and other merchandise. Try to license your songs to people selling other things, if you think that's cool. If you sell the songs, there's a cost to sales, and you'll wind up spending lots of other money on other promotion and marketing. With the Internet offering so much free distribution, the music itself is the most effective, cheapest promotion available. And the primary idea is to get as many people listening as possible. So help the music get to the people who want it, and your audience will be more interested in paying for the rest of the package.
--
make install -not war
If you want to try and succeed on the net, you have to get hits, lots of hits, more hits than you could probably get. For every million, there 100,000 that'll like your style, 50,000 that'll visit your site twice, 10,000 that'll be a fan, 1,000 that'll buy a cd.
Get hits is key, use internet as your main tool, everything else is too expensive. Find the indie radio stations, sites, genre related communities. It's your only tool but the best tool. You can get thousands of people hearing your music everyday, something you can't do very well with other methods.
Stick in the game for a long time, let your name build.
There isn't much more to it.
yes sell mp3s,cds,shirts whatever you can. If you are trying to make a living, then damn, you need more ways to make the money.
p.s. please visit my site. I'll have an album out in a month or two. http://www.pronobozo.com
------
insert sig here,here, and here
Part of what the internet gives is number of different avenues for bands to get their music out. Getting onto Napster for its subscription service could be a really good idea as it allows people to relate your music to more established bands' music. For example, people won't necessarily check out a new band but if they see this new band is similar to say Korn they're gonna be more likely to give it a whirl and with the subscription service they're not out anything. If you don't like the idea of selling people DRM music, I believe you can just distribute it on these services as a subscription album not for individual sale.
I also think something like Magnatune is a good idea in that it gives you a more direct distribution channel. One of the advantages of smaller bands is that people tend to actually buy their music instead of getting it over P2P networks of a band that's on the radio.
I think something that's been mentioned too that is important is the idea of giving out certain tracks while selling others. Live versions could be given for free while the album version could be downloaded from a service.
What's most important though is creating a buzz and fans. Getting the music out there is relatively easy, its actually finding listeners and a group of loyal fans to preach the gospel so to speak is what's hard.
Only way to go.
Set up a monthly subscription plan whereby people who like your music can log on and see live (and prerecorded live) streaming video (and audio) of concerts and jam sessions on a regular (weekly, whatever) basis.
All the money goes directly to you (and your bandwidth provider, of course - somebody's going to take a percentage of your earnings, and that's a fact.)
Do NOT concern yourself about "pirating" of your content - it's irrelevant to your success. It's merely "unauthorized marketing" and will do you some good.
Secondly, do major marketing. Look at The Corrs - they went to practically every country on the planet, as they say, "selling each album door-to-door, country-to-country, stage-to-stage". They feel it's only right if someone buys your music, they should have the opportunity to see you live. (And the Net allows that without the jet lag.)
And they have a cameraman following them around practically twenty four hours a day, given all the documentary footage they're released over the last ten years. They have a good Web site. They log on to their fan sites and post messages (both Sharon and Caroline Corr logged on to the Corrboard in the last couple weeks to thank fans for birthday wishes). They walk across traffic to sign autographs. Treat your fans right - they buy your music.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I'm waiting for that first new act to realize they can make a ton more money selling $7 CDs themselves over the internet than going through a label selling them for $20 and giving up their catalog to the man. As soon as the first band is succesful making it work, the floodgates are open!
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
A friend and I set up a web site for my wife's music and did some basic advertising with SingingFish. Her top download song last month had 13,336 downloads (lo res mp3's), second place 2,450 plus the samples. We've started getting several inquiries a week about the due date of her next CD. And we're not even pushing it that hard. This was spending less than a hundred bucks on advertising.
I'm not at all certain you'd be able to make a huge amount of money just on the internet, but we're satisfied enoough with the initial results to spend some money on taking it to the next level.
The way record labels calculate expenses on a CD, most artists don't make squat on CD sales. Getting a CD professionally produced, if you do the mastering yourself, isn't that expensive. The break-even sales figures are fairly modest and I do think we can turn a reasonable profit if we hold expenses down.
Getting back to your original comment...if you have some business sense and access to the creative talent, I don't think it's at all foolish to be skeptical of signing with a record label. The more you're able to demonstrate success without them, it would seem at a minimum one could negotiate a better deal. And at some near-future point in time record labels will no longer be necessary.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Check out They Might Be Downloads. Their prices compete with iTMS, but you get high-quality, LAME-encoded MP3s without any DRM. You can also pay a little extra to get FLAC rips of selected albums.
Give away some songs for free (maybe enter Songfight! once in a while and link to it), but just let people know that the songs are for sale and that they're DRM-free for the customer's convenience, and that you trust them. Charge a reasonable price and make the site easy to use and you'll get customers.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
That said, I do agree with you and think that there will be a general trend toward live performance. As usual, China is a model: musicians there don't make shit from their CDs - they're instantly pirated. They make their living from constant grueling tour schedules.
That's fine when you're in your 20s and you want to "rock", but it really sucks for people who are older or have family obligations.
I think he crux of the matter is one of raising consciousness among consumers.
Sure: go and trade your mp3s on P2P, but: if there is something you like and you listen to it more than a few times, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND BUY IT, YOU CHEAP ASS MOTHER FUCKER.
And if you can buy it directly from the musician(s), all the better. Go for it. By doing so you support the people who made the stuff and deserve your money. They have to pay rent too.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
The recording industry ARE a bunch of greedy bastards that are just in it for the money, so any place they can squeeze out a few more bucks, they'll do it. And they know the power of Intellectual Property © ® and all the fists full of money that can generate, so they do everything they can to extend and expand copyright, so they can retain monopoly rights on something they paid someone to create but somehow they own.
But the real question is how can you make it. Well, to make it on-line as a musician, this is what I would do:
Make it easy for interested fans to find you, refer you to their friends, buy stuff from you. Make your website easy to find and accessible. If you're not so good with visual media or website design, you probably know of a geek or a family member who is good at that, you could have them make a site for you (Payment would be between you and them). Once you're big enough, see if you can setup some tour dates. Sell CDs there, give out business cards with your website URL on them. Give away CDs with a few singles on them. You can even have an introduction on the CDs and DVDs and direct them back to your website, especially on any CDs you give away. Put a data track on audio CDs and DVDs that has some promo material or music files for your band and a link to your website. Remember everything can be used to promote yourself/your band, so make sure you've got it there where you can. But don't be obnoxious about it. People understand self-promo
... And so it comes to this.
... It's a way for the fans to reach you, and for interested parties to find your music... But you won't be found if no one knows who you are. The only reason left to sign up with a label is their publicity machine; they would potentially get your videos on MTV, advertise in Spin and get your songs on TV and movie soundtracks (of course it's more than likely they'd just sit on your contract and do nothing, but that's another issue.)
So if you're going at it alone, you have to do more than put your music on P2P and your web site.
You have to TOUR, extensively and relentlessly. Get a good booking agent to find the prime clubs and team you up with bigger names. Hit the big cities as often as you can, particularly L.A. and New York. Make a lot of friends, because people listen to indie bands because they're "cool guys" as often as they like their music.
You're also in charge of your own merchandise, and I would tell you to go all-out to make it good. Don't just have your little brother who thinks he knows Illustrator make your shirt-- get a well-known underground artist, cartoonist or designer if you can, even if you have to pay for it. T-shirts are billboards, and if yours gathers attention just for being cool to wear people will seek out your band. Don't skimp on the CD design, either-- instead of duping your own and printing the label on the inkjet, have the label screened and the insert printed professionally (and again, designed by a pro.) It WILL pay off.
Consider doing a funny cover song or two. Not only will it get noticed on the P2P networks (by people searching for the real thing, of course), but it's a crowd pleaser that will draw people in to the rest of your music. Find a cheesy 80's or 90's song and make it good. This isn't for everybody, but when it works it works well. Along the same lines, it's kind of cheesy but consider having a "look" beyond jeans and a t-shirt. If you can, hook up with an aspiring fashion designer.
Image counts for a lot, and some sort of costume or theme goes a long way towards creating a memorable show. Make it look like you put a lot more money into it than you really did...
Finally, consider hooking up with artists in other mediums. Get your music into an indie film if you can, or a cool Flash cartoon.
On second thought, just sit in your basement and put your songs on KaZaa. I don't need the competition.
Have your promo pack on the site. Only one of my Clients does, but that gives them an advantage over the competition. Make sure the promoters know who you are, what you play, and what you need on stage for plugs and boards.
And photos! Fans love em. Promoters need em. Find yourself a good PHP type package like yappa-ng and smile for the birdie!
My $0.05 about music online: consider it your radio play. Release a few "singles" to your website (and wherever else you can) and don't skimp on the quality. The promoters are listing to a dozen MP3s a day and if yours doesn't stand out, then you won't be on stage.
-AD
Shameless link to my own template
1)Dump the concept of the album.
2)Songs are released over time as they are conceived and recorded.
3)Music on the website is free, however copyrighted and owned by the band.
4)You can order a custom compilation on DVD or CD for $5 plus shipping.
5)Band's main revenue stream is from performing their music, and merchandise at the venue and on the website. Tickets cost $50-$200, depending on the artist.
Remeber that music is a performance art. Most of what you pay for and not ironically the biggest whiners about downloading, are the distributors/middlemen in the music business.
With this model, the artist end up making more money, and creativity is rewarded by direct market forces.
I was in a local band eons ago - called "Acid Toad Secretion", named after an incident when a teen licked a toad to get high and went into convulsions - and I personally did much of the booking and advertising. The reality is, whether your a recognisable band or not, club owners and journalists will not seek you out. There's enough demos and promo kits falling on their laps to keep them busy till the next millenium. Bands (ATS included) need to pound the pavement and make the cold calls for interviews and gigs. Networking with similar bands and share billings is also important. Make friends. Lot's of them. I found at least 50% of my time was spent on the promotional/networking aspect of being in a band, another (extremely annoying) 20% was spent on technical issues like soundchecks, soundmen, equipment... the remaining was the good stuff: actually jamming, rehearsing and making music.
It wasn't easy for us, but after a few years of hard work and patience we had our own following who supported us and dug our music. If the music is good, people will eventually hear about you. Posters and other schwag (no matter how polished and professional it looks) won't go very far nowadays. Word of mouth is the best form of advertisment, the rest will have to be done by lot's of gigging (which will make you better and tighter) and making those phone calls to any entertainment publication that will listen. Create a positive "buzz" where you live, and keep booking those shows. Don't ever let people forget about you. You'll find your band's rep is bigger and better than you actually are!
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
basically the buisness model is, ,good songs which anyone can share, you are asked to give performances, where you pass out free cds (for a donation ofcourse)
1)put out your songs in (cc) licencing with your choice of rights
2)Make it availble through your website by torrent (not much server fees)
3)Advertise your site and licensing method (in your local-bands website etc.)
4)Ask for donations
5)As your popularity grows due to heavy usage of
6)Profit
P.S to the readers when I was reading the article it was at 270 comments, so if this idea was given before, I apologize for the added garbage.
Calm down people, its a religion not an operating system.
http://magnatune.com/info/terms
:
WRT Royalties
"50/50 gross revenue split on music: our main revenue sources are selling your music to consumers (at a price between $5 to $18 per album) and sublicensing your music for things such as games, ads and the web. We split the amount we collect 50/50 with you."
and
"50/50 net profits split on merchandise: for physical goods (Posters, T-Shirts, etc), we split the profits (i.e.: sale price minus expenses) 50/50 with you. Physical goods are a split on profits because we have to invest money in creating them."
Much better than what most record labels give their artists
Courtney Love's article on the subject
Producer Steve Albini's take
Long story short: Stay the fuck away from major labels. Even if 'nobody has heard of you' as an independent artist, you're still more likely to make money than by being shackled to the RIAA.
Unless you're actually interested in running a business, you should avoid having a business model. Running a successful business, regardless of the model, will take several people working full-time on overhead, and this is likely to eat up your band.
The right path is really to find someone else (such as Magnatune) who has a business model which leaves you ownership of your music, gives you a return that you feel is fair, and involves business practices you think are ethical. There's nothing inherently bad about signing with a label, just like there's nothing inherently bad about getting a loan; it's just that the well-known labels are scams.
It is an exciting time for musicians! Digital signal processing has brought semi-pro recording to the masses and the internet has provided the opportunity for next-to-nothing-cost for world-wide distribution. iTunes is providing a nice model middle-gound, bridging the crumbling and desperate existing industry with the ease of use and selection of the web. However, the iTunes model cannot last the test of time. The Audience is playing along for now, but they are aware (future audiences will be even more so) that distribution is free. If it effectively costs the same amount to give 1000 people the music as it does 10000, what artist in their right mind would opt for the smaller distribution? You may say: the artist must get paid, and I will agree with you. However, the "pay per item" model is what is dying, not the abstract "record industry." Subscription services are arriving and competition is driving the $1/song price down. Next up? Quality control! The artist websites out there, even on Mangnatune or other mp3 labels cannot survive unless they start informing the audience on what to purchase. Bad-mouthing the record industry crooks is valid, but they still provide a service - they tell the listeners where to spend their money. Is someone else going to step up and fill that role? I would agree with most of what I have read here about putting out decent music as being the first priority. For the up and coming musician I would work hard on that, and trust that new models are arriving every day. Just watch out - there are a lot of bandwagons to jump on!
Anyhow, I'm in an independent band, keiretsu. As our members have a lot of side-projects, we started an organisation d:art recordings to oversee things. However, the name is a con really - we're not a record label, it's just a device for common publicity and branding.
How do we use the internet? Well, many different ways:
- Mailing list - obvious, but essential. Harvest email addresses on a clipboard after gigs, then you can remind people who liked you when you next return to that city.
- Gigs listings - let people know when they can see you
- MP3 downloads - we've had tons of listeners from people thousands of miles away, where we have never and maybe will never do a live gig. Although nothing has come off yet, we have even had promoters contact us about tentative international dates.
- CD Sales - We provide free MP3 clips of every track of our album, and a full download of one of the tracks. I also share this album preview pack on P2P clients like Soulseek. If you like what you hear, you can buy it, via Paypal (or the good old fashioned of snail-mailing me UK currency). I've despatched dozens of CDs across the pond to America.
- Running a forum so fans can chat with us.
- Getting interviewed on genre-orientated websites, and getting our downloadable tracks featured on genre-orientated websites and MP3 Blogs to further boost our online profile.
It goes hand in hand with the real-world, of course. Our CD booklet prominently features our URL, as does the large banner we display behind or above the band at gigs, wherever possible.My overall verdict: the internet is an invaluable marketing tool, and you can't neglect the online facet of operations when trying to push an independent music act. It's too big these days. On the other hand, you have to be very unique and special indeed to turn "the internet" alone into a profitable business model. Without continuous gigging, which is still the most effective way of getting yourself heard and building up a fanbase, our online CD Sales would probably not amount to much.
But does the term "debt" really apply is the artist is not legally obligated to pay it back? I mean, it's not like it's really debt.
Yes it is real debt, yes they have to pay it back or their own label starts to sic collection agencies on them and many end up having to go through bankruptcy.
If the first album didn't sell well, I think it's safe to say the label isn't worried about the competition.
There are plenty of reasons that an album does not sell well, for example poor to non-existant marketing. In that article I linked to, the band being interviewed complains that their label spent just enough money on marketing to get a few posters printed up, and no more.
You seem to think that music labels wish to make as much possible money from all of their acts. That would probably be true in a free market, but they have an oligopoly market which means all the standard free-market assumptions go out the window. For the music labels, in the long run maintaining monopoly control of the market is more important than maximizing revenue from each act because monopoly control means they can make hugely out-of-proportion money on a few acts instead. Much more money in total than they could make in a free market scenario, and with a lot less work. Kind of the biz equivalent of "put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket very carefully."
Same thing with books, ever wonder why so many books go out of print today when we have the technology to do stuff like print-on-demand? They may not be bestsellers, but they are competition, and taking them off the shelves at the retailers makes it that much easier for the latest big hit by Clancy or King or whomever to sell even more copies.
I wasn't talking about the authors not complaining, I was talking about all those "music wants to be free" morons not complaining.
A) Well, that must make it OK, then.
B) You may call them "morons" I say they are people who have figured out that the net makes copying a zero-cost operation and that business models based on prohibitive marginal costs are no longer feasible and have historically been abusive to their customers and their suppliers. Just because the "morons" may not be able to propose alternative business plans does not mean their initial observation that music, and really all information, "wants to be free" is any less valid. The net is the net and trying to deny it is like denying that water is wet.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.