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.
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.
Yeah, but then 99% of the time you lose all rights to your own music. I was in many bands and even when we got an offer that was pretty good deal we said no because we wanted to own our music and not have the record lable own it. You have to watch out.
"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?
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
Maybe, maybe not. That's not an indicator.
You've probably never heard of 95 percent of the bands that have signed on to a record label. Many, many times, the label simply does nothing with the band/artist. And they'll still prevent you from actually doing anything else creative.
Sometimes it's in your best interest not to sign.
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.
I agree, don't be stupid. But that's all I agree with.
90% of signed bands never release a second album, because their label dumps them first. Meanwhile, just about all bands make negative money from their first contract. This is important, if you sign with a label, you will end up in debt, you will also end up not owning your own work made while on contract. Standard label contracts are really that abusive. They get away with it, because prior to the internet, they were the only game in town.
You know why Prince changed his name for a few years to that weird multisexual symbol? Because his label owned his name. We got to hear all those jokes about it, when it was really a creative way to escape a hideously abusive recording contract.
Don't be stupid, don't sign with a major label. You never win the lottery, you ain't going to win the label lottery either.
If you are good, you don't need the labels anymore (and chances are they don't want you because "good" does not usually equal "easily packaged up as sex symbols for young teenagers").
Make your own way.
Release your current work to the net with a Creative Commons license. Promote your live performances, sell doodads.
If you are good, you'll gain a following after a while (years probably - so don't quit those day jobs just yet). With a substantial fanbase you can start working on commission. Here's how in a nutshell:
1) Set up an escrow account that people can deposit money in via paypal, credit cards and electronic checks.
2) Name your asking price for the release of a new recording - a whole album or just a track or somewhere in between.
3) Make sure your fanbase knows about your offer, publicisize it every which way you can.
4) When enough people have pre-ordered your new music (via the escrow account) to reach your asking price, release the new performance with a Creative Commons license, and take your money.
If you continue to make good music, each time you release a new track to the public, it becomes advertising for your next commission. If you get popular enough, say just 1 million fans (out of the possible 1 billion or so people on the net), you can really start raking in the bucks on the commissions - ask for a cool $1M to release your next album and all it takes is just 10% of your fans to pay $10 and you are now a very well paid artist. Your fans are happy because unlike with RIAA music, they really will own the music they buy from you, no guilt, shame or jail time for sharing copies with all of their friends and strangers too.
Everybody wins, except the RIAA and their old guard distributors, and nobody will shed a tear for them.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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
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.
That seems to be the advice you hear from a lot of different people. I've been through one record deal already and have talked to a *lot* of other bands in the same position, and it rarely works out like that.
Also, in most cases a major label deal guarantees *one* album but locks you in for *seven*, all at the sole discretion of the label. That's a long time to wait for a renegitiation. There are bands that have been around for 10-15 years and still haven't released seven albums.
Just out of curiosity do you have any experience in the music industry? Specifically with signing record contracts, releasing and promoting albums and renegotiating contracts?
Thousands of good bands have totally fallen apart because of the way the label handled them. Not because they weren't good or there wasn't an audience for their music, but because labels want immediate success and try to put all their eggs in one basket. They spend ridiculous amounts of money up front so when it doesn't work right away the bands are tossed out with nothing but whatever's left from their advance. That might last you another few months, but what then?
I guess what I'm saying is, it's not always as simple as what you're making it out to be. Obviously a young band isn't going to get the best deal. I'm not saying to turn down every record deal just on principle. But make sure the label at least beleives in what you do and is willing to put their money where their mouth is. You might not be able to get a good royalty rate right away, but try to get 2 albums guaranteed or a certain amount of money for promotion/tour support. At the very least get whatever you can up front, because no matter what they say, they want to give you as little money as possible. The last thing you want is to be broke 6 months later and begging the label for more money so you can pay your bills while you're out on the road. If you just take any deal that is thrown in front of you, you're just asking to get screwed. I've seen it plenty of times. I know at least 4-5 bands that signed major label deals. One of them had their album shelved (ie: it never got released) and they got dropped. The rest got such little support that the records never sold enough to satify the label, the bands all got dropped and everyone went their separate ways.And in almost all the cases, if they had released the album on a smaller label and had a better deal, they would have been considered successful with the amount of albums that they sold and would've actually made some money.
Sure it's a much harder road to follow. But do you really want to put the future of your band in the hands of some company that is gonna toss you out whenever they feel like it? For some people it's worth the risk. At one point it was for me. But we got tossed out just like everyone else. Luckily we all have confidence in what we do and decided it was worth pushing forward.
I think with the technology we have today its possible to put your band in a position to be able to negotiate the right deal up front. It's gonna be hard, but it will be worth it in the long run.
Don't even try to get signed until you have some kind of following. Sell you music online and at shows. Give it away on P2P networks if you have to. If its good eventually the fans will come. Once you have a decent fanbase, even if it's in one area, you at least have something to bargain with. Labels love numbers. If you can sell 10,000 CDs regionally, even if it takes you a couple of years, you're gonna be in a much better position to get the right deal from a major label.
If you go just with a demo and nothing else, you really don't have anything. Sure the demo might be amazing. But labels don't really care if something is good anymore. They'd rather you show up with a demo that sucks, but you sold 25,000 copies of it. If it sells they'll get behind it.
Sinch
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.
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
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
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.
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.
It's also worth noting that you've almost certainly never heard of 99.99% of the succesful musicians out there. Where by "succesful" I mean, they make a living, and enjoy and excel at what they do.
If your primary goal is to "make it big", or become "famous"--well, I think your priorities are weird, but I also think you're setting yourself up for disappointment....
--Bruce Fields