How could downloading/file-swapping be GOOD for musicians?

[LiveMusic]

It's obvious the music industry is undergoing a paradigm shift. Where it's shifting to, I dunno. But I am one who is somewhat pessimistic. Thinking that free file-swamping has the potential to thwart the creation of new recording careers. But definitely "stealing" zillions of dollars from songwriter's or artist's pockets. Which could mean that productivity could be stymied in the long run. If you don't get paid, you don't play the game. But how could this shakedown be GOOD for musicians? Say you're a terrific new songwriter artist. How will your music reach the masses? Or is that a thing of the past? Forget the masses? Just go for a regional connection. Is the age of super-stardom over? Will there be MORE musicians making a living but no getting rich? No doubt, in the world of the top acts, promotion money spent is really big. Nobody could afford that except big labels. Is that good or bad? It's all very confusing. All the crap that has gone on, ripping musicians off over the years, if that ends, that's certainly good. Does anyone think music is going to affected in a positive way? A few years from now, if you had a son or daughter who is an outstanding writer or artist, would you be optimistic about their getting justly rewarded?

[thisDude]

I'm optimistic. If I like an artist, I want to support that artist and I'll buy the album. I think the only people who are really worried about this paradigm shift are those "performers" who release a hit single and fill the rest of the album with crap, but stil expect people to buy the whole album.

[Bunny Knutson]

[quote][b]How could downloading/file-swapping be GOOD for musicians?[/quote][/b] FREE promotion. Free hype. No record company necessary.

[whosmatt]

It is good for any artist who does not have the full backing of a major corporation. In other words, 99.9% of the artists out there. Since it is impossible to reach new audiences via radio these days, the internet and all it's music distribution technologies (mp3, internet 'radio') are the new frontier. I think that radio, mtv, press and major labels have gotten to the point where they are counter-productive; they are mere advertisements for themselves and their 'artists' with no real content. who is going to continue to purchase that? i think that music fans are turning to the only place they can get good music conveniently at a fair price. if i download a few songs from a band i've only heard about and like those songs enough to pay $15 to see the band live three weeks later, is it good for the band?

[DJDM]

Hey Duke, It is confusing! But as an artist that has had some decent success on MP3.com I must say that I never could have done it in the "old" business model. My successes as an artist have been world wide with listeners emailing me from China, Japan, Sweden, Italy, South America and many many more. I have been able to sell CD's all over the world as well. Am I rich? No. Will I be because of all of the exposure? Perhaps? Who knows. I only know that you have to follow the market. If the market wants to D/L your music then make it available and find a way to make it stand out. Figure out a way to give them something more for the time and effort that it took to find you. People keep coming back to my site and I try to reward them with new music and a little content that lets them peek into my world. I don't get paid much, ($.005), per D/L but it adds up and it is a great way to generate a buzz. All of this online activity is building to something... and as the old saying in business goes: "get on board or get out of the way." My $.02, - DJDM

[michael saulnier]

How are you coming to the conclusion that musicians are losing "zillions"? If a CD sells for $13.99 or whatever... how much of that goes to the artist? Why does the label, management, distribution and everyone get the majority. It's BECAUSE THEY CONTROL THE MARKET. If an alternate distribution system ever becomes a reality... You'll see the artists get LOTS more loot. It's been said here many times that the music industry is broken... Yep it's true. We just haven't seen the solution yet. But it's coming. cat-o-niner

[meccajay]

Yeah Cat-O-nine, here something related to your post that's been posted on different boards lately... Article How to fail in e-business with a record effort It's easy to fail in e-business; what's hard is failing magnificently. The Big Five music recording companies have been transcendent in this respect. Their combined efforts have gone beyond killing their e-businesses and are close to destroying an entire industry. The following are 10 rules of e-business failure, a list inspired by the recording industry's imaginative approach: 1. Refuse to change: Computers are just tools, and useful only in making your existing marketing model more efficient. Give word processors to your secretaries and install computerized stock-tracking systems so you can lay off staff. Declare the future to have arrived. Collect your performance bonus. 2. Ignore the Internet: If you can't imagine any way of making money on-line, then no one else can, either. Act surprised when the Internet starts to carry multimedia. Cry, "Who knew?" and insist the whole multimedia thing was invented only to ruin your business. 3. Be sanctimonious: Claim to be more concerned about the artists than about your profit. You are selfless; your only interest is paying the musicians, without whom you would be nothing. Pray that nobody remembers the countless rockers who signed away their souls on recording contracts and were dumped the moment their sales slipped. 4. Misunderstand your market: When you count the songs being swapped on peer-to-peer networks, do not notice that most are mouldy oldies. It's still theft, you argue, even if you stopped paying royalties for those songs in 1961. Blame piracy, not taste, for your inability to sell new songs that no radio station will play. 5. Lie: Go on Kazaa, count the MP3 versions of songs you produced, old and new, and multiply that number by the current retail price of a CD; howl that you are losing a fortune. Forget that a Buddy Holly album sold for $2.95 in 1958; you sell records for much more now, and that's the price you use when calculating your losses -- it's more impressive. 6. Kill it: Hollywood failed to make VCRs illegal, but you're going to succeed with peer-to-peer technology. Spend millions on lawyers to sue Napster and Scour into oblivion. Sure, paying lawyers has suddenly become more important than paying your artists, but so what? Hedge your bets by setting up your own Web site, offering songs that aren't selling well in stores. When your e-business proves to be less than a thundering success, blame it on the pirates -- meaning all your customers. 7. Pray it will all go away: Your noble efforts to shut down Napster and Scour will so terrify pirates that they will decamp immediately and other industries will lose all interest in P2P. Act as though U.S. court rulings in your favour apply to all other countries, regardless of their different legal principles. Do not make contingency plans. 8. Insult your market: After calling your customers "pirates," antagonize them further by threatening to release a flood of "empty" MP3 files to frustrate swapping. Do not understand the technical reasons why this won't work. Threaten to hack into the P2P networks like real criminals. Forget that some of these networks are based in foreign countries, which (for reasons you also cannot understand) do not subscribe to your system of justice. Then say you will launch denial-of-service attacks on pimply-faced file swappers, even if they live in those other countries. 9. Make government your accomplice: Demand exemptions from criminal prosecution by the U.S. government for your hacking and denial-of-service attacks. You're doing this for a Higher Cause, after all, which is paying royalties to your artists (remember them?). Drag Verizon Communications, an Internet provider, into court and demand it surrender the name of one of its subscribers allegedly sharing 600 music files, so your expensive lawyers can crush this kid's skull. Then get the Canadian government to impose a levy on all recordable media sold here, whether it's used for burning pirated music or archiving corporate data. Make mortal enemies of Apple and Sony because the levy adds something like 20 per cent to the retail price of their portable jukeboxes, pricing them out of the market. Collect more than $30-million without disbursing a single cent to your artists -- after all, you're Fighting the Good Fight, and you're going to have to tighten the artists' belts for them if you hope to win. 10. Go back to giving it away: Organize British record companies for a Digital Download Day. Charge £5 ($12.50) and claim it's "free." Reason that people would rather pay for music than get it for nothing on Morpheus. The "free" fee entitles people to listen to 500 streamed songs, to download 50 songs or to get five songs that can be burned on a CD. Ignore the math, which shows your £1 price for every burnable song is higher than the retail price per song on a British CD. Pretend you haven't noticed that your "day" is actually a week (Oct. 3 to 9), further proof that you can't count. Act surprised when your music servers can't handle the traffic and grind to a halt; blame the technology that put you on this terrible road in the first place. Angrily dismiss anyone who says that what you're doing is something you once told a judge is sheer piracy.

[Lee Flier]

[quote]Originally posted by whosmatt: [b]It is good for any artist who does not have the full backing of a major corporation. In other words, 99.9% of the artists out there. [/b][/quote]Exactly. The major label acts have to PAY out the wazoo to get radio airplay. Would you rather spend $250,000 to pay a promoter to get your stuff played on the radio... or would you rather pay nothing at all? Seems like a no-brainer for most of us in the real world. :)

[RM]

[b]IT'S NOT GOOD[/b]

[Bunny Knutson]

[quote]Originally posted by RM: [b][b]IT'S NOT GOOD[/b][/b][/quote]Care to elaborate on that?

[michael saulnier]

What's all this hubbub about swapping? Well, it COULD be a good thing for musicians if their relationship is getting a little stale. Sometimes if you've been married a while, the "spark" can go out of the physical part of the relationship... So, what's so bad about swapping? I mean if you check the other folks out, and everyone is cool, and you use protection and all that. It can get a little wierd after... jealousy being an unexpected outcome... and of course if the wife is hotter than the husband or something... :freak: Oh, You meant file swapping... I was thinking [b]wife[/b] swapping... (in an Emily Latella voice)... "Never mind." cat-o-nine or ten or something...

[Wow]

The little guys now have a forum to promote their stuff. In the past a person had to hit it big with a record label, but now the average joe can make a mp3 with Pro Tools and put it on the web. How is this bad? We are taking the money hungry record companies out of the picture. I view this as a good thing. It all boils down to how good your music is, and not what record label liked you. You can rant against the new forum if you want to, but it is here to stay, until the government gets a hold on it. They are going after people selling cigarettes on the web now, wait a year and they will be after the common folk for their money also. We live in a time that will be remembered for the fact that the Gov. had not put its fingers in the honey jar yet. Long live the FREE web, it will be gone soon.

[whitefang]

If C.M. is stating that downloading MP3's off websites that offer these clips from obsure acts that don't have big label backing, in an effort to promote sales of their CD's, then it could be a good thing. There's good and bad in this website download issue. Sticking it to the big labels who insist on trying to tell us what we SHOULD like, instead of our purchases telling THEM, is always agreeable to me! Don't you think they'd save more money DUMPING their mistakes on the curb, instead of spending shitloads of cash trying to dump them on US? Why they insist is beyond me! Whitefang

[Wow]

Whitefang, Did we agree on something?

[whitefang]

[quote]Originally posted by C.M.: [b]Whitefang, Did we agree on something?[/b][/quote]Yes, indeedee! Whitefang

[LiveMusic]

I admit I have not read 100% of this thread, as I've skimmed some... but probably 90% of it. Anyway, let me go on record (again) as saying that I think people are mooches. If you give a human being (the average person) a way to cheat, they will... or, at least, a VERY large percentage will. Second, let me ask this. How much does salesmanship paly in commercial success for musicians? Thi sounds wonderful -- you ARE good. You are GREAT. Do you think that means you will succeed? That's not how the rest of the world works. I mean, the rest of the world works by whomever is the best salesman. Are musicians different? If so, then how come I hear about a dozen acts a year in my little ol' neck o' the woods that I think "how in the world have these guys not hit the bigtime?" If salesmanship is key, then labels/promotion play a huge role. If not, then screw 'em.

[Wow]

[quote]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by C.M.: Whitefang, Did we agree on something? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, indeedee! [/quote]THIS WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY!!!!!

[Abnorm]

It's not supposed to be good for musicians. It's supposed to be good for the people who want to get/steal individual songs over the internet. So it's the Downloader, not the Uploader that benefits. Does this hurt musicians? Probably. Guess they'll have to figure out some way to deal with it.

[Bunny Knutson]

If I didn't want my songs to be freely available on the net, I wouldn't post them. Please, steal my songs. I'll just make more.