Yet Another Take On Free Music
from the steal-my-music dept
Earlier today we wrote about yet another music label that was figuring out a way to use the music for promotion rather than trying to lock it up - and how that will eventually challenge the established recording industry. Here's another example of a company looking to make use of free music, though I think they've got the system set up a little backwards. There's apparently a relatively new site called Steal My Music, where independent artists can have their CDs given away for free. Shoppers pay for shipping and handling only. The idea (obviously) is to promote new and independent bands. The reason this seems backwards is that they're giving away the tangible item (the CD), when it would make a lot more sense to just offer the music for free, without the CD. If they tied in with a P2P file sharing system, they spread out the costs as well. As it stands, it's the band that has to eat the costs by having CDs made which they're then giving away. If you have this great distribution mechanism for giving away music and using it for promotional purposes - it seems sort of backwards, instead, to focus on giving away CDs.
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The profit IS in the S&H
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Follow up ...
Guess what ? Shipping: $3.85 Handling Total: $1.50 Grand Total: $5.35 ... I can find big name acts in clearance bins for less than this ...
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Had this been the BMG Music Service, shipping 3 "free" CDs would cost about $8.
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This is actually a great idea. Checkout www.freedistribute.org for a pretty good write up on this way of thinking.
There are a lot of reasons people want physical CDs over digital media. It's complicated and illogical, but completely true.
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Missing the point, Mike. Re: Follow up ...
Whereas if you download something, you listen to 10 seconds of it, decide you don't like it, and toss it.
But I'll wager if you spent even $5 getting it, you'll put it on and give the whole thing a chance - because you've invested something of your time and money in it.
We see it all the time in business - charging $10 for a sample vs. giving it away for free invariably leads to a higher closing rate per unit! Because people who make even that much of an investment are that much more serious about it.
Qualification of consumers (get to the people who want to buy) and Confidence (give them the confidence to buy without worry) are the two most important aspects of a sale.
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Re: The profit IS in the S&H
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