Launching Your Music Career On eBay

from the how-much-for-the-singer-in-the-window? dept

One of the potential business models for the music industry that people have discussed is something of a patronage model, where musicians don't actually release music until they've found supporters willing to pay for the costs. It appears that one aspiring musician in India made a slight, internet-age, modification on this plan. Recognizing the power of selling something on eBay as a PR tactic to get more attention, he sold the rights to a fraction of his lifetime royalties on eBay. Apparently, he found enough people to take a chance and finance his album. Of course, as he notes, the problem with doing things this way is that he doesn't have the promotional force of a record label behind him to push the album in order to try to increase the royalties that these patrons would get.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    acb, 18 Jul 2005 @ 3:46am

    Argument for perpetual copyrights?

    This looks like an argument for copyright extension: if copyrights didn't last indefinitely, these rights would not be valuable enough for such a model.

    Of course, one could extend this model to other situations where people need funding to get started. Perhaps eventually we'll see college students selling shares in their future incomes?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Mike Linksvayer (profile), 18 Jul 2005 @ 8:12am

    Re: Argument for perpetual copyrights?

    No, the present value of revenues collected decades from now is the same for anyone (modulo different individual discount rates) -- a tiny fraction of the value of revenues collected now. Participation by investors doesn't change the arguments for or against perpetual copyright at all.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    acb, 18 Jul 2005 @ 9:22am

    Re: Argument for perpetual copyrights?

    The "long tail" argument (borne out by observations of the value of back-catalogue sales) suggests that the post-peak revenue, while smaller than the peak revenue, is not insignificant. And the BBC article itself states that the length of copyrights exceeding the immediate needs of the artist's income gives this model its value.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    taylor, 18 Jul 2005 @ 12:57pm

    Re: Argument for perpetual copyrights?

    actually, there already exists a loan system (www.myrichuncle.com, set up by Michael Robertson of MP3.com fame) whereby the student applies for a loan and agrees to pay back an annual % of future income, independent of the total future income.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Coolz0r, 22 Jul 2005 @ 4:39am

    Hey, Great News !

    Yeah. Great news.

    http://google.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2005/07/21/how-to-launch-your-music-career -through-ebay/

    amongst many others. I just thought it'd be nice to mention it at least once, but I steal a lot of content. :) Thanks !

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.