Why Paul McCartney Would Have Been Better Off Giving Away His Latest Music For Free
from the promote-the-other-things dept
Earlier this year, we noted that Starbucks was going to start its own record label to sell CDs, with Paul McCartney as the first artist to release an album on it. This came after the relative success of promoting a few albums exclusively in Starbucks when they launched (on other labels). However, as Bob Lefsetz points out, McCartney's album looks like it's a money loser for Starbucks -- though McCartney likely made money from Starbucks who probably paid him a nice sum to put the album out on the new label. However, as Lefsetz points out, he could make a lot more in concert revenue much faster. Lefsetz goes on to point out what we've been pointing out for years: McCartney would have been better off giving away the music for free everywhere, and actually getting people to hear it. In fact, Lefsetz suggests that he might have put more effort into making better music if he knew that there was a much bigger likelihood that people would hear it and care about it. Where I disagree with Lefsetz is his belief that it makes sense to offer the music for free for now, while you still get a promotional bump just for announcing that you'll be giving away music for free, that it won't make sense in the future when lots of artists are doing it. Instead, it seems likely that more and more new models will arise, where the music acts as the promotion, and bands make their money elsewhere. The more popular and widespread the music is, the more opportunities there will be to make that money elsewhere. Once bands start seeing success using that model, more and more will pile on, and people will wonder why anyone pays just for the music if they're not given anything else of value with it.
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Filed Under: free, lefsetz, music, paul mccartney
Companies: starbucks
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Does Paul make his past songs free also, forgoing the profits from those songs (assuming, incorrectly or not that he would have that right)? How much revenue is lost there?
Does free have its place? Of course it does. It just isn't every place.
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I doubt ..
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Re: I doubt ..
The last time that I remember he came in my area he sold out our arena and he had only had that one semi-popular top-40 hit, "My Brave Face". We're not talking about a one-hit wonder, we're talking about Paul McCartney and his legacy and that's what everyone shows up for.
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Re: Re: I doubt ..
It seemes to me that Sir Paul's newer music is a lot less relevant. Selling out concerts is where he is going to make his money I assume (and merchandising). I don't believe that he still holds any rights to any of the Beatles works (I could be wrong about that). And I can't imagine that Wings CDs are flying off of the shelves. Anyway, I assume that he is not making much money off of album sales these days. He might as well give the music away and bring in a new generation of fans to his concerts (which still sell very well)
Paul McCartney makes his living off of the Beatles legacy and to some extent Wings. That is what his fans go to hear when the go to one of his shows.
Maybe he could bring Michael Jackson back and they could do another duet. That seemed to reienvigorate his career a little in the mid 80's. :-)
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Re: I doubt ..
Although Bruce Springsteen, who is preparing for a tour, is giving away his new song on iTunes.
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Re: I doubt ..
The top ten rich list:
1. Rolling Stones (£55.3million)
2. Sir Paul McCartney (£40million)
3. Sir Elton John (£34 million)
4. Robbie Williams (£30million)
5. Coldplay (£25.3million)
6. Sting (£25.1million)
7. Phil Collins (£25.1million)
8. Fleetwood Mac (£23.5million)
9. Iron Maiden (£17.9million)
10. Dido (£15.8million)
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Why it did not sell
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Re: Why it did not sell
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alcohol driven products
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Well....
Anyway for a long time now I've avoided I-tunes and all the other DRM sites and belonged to Emusic. Supporting the independent labels and artists. I've found some great music there and well it is the best 20.00 I spend each month.
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Paul
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Ah, you're got a
I suppose I better comment on this post to at least try staying on topic. The bottom line with Paul McCartney is he's not nearly as relevant to the music *buying* public as Starbuck's thought. He sold half a million CDs, which for most people would be considered a huge success. Bob does a good job of covering this.
What he gets wrong is that this was do to some sort of lack of effort on McCartney's part. Not sure what he's basing that on. Of course McCartney could get more money if only he tried harder. He could have put together the infrastructure needed for a tour, tv interviews, radio interviews, press releases, etc...But Starbucks offered him 5 million for doing far less work - WHY should he try harder?
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Re:
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He is Giving for free
to bad its not very good....
here is the link
http://freeitunessongs.blogspot.com/2007/08/musicvideo-paul-mccartney-nod-your-hed.html
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Re: He is Giving for free
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Free Bastards
Why pay for oranges if you live in Florida? There are huge grove with oranges just hanging on the trees. You can just walk up and pick as many as you want. The farmers just need to find a new revinue stream to cover their costs. They have many choices of ways to get more revinue, I will just never say how. Maybe they can sell T-shirts that say "I grow oranges". Or sell tickets to let people watch them squeeze oranges into juice. If it is easy to take something for free then it must be OK.
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Re: Free Bastards
Not sure about the analogy though, kind of comparing apples and oranges....terrible pun, I know, but i had to do it.
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Re: Free Bastards
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Re: Free Bastards
But, would you consider it a crime if I walked into his orange grove and cloned an orange, then walked out with my cloned orange and without disturbing anything else? I only ask because that's much closer to what happens when you copy a song. ;)
He would not make any more money by giving music away for free. You bastards who want everything free are not going to pay for anything else he does, you will just wait for something else you want to be free.
You see, the thing is that if my boss wants a quarterly report, and I type one up and give it to him, I get paid. Then, next quarter I just copy the one from last quarter, my source of money would quickly become cut off. I didn't do any work, I just copied my old work.
However, if a *musician* records a song, they somehow feel that they should keep getting paid for copying that song over and over again. Go figure, I guess they're all better than me.
Along the same lines, if all the work he needs to do to get paid is copy the song, and *I* can copy the song myself, there's no reason he should get paid, right? I mean, I'm simply doing what he would of done myself. If I decide to re-tile my bathroom instead of paying someone to do it, I don't pay that person, because I did the work they would have done myself.
I, however, have no talent in music, so if a musician really wants to get paid, said musician should play music for me, *not* copy something recorded earlier. Since I can't copy the concert experience at home, it has value to me, and because it has value to me, I will pay for it.
Also, the "bastards who want everything for free" don't want everything for free, they don't expect to get a BMW for free, or a house, or any number of *scarce* items for free.
If something has no real economic value, however... well, you see the trends already. :)
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Re: Re: Free Bastards
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It is an interesting read.
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Wrong focus?
When you do, you'll see that the question isn't so much about Starbucks "breaking even", but whether or not they're getting value for their money. As such, any "loss" they take is a marketing expense.
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"Better Music?"
1) Musicians, in general, are making the "best" music they can make. Only the most superficial of pop star would half-ass any music they plan to release. To think that they could somehow turn up the creativity and increase their music's "quality" assumes that (a) they are releasing music they feel is not good enough, and (b) there is some measurable "quality" factor that they could increase.
2) Musicians are always trying to reach the largest possible audience, and naturally create music with the idea that it will be heard by everyone. If it ends up being poorly distributed or marketed and fewer people hear it, that's unfortunate, but an artist will never think "well, this is good enough for the people I'm making it for, most people will never hear it anyway." If there are musicians who think that way, I doubt they get very far.
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Re:
Anyone who seriously believes that crap is seriously deluded.
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Free?
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Re: Free?
What does that have to do with anything? I agree, for him this is a good business decision. But in my mind it hurts his legacy. It is part of the overall problem with today's music. Put forth a half-assed effort, take a dump into a CD jewel case, sit back and expect to get paid a bunch of money. Paul McCartney is hoping to sell CDs based on his past work. In my mind that is no different than wanting to get paid royalties for something you did 40 years ago.
That being said, he was able to $5 million for relatively little effort, good for him, but in my mind, it tarnishes his musical "legacy" that you seem to hold so dear.
And to your point about his talent sustaining itself, I think that an argument could be made that he has been standing on reputation, rather than current work, for the last 25 years. But that is more of a subjective opinion.
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I thought the album was awesome
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Re: I thought the album was awesome
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Copyrights out of control.
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Typical Mike story template
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Re: Typical Mike story template
-May the giant omnimpitent sparkplub shine light into your life.
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Re: Typical Mike story template
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BEATLE, Sir Paul MCcartney
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BEATLE, Sir Paul MCcartney
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BEATLE, Sir Paul MCcartney
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