Canadian Newspaper Gives Away Free Music Downloads
from the that's-the-spirit dept
Earlier this year, there was a huge fuss over the UK's Daily Mail newspaper's promotion giving away the new Prince CD for free with a copy of the newspaper. It seemed like a pretty good way of dealing with the troubles facing both the newspaper industry and the recording industry -- offering a new way of financing music combined with a new way to promote and distribute music, all the while helping give people a reason to actually buy a newspaper. It was so reasonable that it freaked out the recording industry, music stores and even other newspapers. However, it appears that some newspapers have decided to go even further. Michael Geist lets us know that over the weekend, the Vancouver Sun put up a freely downloadable compilation of songs from Nettwerk Music. You may recall Nettwerk as being the Canadian record label that seems to actually understand that the trick isn't in fighting against consumers (or in suing them), but in giving them what they want. Thus, it's not really a huge surprise that it would be this label that took part -- allowing well known acts like Sarah McLachlan and the Barenaked Ladies to take part in this promotion. What's a little strange is that the promotion only lasted for one day. However, it is good to see more newspapers (and bands) at least experimenting with this type of model. It has a long way to go, but through this experimenting the next generation of music business models are going to be discovered.
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Filed Under: canada, downloads, music, newspapers
Companies: nettwerk, vancouver sun
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All other models have become a joke.
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DRM?
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eMusic
So, whereas the Prince promotion was an exclusive for one outlet channel, Nettwerk are simply using the newspaper as a complementary method of getting their music out there, which is entirely the point of course.
By the way: the the "anonymous coward". Do you honestly think that nobody got paid for giving away these downloads? The newspaper will have paid royalties to the label, who will have passed on some of those royalties to the artists. Just because nobody's handing over money directly for the MP3s, it doesn't mean that nobody gets paid.
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hahaha
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bitch
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