BitTorrent Begins Directly Promoting Content Creators Willing To Embrace New Forms Of Distribution
from the a-step-forward dept
We've covered the Pioneer One and Yes Men video releases via BitTorrent, in combination with Vodo, and now BitTorrent Inc. is trying to ramp up similar efforts as well. This week it's helping to promote a new album released via BitTorrent from the artist PAZ, as it kicks off an effort to help those who embrace BitTorrent for distribution.One of the obvious benefits of using BitTorrent or other forms of free music distribution is that it makes it easier for people to hear your music. But, of course, you still need to convince them to make that first step and download -- and so these recent efforts to use a BitTorrent release specifically to promote a bit of content is interesting. I imagine that the skeptical response is that "this only works when just a few artists are doing it." That may be true in the present form, but I would bet that if more and more content creators embrace these forms of distribution, in combination with smarter business models, there will be many ways to deal with it, including greater personalization/filters for those who are actively promoting their works via platforms like BitTorrent.
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Filed Under: bittorrent, paz, promotions
Companies: bittorrent
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Promote?
I'm honestly not trying to be snarky or anything. I just don't know how promotion by the site works exactly. (I'm locked out of it while I'm at work, naturally).
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Re: Promote?
I think it is a little ironic that the free album doesn't come as a torrent download at all but rather with an everyday HTML file download (correction, looks like you can grab a torrent as well, however that isn't the main "promotion"). I think to really promote an artist we need to see a central torrent site doing so on the main page or something. The Pirate bay has done similar promotions in the past and from all accounts it has results in greater interest in the artist being promoted.
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Re: Promote?
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Helps legitimise both
The only thing that's still waiting to be fully developed is technology for the exchange in the other direction: sharing the artist's commission among the fans gladly wanting to incentivise their work.
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Re: Helps legitimise both
How do you figure?
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Re: Re: Helps legitimise both
Who else is going to pay the artist except those that have always paid them? Their fans.
If you remove 100% of the costs of distribution, you should expect to remove the 99% fee traditionally claimed by the publisher. Now the keen fans pay 1%. The artist gets paid the same. The now disintermediated and redundant publisher ends up with nothing. That's why it's the publisher (copyright business model) who's doomed, not the artist nor the audience.
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Re: Re: Re: Helps legitimise both
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Helps legitimise both
However, I find I have an uphill struggle trying to persuade anyone that an artist's fans will pay them even a penny. People are so easily confused between copies being free and performance & recordings not being free. So it's easier to keep the equations like this:
BEFORE:
1,000 fans buy copies for $10,000.
99,000 punters buy copies for $990,000.
Label keeps 99%=$990,000 (wages, costs, overheads, profit, etc.).
Artist gets $10,000.
AFTER:
1,000 fans pay commission of $10,000.
Billions of punters get free copies (copyleft).
Label is disintermediated.
Artist gets $10,000.
Remove the crap (copyright, monopoly protected prices, greedy publisher, highly inefficient service) and you're left with a far simpler exchange: the artist's intellectual work for their fans' commission.
Art for money, money for art.
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I like the Good Girls is decent.
Rest was meh.
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Torrent Integration
http://drupal.org/project/bittorrent
It would help if most webhosts didn't explicitly disallow all torrents. (Dreamhost, for instance, which is mine.)
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Thing is, bittorrent is an excellent way to exchange large files at low cost. The F/OSS community, for instance, makes heavy use of it to distribute software. This is literally free stuff that the authors/owners want to be spread around (or at least don't care if it is), but due to lack of compensation aren't usually willing to sponsor large server farms and administrative oversight to do it. Bittorrent is the perfect solution. Spread the time/cost over a large base to the point where it isn't even noticed, and everybody's happy.
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Re:
Remember 'free software' is free as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'.
Do you really believe those who produce software that is GPL licensed are somehow unable to be sufficiently compensated?
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Re:
The RIAA and the Labels would love bit torrent to be outlawed. Not because of piracy, but because it is one of the distrition channels that obsoletes them, and allows artists to distribute content without them. The piece missing from the equation, the thing that will fully and truely wipe out the record labels, is promotion. Which is what this article is about.
MM- "But, of course, you still need to convince them to make that first step and download"
A simple way to get people to try new music would be a weekly top 100 list of CC music from a central source and build a following. Distributed through torrent freak, here, and the top music blogs, a link done weekly in twitter, etc.
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misleading article
is not promoting pioneer one, as the article seems to infer.
NO that distinction went to the pirate bay.
which bce inc every time i use it throttles me to dial up speed......
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Re: misleading post
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Re: Re: misleading post
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@3 (BigKeithO) - the bundled promotion is an option while you are installing our uTorrent software - it is a torrent file - and we also promote a torrent hosted at http://www.clearbits.net/torrents/1385-young-broke-and-fameless-the-mixtape
@11 (NAMELESS.ONE) - I'm afraid you are wrong - PioneerOne was indeed promoted by many torrent sites (including ThePirateBay) and was ALSO an optional bundled torrent in the uTorrent client installer (just like with PAZ) - we were probably responsible for over half of the total distribution of PioneerOne
@ everyone discussing the business model here - PAZ is interested in publicity and building a following - he's not interested in trying to exploit copyright to extract money - he wants to raise his profile, build a fan base and he believes this will improve his marketability as a live performing artist as well as open other doors that are currently closed to him
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The same thing can be said for being a pop star. It only works when a few people are big name pop stars.
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this is paz
@simon is right. Goal was to quickly distribute my music to as many people as possible. Goal was not to make money. See this post for more: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=443791294776
@hephaestus Personally, I hope the labels start looking at bittorrent as a distribution platform they can use to break new artists. I wouldn't mind being the first case study -- before bittorrent, only a handful of people had heard of me; now more than 250,000 people around the world have my album after a week. Pretty cool.
@KGWagner So true. My album was distributed under a CC license. Bittorrent was the ideal solution for an unknown artist like me to get speedy, wide distribution. Other artists should follow this path.
@Anonymous Coward: Glad you liked Monday, Bad Girls. For the rest, here's your money back: $0
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