Old EMI Email Shows They Knew That Giving Away Songs For Free Leads To More Sales
from the well-look-at-that dept
We already wrote about the recent filing in the EMI v. MP3Tunes case, in which Michael Robertson shows that (contrary to EMI's statements to the court) EMI regularly promoted its music by giving out free MP3s. However, I wanted to do a separate post looking at one specific email highlighted in the filing. It shows an email from 2008 from Stephen Gullberg, an employee of EMI Publishing, talking about marketing plans involving giving away free MP3 downloads. I've bolded the parts that struck me as particularly interesting. Gullberg is emailing with a counterpart at EMI:Free Promotional MP3 of one song to the public for free download from Peter Moréns album (as do most indie labels). They would offer "Social Competence" for free download on touchandgorecords.com, Peter and Touch and Go's Myspace pages, plus encourage as many third party online zines, podcasts, blogs, major web portals to host the MP3 for free download on their site. We are being told that historically the track which is offered for free like this is usually still the top selling track in digital retail. They would like to offer this promotional MP3 download for nine months. After that initially period the promotional partners will replace the MP3 download with a stream for the duration of the license of the album including offering a stream of the song on their website and on their Myspace page and Peter's Myspace page, or until they decide to ask these partners to remove the stream.And yet, all this time, the RIAA keeps insisting that free music is a problem? Even as employees at the labels knew years ago that free was "so effective" as a promotional technique that it helped sell the same track much more.
The label has given us a further explanation of why they pursue this strategy. One promotional MP3 per album is the best way they can virally promote the album which will increase sales and thus revenue on the compositional side as well as the master recording side. This promotional technique has proven to be so effective, that virtually every free track they have issued from an album has maintained itself as the top selling track from the album. It also enables them to offer something from the album to the myriad of sites, blogs, podcasts out there that would be tempted to give away unauthorized materials, perhaps the entire album, if they do not have the option to feature a track that they offer to them. This control mechanism is vital to their methods of slowing piracy of albums.
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Filed Under: michael robertson, mp3, stephen gullberg
Companies: emi, mp3tunes
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http://thetrichordist.com/2012/05/22/why-arent-more-musicians-working-professionally/
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Sure, that might look like an internet fail if you pretend that musicians live in a magic bubble where external economic forces have no effect on them.
Where is the new independent middle class of anyone? Oh, right. The middle class is shrinking because the wealth gap is growing and the economy hasn't recovered from 2008 yet. There's still a sizable amount of unemployment amongst people who aren't working in a luxury industry.
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If you're looking at musicians who haven't done well in the last 10 years, you can't ignore the fact that album sales would naturally decrease with the ability for consumers to buy the one song they like instead of a whole album.
Combine that with the economic downturn in 2008 and it's not unexpected that artists aren't doing as well as they could be. Consumers have to have discretionary income in order to support luxury items. Music has always been susceptible to that market reality.
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http://thetrichordist.com/2012/10/05/mythbusting-music-is-too-expensive/
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http://thetrichordist.com/2012/05/01/effs-john-perry-barlow-is-wrong/
I love the way hal gives JPB the smackdown!
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and then there's this...
http://thetrichordist.com/2013/01/24/two-simple-facts-about-technology-and-piracy-itunes-vs-yout ube/
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It's also good to see that J.R.R. Tolkien, Churchill and MLK are making so much money from their creative abilities.
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http://thetrichordist.com/2013/01/09/free-cultures-epic-fail-if-free-is-working-why-fight-copyri ght/
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the labels know exactly what they should do, just as they knew then! they have never been interested in anything exact keeping control. i still find it so hard to understand why it is that politicians haven't yet had to admit that they need to stop backing the ever more increasing demands of the entertainment industries and that 'protecting the artists' bullshit is exactly that, bullshit!!
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The entire point of the current "campaign contribution" system is for moneyed interest to pay politicians for branding and selling their bullshit to the American public.
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It was never about sales, it has always been about control.
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Quite a high profile one is Joe Bonamassa who, last year, gave away the title song from the album Driving Towards the Daylight a month or so before the album came out.
The Pixies not long ago gave away free copies of 4 songs performed live.
There is a new band called Snakecharmer who also gave away snippets from their upcoming album just this month.
These are just a few examples of how artists can use giveaways as a promotional tool and make a nice living.
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One of my favorite artists. I have all his CDs, and have gone to quite a few of his concerts here where I live. Talk about someone who gets it...he has no problems with casual tapings, and they sell USB thumb-drives with the output from the soundboard after the concert for $20. His concerts are always full, and there are always a ton of folks waiting for thumb-drives at the end of the concert.
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You missed a highlight
This control mechanism is vital to their methods of slowing piracy of albums
For all of their complaints about people sharing files causing harm, here is an email that says the exact opposite.
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Yes, EMI knew in certain circumstances that releasing free music can increase sales. That does not mean that releasing free music increases sales in all cases. That would require further study which doesn't seem to be referenced in this article.
Today we see studies that show at least a correlation between piracy, free releases, and increased sales, so we are looking at these emails from that perspective.
So honestly, I don't see this as an example of a smoking gun.
Boojum
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Fuck The MAFIAA and Fuck the Copyright Maximalists !
My wallet is Censored for life from you bloodsuckers.
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launch window
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The technology and the internet are just the paradigm shift that has made the unethical practices of the humans who are behind these causes look even more greedy and outdated, as well as depriving them of the power they had to carry out their greedy and controlling machinations.
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'free was "so effective" as a promotional technique that it helped sell the same track much more.'
Is not quite what they said.
What they said was that virtually every track made available free 'maintained' themselves as the top selling track.
Which could mean it took a sales hit, but still outperformed the other tracks, but boosted the sales of the album etc. It probably doesn't mean that, but it could, and I'm sure they'd argue it did, unless someone has the figures to prove them wrong.
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It is a perfectly valid though sometimes quite destructive tactic used in analogue business.
I am not saying that taking a sales hit would be a bad thing, especially not if that one track sales hit is wiped out by the benefit to album sales etc.
I am simply pointing out that they did not say that the freely available track sold more than it would have had it not been given away for free.
It might well have done so, but they didn't say that was the case.
You said that they said
"that the freely available track outperformed every other track in the album,"
and what the article said more importantly was
'free was "so effective" as a promotional technique that it helped sell the same track much more.'
what they specifically said was
"is usually still the top selling track in digital retail.
"
and
"has maintained itself as the top selling track from the album"
That's "usually still" and "maintained"
They are quite clear that they are specifically talking about digital and make no nod or reference to analogue. But given that it has been an historic norm for them to give selected people free analogue copies without needing to have consultations, this is clearly being treated differently.
You and I might both agree that obviously if they find that giving away tracks for free boosts overall sales, of the album and other tracks, whilst having if any negative impact at all a negligible negative impact on the sales of that track, still leaving it as the top selling track then piracy and concerns about piracy are clearly meaningless.
But they are not stating at any point that sales for the tracks that have been made available for free have increased on the back of that, nor are they implying it.
Although we may well suspect that that may often be the case (and based on how radio play affects sales, almost certainly is the case)
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