We've already questioned the strategy for MySpace Music, and now even more concerns are popping up, as various independent labels claim they're being blocked out of the offering altogether. While it's true that most of the focus for MySpace Music has been with the majors, MySpace's success in the music world came out of its usefulness for independent or unsigned acts, who used the site to build up a community. To ignore that side of the market, or even to treat indies as second-class citizens in the endeavor seems like a huge mistake.
Earlier this month, we wrote about how the author Stephenie Meyer reacted when a manuscript of her latest novel was leaked online. She punished the fans, by saying that she would stop working on the book. This seemed like an odd move to us, and we said so. Some in the comments accused us of being unfair in suggesting that anyone ought to figure out ways to use such a leak to their advantage, but it does appear that some are doing exactly that.
Eric Samson writes in to let us know that he just received an email from the Canadian band The Dears, talking about how their album was leaked -- against the band's wishes -- but, since it was out there, the band wanted fans to know it was there. Seems like the right response:
email between a friend of ours and us:
On 15-Sep-08, at 8:17 AM, ******* **** wrote:
It's out there.
On 15-Sep-08, at 8:15 AM, Murray Lightburn wrote:
i heard.
On 15-Sep-08, at 8:15 AM, ******* **** wrote:
Your album leaked this morning.
-----------------------------------------------
So there you have it, friends: our new album and finest work to date, still not due for several weeks, is out there. While we are 100% appreciative that people care enough, The Dears are still pretty old-school. This was not exactly our intention and to be honest, even though it's kind of cool, we can't help feeling a little bit devastated. We were always aware of the inevitability, as we are living in the modern age. In fact, we don't expect anyone to empathize at all. Nevertheless, you now have these options:
a.) download it now.
b.) wait and buy it later.
c.) both.
If we may have any say in the matter, whatever option you choose, we truly hope you enjoy it. We are excited and terrified all at once. Please give it a proper listen, maybe at least four times to start because it is pretty massive, intricate, layered. Much love, much care, and about 16 hours a day for so many, many weeks (months?) went into the making and delivery of it. We work hard for our patrons. In addition, we are not even certain of the quality of the files out there are like but we do know that the official version (out on OCT 20/21 worldwide) is of the utmost quality, mastered by the great Bob Ludwig. The sleeve and lyric book in the packaged version are also very cool so we really do trust that you'll pick it up when it is released formally.
Eternally Grateful,
THE DEARS
PS... Hope to see you...
Sep 30 Canada Waterloo, ON The Starlight w/ Gentleman Reg
Oct 1 Canada Hamilton, ON Casbah w/ Gentleman Reg
(and a long series of tour dates)
If it's going to happen and there's no way to stop it, might as well learn to take advantage of it.
It's definitely been cool to see various musicians embracing aspects of the business models that we discuss around here concerning using free music to improve your business model -- but what would be even more exciting is seeing an ecosystem of companies start to spring up in order to support and enable this type of activity (and, no, we're not talking about MySpace Music). For a while we've seen platforms like Sellaband, ArtistShare and BandStocks, that help in some ways, and now we're seeing a new generation of platform providers. Earlier this year, we mentioned TopSpin's platform, which appears targeted at bigger bands, providing them with a platform for embracing these new models. And now, Mathew Ingram points us to the launch of Bandcamp, which makes it easy for a band to set up their own website.
It was created by the guys who did Oddpost, which became Yahoo Mail. Basically, it's a system to make it incredibly easy for bands to set up their own website, streaming all their tracks (none of this 30-second-soundbite stuff), and then offer a variety of ways for people to download the music -- either for free, for a set price or at pay-what-you-want. The site takes care of all of the encoding (you just upload lossless files and it creates a bunch of different options). Basically, it's designed to give the bands a lot more options than just having a MySpace page. Also, the concept of sharing the music is a big part of it, as the songs come with embeddable players that can easily be placed on websites with a few clicks. And, for the band, it provides detailed stats, including how many people are downloading each track (including whether they completed the download) and where the songs are being embedded.
As a critique, right now, all of the band sites I'm seeing on Bandcamp look generically similar, which may be a limitation. Also, you would think some community tools would be useful, as well as enabling other aspects of new business models beyond just selling music (such as buying tickets to concerts, or tiered support offerings). However, obviously the site just launched, so hopefully these types of improvements are in the plans. As an example, you can check out the Bandcamp page for the band Monolith, or see the embedded player here:
Either way, what's exciting is to see this infrastructure being built up to support bands embracing these types of models. For too long, people have complained that what we talk about is too difficult because bands just want to make music, rather than focus on building websites. Well, now they don't have to worry so much about that part.
The really sad part, though, is that the things that TopSpin and Bandcamp are doing are exactly what the big record labels should have been doing five or even ten years ago to help bands embrace the opportunity of the internet. Instead, they continued to claim the internet was a threat, and have suffered because of it. Luckily, these days, if an old obsolete business insists on ignoring opportunities, others can step in and provide those services instead.
Jean Savoye, a reader here at Techdirt, sent in a submission using the provocative title that "Hugh Cornwell Is Still Not A Taxi Driver," and wrote about how former Stranglers' frontman, Hugh Cornwell, appeared to be embracing some of the concepts we talk about here as a business model. On his official website, he's offering up his latest album as a completely free download. However, he's pairing that with a much more complete business model. Like Trent Reznor, Cornwell is also offering a few different options for those who want tangible (scarce) goods as well -- such as a CD, DVD or vinyl.
But Cornwell seems to be going even further in recognizing the power of selling scarcities. The DVD mentioned above is actually a film showing much of the recording process that went into the album. However, the film itself was also shown in some theaters -- with Cornwell attending each of the showings and doing a Q&A session at the end of each one. In other words, he's recognized yet another important "scarcity": access to the artists and (once again) that means much more than touring, as seen here.
As for the title of the post? Well, back in 2001, Cornwell was doing an interview with a website, and the interviewer showed him Napster and explained it to Cornwell. While Cornwell didn't react totally negatively (he seemed to think it was cool for rare or live tracks), he was very much against his studio recorded songs being up there:
I cannot condone the posting of music that I spent money making, being given away for free.... When I see that my new album has been posted, and everyone can get that for free, if that carries on I'm going to go out of business.... Napster is good in some ways, but if maybe just one track was posted from a commercial record, as a taster, because I know a lot of people who go to Napster are real fans who want the original artwork, want the real article, and are not happy having something that's downloaded. But then there are other people who are getting it for free, they are not giving me anything, and there has to be some sort of royalty paid or I'll have to become a cab driver.
Well, seven years later, Cornwell is posting his own music, and having it given away for free -- and he hasn't gone out of business or become a cab driver. He's figured out a business model that takes advantage of that free sharing of his music. Always nice to see musicians progressing along that curve.
More than three years ago, when Chinese search engine Baidu first filed to go public, we noted that it's huge advantage over Google in China appeared to stem from its very popular music download search engine -- and we wondered if going public would force that to go away, potentially damaging the company's bottom line significantly. In fact, we were surprised that it appeared that the investors in the site hadn't done much due diligence to understand what was going on. The recording industry wasted little time in suing Baidu. While Baidu won the first case on a technicality and quickly sued again.
At first, this did seem like a typical situation seen with other online search engines, such as The Pirate Bay or even Google, where it's not really clear how Baidu could stop the searches for unauthorized music. However, a new investigative report by The Register found evidence that suggests Baidu is actually a lot more involved in the music download business than it lets on. Specifically, the search results mostly link to a mysterious network of sites that are only reachable via Baidu searches. You can't just go to the sites directly. The sites themselves have a long (and potentially growing) list of random domain names such that the songs constantly move around, and any time Baidu receives a "takedown" it can claim it complied, while the music almost immediately shows back up on the next domain in the list. Also, Baidu almost never links to other, legitimate, download sites -- preferring to point people to these sites that are unreachable outside of Baidu instead.
All in all, it certainly sounds like Baidu is a lot more involved in providing the actual downloads than it would as just a search engine.
That said, The Register's report includes a variety of unsupported statements about how this has "destroyed" economic activity in the music business. As we've seen, the music business has actually adapted to the expectation that the music itself is free in China. I recognize that it's popular for the RIAA and IFPI to make claims about how downloading is destroying the music industry, but you would think that the Register would know better.
MySpace has been prepping its own music offering for quite some time, and Fortune reveals the basic details. They're somewhat... underwhelming. It's basically a scaled up version of that UK startup we wrote about last week, where we noted that you don't beat piracy by being more annoying. Basically, MySpace will let people post streamable music on their sites, and will then sell ads against the music, as well as link to sites like iTunes and Amazon for people who want to actually buy the tracks.
There's nothing wrong with the idea. But, it's unlikely to make much of a difference in the market. To say, as Fortune does, that this "promises to be the most significant rollout of a digital-music service since Apple's iTunes" is either hyperbole or (more likely) a statement on how awful other music services have been in the interim. Yet, it also ignores the elephant in the room (as does the MySpace store) which is that it only focuses on one reason why people download unauthorized music: the free part. Yes, MySpace music will be free. But will it also match the other reasons why people like file sharing systems? The convenience? The fact that it's unencumbered with annoying ads or DRM? The aspect of sharing and helping to promote other artists?
MySpace's offering will have some of that, but there's no downloading. People will be able to create playlists and share them, but that doesn't seem all that different than, say, iMeem. As if to prove that no one involved in this project wants to mention the elephant of file sharing, check out this quote from Luke Wood, executive VP of Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M record label:
"This is how people discover music now. It's not happening through people reading Rolling Stone. It's not happening through the radio. It's happening through social networks online."
Is it really that difficult for folks in the industry to at least admit that many, many people discover new music through file sharing? They don't have to say that it's okay or that it's legal. But if they're going to come up with something that really competes, they should at least be willing to admit what's really happening in the marketplace. This is not to knock MySpace and the labels for trying something different. It's great that they're trying -- but pretending that file sharing doesn't exist isn't how you respond to the market threat. Without being willing to even mention the elephant, it's hard to believe that the response is going to be able to compete with the elephant.
Last month, we wrote about the band Marillion, noting that for many years they had adopted one of the business models that we've advocated: getting fans to pay upfront for the creation of albums by giving them something worthwhile -- and it's worked wonders for the band. Over the years, they had built up a huge mailing list of fans, and used that list to help generate plenty of revenue to produce new albums. However, we did note that it was a little disappointing that the band didn't take it to the final level of making the actual music free, to help generate a bigger mailing list of more fans enabling the band to make even more money.
I doubt that we had anything to do with it, but just weeks later, that's exactly what the band is doing. It's giving away its latest album for free (I'm not sure, but I'm assuming it was produced in the same manner, meaning that it's already been "paid" for). And the band is planning to use the free music to try to continue to build up that fan list, that it can continue to promote its scarce goods to. Hopefully it works out for them. They seem to have combined many of the different elements: getting people to pay for scarcities (new music, CDs with extras, concerts, fan club memberships that provide benefits, merchandise, etc.) and cultivating "true fans" and now using the music to build up that list. My only tiny (tiny!) critique is that if I were them, along with the free music, I might offer different "levels" of potential support, a la Jill Sobule, Kristin Hersh and Trent Reznor. Either way, it's great to see another example of a band embracing where the market is heading.
We've pointed out in the past the fact that every time we point to a less-well-known musician successfully implementing a business model that involves free music, someone (inevitably) says "but that will never work for big name musicians." And, then, when we point to big name musicians successfully implementing such business models, someone (inevitably) says "well, that's fine for a big name musician, who can afford to give away music, but it will never work for less-well-known musicians." In fact, after seeing this happen over and over again, one of our commenters jokingly referred to this phenomenon as Masnick's Law.
However, a post by Jim Stogdill over at O'Reilly Radar, shows both well-known and less-well-known artists supporting free music in different ways. He talks about going to a Nine Inch Nails show, where Trent Reznor encourages his audience to "steal" his music, noting that Reznor has said in the past that if music is free, he'll keep making money touring. Then, afterwards in the parking lot, Stogdill was handed a home-burned CD of music from the band Cube Head, who was giving them out at the show to encourage more people to listen to them. There, in a single snapshot was both large and small artists recognizing they could benefit from free music -- though in slightly different ways.
However, Stogdill seems to imply that touring is the only business model for musicians these days, and I'd argue that's not true at all. In fact, Reznor has shown that there are plenty of other business models that don't rely on touring, but, instead focus on giving people a reason to buy -- by giving them something scarce that can't simply be pirated -- such as exclusive signed copies of box sets. And, again, less well known artists have figured this out as well, with musicians like Jill Sobule who put in place a business model that worked well, without relying on touring for all of the money (yes, touring is a part of the business model, but not all of it). The focus, again, is always on using the infinite nature of the music to attract more fans, and then getting them to buy a scarce good that is made more valuable by the music. That can work for any artist, small, medium or large -- and can allow them to make more profits since they often won't have to rely on quite so many middlemen.
Last month, of course, there was a big story around the FBI arresting a blogger who was accused of posting the music files from Guns N' Roses latest album. He now faces many years in jail, despite simply being a fan helping to promote GNR. As we pointed out, this was a huge mistake by GNR, as appearing anti-fan is a move that will almost always backfire.
As if to provide even more evidence of that, Bob Lefsetz does a quick email back-and-forth with Eric Garland of BigChampagne, the company that tracks file sharing activity. Garland points out that prior to the arrest, there was almost no file sharing of the album, despite the fact that the leak happened a while back. However, since the arrest, the numbers have shot way up, as the arrest has really only served to alert the public that the album is available for download on BitTorrent.
Now, the cynical among you (you know who you are) may conclude that this is all a marketing ploy by the band, knowing that it would attract a lot more attention for the album, and that's why they did it. Of course, that doesn't explain why the FBI is involved and why a fan of the band may now have to sit in jail for many years for helping to promote the band. If this really is a cynical marketing ploy, it's rather sickening that the FBI is assisting and a big fan of the band may end up in jail for it.
A few weeks ago, we noted that some record labels were choosing to wait until a song had become popular to remove it from iTunes on the highly questionable theory that this would encourage fans to buy the full CD instead of just buying a single track. This seems quite unlikely (more likely is that people will simply go pirate the one track). However, the LA Times notes that in the case of the band the was discussed in the initial article, the removal of the official song has proven a boost to cover bands that have stepped in to fill the void. Even if the tracks aren't that good, a lot more people are buying them since they can't find the original. That's probably not what the record label intended when it pulled the songs from iTunes, but if there's one thing the recording industry has shown over and over again for years is that it has trouble figuring out how the market will react to its more braindead moves.
