Band Asks Fans To 'Donate Sounds' For Next Album

from the connect-with-fans... dept

Mon, Jul 2nd 2012 11:14pm — Mike Masnick

We've written about the band Uniform Motion a few times. It's an excellent band that has done some very interesting things to connect with fans, including being incredibly transparent and focusing on the importance of the relationship over the value of the MP3 file. And like all smart content creators, they're continuing to innovate and try new things. For example, they recently announced a plan to have fans "donate a sound". Fans can go to the band's Soundcloud page, where they can upload sounds which Uniform Motion will incorporate into their next album. This is cool on a variety of levels.

First, it's just a neat way to connect with fans in general, and actually make them feel truly engaged with the upcoming album. Second, it's a neat way of showing how some new technologies are making things that used to be difficult quite easy today. Soundcloud is a relatively new service, but the simple ability for an artist to quickly and easily get sounds from their fans, used creatively, allows Uniform Motion to offer something really cool. I'm excited to see what they end up coming out with in the end.

Filed Under: connect with fans, reason to buy, uniform motion
Companies: soundcloud

20 Comments

Band Explains Why It Loves When Fans Download Unauthorized Copies Of Its Music

Free

from the building-a-fan-base dept

Tue, Jun 26th 2012 4:03pm — Mike Masnick

There's an interesting blog post by Alexander Abnos, who is both a musician in the band Secret Cities and currently working as an intern at WNYC's SoundCheck radio program. He talks about how much his band loves the fact that people download their music, because it's helped them to build up a really loyal fanbase. He talks about how they signed with a label and spent a few years focusing on the band full time, and were always thrilled when people told them they had downloaded their music, even via unauthorized means:

Attendee: “I really enjoyed the show!”

Me: “What?!”

Attendee (now screaming): “I REALLY ENJOYED THE SHOW!!!”

Me: “Oh! Thanks! I’m glad you had good time! It was really fun!” (It almost always was).

Attendee: “I downloaded [insert Secret Cities album name here] illegally! Hope you don’t mind!”

Me: “Nope!”

I wasn’t lying. I didn’t really mind. We didn’t really mind. The reason is absurdly simple: This person heard our music, and enjoyed it enough to come to a show. Most times, they brought friends along. As a little-known band on the road, what more can you really ask for?

Later on he explains in more detail. And, what it comes down to is the same discussion we've been having for ages: obscurity is a much bigger "threat" than piracy ever was. The biggest challenge for a band is getting known, and these days, file sharing is one major way of getting known:

We love it because of the countless conversations like the one I recounted above. We love it because of the stadium’s worth of people that have listened to our songs on YouTube that might never have heard us otherwise. We love it because of that time in Atlanta on our first tour, when kids in the front row were mouthing along with our songs before our first record was even released.

We can’t put a dollar sign on those things. Why would we even want to?

Filed Under: alexander abnos, file sharing, obscurity, secret cities
Companies: wnyc

87 Comments

Seth Godin Uses Kickstarter To Test The Market For His Next Book (And The Results Are Good)

Business Models

from the demand-proofing dept

Thu, Jun 21st 2012 3:15pm — Mike Masnick

As a few people sent in, famed author Seth Godin is doing an interesting experiment with Kickstarter, where he has teamed up with a publisher who essentially wanted to use the platform to prove there's significant demand for Godin's next book. Basically, if he could effectively sell pre-orders for the project to raise $40,000, then the publisher would invest in the project as well and support getting it into bookstores and putting a promotional campaign behind it. It took Godin less than three hours to surpass that goal (and then go way, way beyond it as well).
Godin makes a strong point about how the traditional process, of investing a ton of money upfront, without knowing if there's really demand, is inherently risky for traditional publishers (and studios and labels). This is one area where a platform like Kickstarter is quite interesting beyond just the "fundraising" side of things. It can also be a tool for gauging demand for a project.

In fact, some others have been recognizing exactly that. Andy Baio recently wrote a column at Wired, in which he talks about using Kickstarter as a way to judge demand for something without having to put forth that initial capital expenditure.

Of course, once you realize that it can be a demand platform, rather than purely a funding platform, interesting possibilities open up:

As far as I can tell, nobody’s flipped it around and tried to commission a musician to play for fans. Most bands already play corporate events and private parties. If fans collectively raise the same amount of money, why not play a house show for them instead? For fans, it’d be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see an artist they love in an intimate setting. For musicians, it’d pay well without the malaise that comes from playing the Intel holiday party.

In other words, as a demand platform, Kickstarter (or others) can be used to demonstrate demand (and actual money) for something that people want to come into existence, and then people can figure out how to make it happen. That's pretty powerful just for being different than how things have been done before.

That's not to say that this makes sense for everything, or that there aren't risks associated with it. Execution matters, and paying up at the demand stage can lead to disappointment if the eventual product doesn't live up to expectations (or, worse, never actually gets made). So there's a different kind of risk there, though one that is likely to be more distributed. There is also the risk of "failure." A good idea that may not be explained well at this stage may not come to fruition. But, in the end, these are really just flipsides to the traditional risk taken by gatekeepers. It's just that it's getting moved around, and done in a way that actually decreases the overall burden of the risk, which makes it possible to create more with less overhead (a good thing for everyone!)

And, remember, we're really only in the first few years of these types of efforts. Kickstarter, which gets most of the attention, is just three years old. Imagine where things will be 10 years from now.

Filed Under: books, business models, demand, seth godin, test

6 Comments

Fiona Apple To Label: Back Off, I'm Connecting With My Fans

Say That Again

from the the-internet's-got-this dept

Thu, Jun 7th 2012 1:17pm — Mike Masnick

We've written about the tangles of singer Fiona Apple and her label, Epic (a Sony imprint), for years. Back in 2005, Epic refused to release her album, because it "didn't hear a hit." Instead, the album leaked and started getting radio play, which got fans excited and, finally, Epic felt compelled to release it. The NY Times recently had an article about her latest album, which has actually been done for well over a year, but has been "held up" by shakeups at the label. However, what may be most interesting is a section where they talk about her recent appearance at SXSW, where her management basically told Epic to stay the hell out of the way and not do anything:

“The Idler Wheel” is counting on the devotion of Ms. Apple’s fans. Before she appeared at South by Southwest her manager, Andy Slater, said he told Epic Records: “ ‘I want you to do nothing.’ I said: ‘Don’t make any posters. Don’t make any cards. Don’t put out a single. Just don’t say anything. Let her play the show. It’s been a few years. Let kids go to the show, film the thing, put it on their blogs, and you don’t need to do anything.’ ” Almost immediately after her set amateur video clips were on YouTube.

There are a few interesting things here. First of all, we're always told that musicians need the big labels for "marketing" purposes. Yet, here's an artist specifically recognizing that the way a label does marketing can actually make things worse, not better. On top of that, what she (or her management, in this case) clearly recognize is that the way to really do "marketing" these days is to connect with fans and then trust them -- not treat them as criminals. Notice that no one wanted the label to release a video or put the music on YouTube. Instead, they full expected and were happy with the fact that the fans filmed the show and put it on YouTube. The same YouTube that is still being sued for a billion dollars for letting people do that. The same YouTube that people tell us needs to be more proactive in preventing the fans from doing exactly what they did and exactly what Apple appears to have wanted them to do.

There's a big point here. If we shut down sites like YouTube, or force them to pre-block any and all content without proof of copyright or license, this kind of very, very successful marketing wouldn't be possible. Instead, you'd have nothing but Epic doing its thing -- which everyone seems to recognize would lead to a worse result for the artist...

Filed Under: connect with fans, fiona apple, leak
Companies: epic, sony

54 Comments

Author Using Kickstarter To Offer His Book To The Public Domain, And Help Other Creators To Do The Same

Business Models

from the needs-better-production-values,-but... dept

Wed, Jun 6th 2012 1:31pm — Mike Masnick

I was recently alerted to an interesting project and organization seeking to get more new works into the public domain. It's been started by Aaron Pogue, who self published some books last year, selling well over 100,000 copies, and allowing him to not just quit his job, but to start an entire organization focused on helping content creators get paid to put their works into the public domain. The goal is to use systems like Kickstarter and others to allow fans to support the organization, called The Consortium, to pay them a salary -- just like a normal job -- for which they can then create content to release into the public domain.

Pogue is kicking this off with an attempt to raise $30,000 for the third book in his trilogy. If he hits the goal, he'll release the book into the public domain, allowing anyone to do whatever they want with it. Make a movie out of it? Go for it. Do a fan edit of it? No problem. Whatever you want, once it's in the public domain.

That said, it's not clear if he'll make the goal, though it is an interesting project. I'm wondering why it hasn't raised that much and I have a couple of theories: first, the production quality on the video with the Kickstarter project isn't great. I know this isn't always easy, but for some reason, projects with better quality production seem to just do better on Kickstarter. The other thing is that I'm wondering how many of the buyers of Pogue's first two books in the trilogy even know about this offer. In fact, I wonder if this is one of the limitations of relying on a platform like Amazon -- in that it can put a wall between an author and his or her fans.
Either way, I'm really interested in these types of projects. And it's great to see people like Pogue out there -- a successful artist -- not just explaining that copyright isn't "the only" way to make money as a creator, but almost certainly not the best way to make money. And then to take that even further, and to help other artists make money without relying on the crutch of copyright, is a very cool thing to see, whether or not this particular Kickstarter campaign succeeds. In the meantime, though, if you would like to show some support for this type of project, check out the Kickstarter campaign and see if you think it's worth backing.

Filed Under: aaron pogue, crowdfunding, public domain, self-publishing

70 Comments

Vibram Boss: IP Enforcement Is A Waste Of Time; You're Better Off Building A Relationship With Customers

Say That Again

from the good-for-him dept

Tue, Jun 5th 2012 3:29pm — Mike Masnick

Last year, we wrote about a ridiculous bit of javascript coding on the website for Vibram (makers of the famed "five finger" shoes) in Italy -- in which if you merely right-clicked on an image, you were accused of trying to illegally copy their images. I was thinking about this recently, as I actually bought a pair of Vibrams. Last Thursday, upon receiving the Vibrams, I mentioned them online, and a DC-lobbyist, who follows me on Twitter, suggested my purchase was hypocritical, since he claimed Vibram was a strong supporter of intellectual property enforcement -- and pointed me to this Vibram ad, which shows a raised "middle toe" on one of their shoes as "a message to anyone thinking about infringing on any of our 200+ patents and trademarks."

It turns out that this ad is from 2010, and apparently the company's attitude has evolved quite a lot in the past two years. With somewhat amazing timing, the very day that my shoes arrived, the BBC put out an article in which Vibram's CEO, Tony Post, explains that focusing on IP enforcement is a waste of time -- and that the better solution is to build a much stronger relationship with customers -- basically the same thing we've argued for over a decade now:

"Candidly, you have to realise that intellectual property only gets you so far," says Mr Post. "At the end of the day it's really about your relationship with the consumer."

What the company realized was that focusing on lobbying and enforcement just wasn't effective. Instead, educating customers on the difference between real and fake Vibrams, and showing why they'd want to buy the real ones (i.e., giving them a "reason to buy") was much more effective. The company put up a page showing customers how to spot a fake, and saw that it worked.

Vibram offered vouchers to customers who had unwittingly bought fake Five Fingers, so that they could buy the real product at cost price.

The company also put up a page on its website alerting customers, enlisted the help of bloggers and asked fans of its Facebook page to get the word out.

Within a year, the deluge of complaints from customers who had bought fake products slowed to a trickle.

Amusingly, the article quotes Susan Scafidi, a professor who is well known for her support of ratcheting up intellectual property laws on fashion/clothing, suggesting that Vibram speaking out and connecting with its customers on this issue was a mistake: "It was a risky move, according to Ms Scafidi, who says that a company associating its name - however tangentially - with counterfeit goods could damage its brand." Beyond the fact that she was empirically wrong about this, that makes no sense. Being open and honest with fans, and explaining why they'd want to support the company whose product they like (and why counterfeit products are inferior quality) seems like a smart strategy. It's hard to see how that could "damage the brand" at all. In fact, it seems almost guaranteed to do the opposite, as it appears to have done here.

While the company still does seem to be interested in some legislative changes (and is taking legal action against a competitor), it certainly seems like a case where a company has realized that there are better ways to deal with these issues than just using intellectual property law.

Filed Under: connect with fans, enforcement, reason to buy, susan scafidi, tony post
Companies: vibram

36 Comments

Amanda Palmer Raises $1.2 Million On Kickstarter, And The Crowd Goes Wild

Business Models

from the awesomeness dept

Fri, Jun 1st 2012 1:36pm — Mike Masnick

We've written a bunch about the amazing success of the Amanda Palmer Kickstarter campaign, powered by Amanda's amazing ability to build an army of fans, by connecting with them day after day after day.

The campaign completed last night, with a grand total of $1,192,793 raised from 24,883 fans -- an average of nearly $50 per person. Not bad at all.

Once again, as we saw with Louis CK, this seems to put to rest two key "myths" that we often hear from supporters of the legacy industry business models.

Myth 1: People today just want stuff for free and won't pay. Yet, here, they not only paid, but the average amount paid was a hell of a lot more than a typical album. If you're open, human and awesome and you give people a real reason to buy, they will.

Myth 2: People download illegally and don't pay because they think artists are all rich. While it's true that you'll sometimes hear someone defend file sharing with a claim about "rich" artists, those arguments are few and far between -- and are usually much more directed at a very, very small number of top pop stars, rather than as a defense for more widespread downloading. And, if anything, most of those complaints frequently are more directed at gatekeepers keeping a disproportionate share of any revenue. But here, where Amanda made well over a million dollars -- even if much of it will be spent in getting this album out and related projects/tour going -- her fans were absolutely thrilled at the amount she raised and have been celebrating each and every milestone along the way.

Last night, after the Kickstarter campaign closed, Amanda threw a giant blockparty in NYC (also streamed online), where tons of her fans showed up and they seemed to have quite a fun time:

And I grabbed a quick sampling of tweets about all of this and you see comment after comment after comment from fans celebrating the amount:

In many ways, that first tweet -- which says "she/we did it!" is quite revealing. This was never just about Amanda. This (and many, many other projects by creators who connect with their audience) are about involving the fans and making them a part of the experiment. People weren't upset about how much Amanda raised -- they were so completely invested in both her and the Kickstarter campaign that the success of the campaign was a success for the fans as well. It's exciting to be a part of something special, and that's part of what makes Kickstarter so compelling.

It's not about an "us vs. them" model -- which is how the legacy industry players too frequently frame things. It's about an inclusive model, where it's about more than money. It's about an emotional investment in the artist and the outcome. People don't begrudge the success, because it's not just Amanda's success. It's the success of everyone who supported her.

Filed Under: amanda palmer, connect with fans, crowdfunding, louis ck

46 Comments

Dan Bull Auctioning Off Another Custom Song On eBay

Business Models

from the hmm,-a-techdirt-theme-song? dept

Tue, May 22nd 2012 7:32pm — Mike Masnick

We've obviously written about musician Dan Bull a few times, but that's because he keeps doing cool things, both in writing good, insightful and funny songs about topics we're interested in here, but also experimenting with cool ways to connect with fans while also using free music to further his career. A year ago he auctioned off a custom song, and now he's doing the same thing again:

I AM SELLING MYSELF ON EBAY. If you're the winning bidder, I''ll record a custom song on any topic you choose. The song will be awesome. Click and bid now.

Suggestions:
* Anthem for your guild or sports team
* Advert for your business
* Theme tune for your film or YouTube channel
* Something ridiculously challenging just to show that I can do it.
* Battle track against something / someone you disagree with

If I like the topic, I may make a video for it too and it will get tens of thousands of views at the very least.

You can see the auction here, where the bidding is going fast and furious. I'm sure it helps that he's built up a larger and larger audience over the past year since he last ran this experiment...

What I love about experiments like this is that it's not just about doing the same thing that others are doing, but finding what works with your audience, and knowing that if you can build up a strong fanbase, they'll be happy to support you doing cool things.

Filed Under: auction, connect with fans, custom song, dan bull

51 Comments

Amanda Palmer Details How All That Kickstarter Money Is Being Spent

Business Models

from the being-open-and-awesome dept

Tue, May 22nd 2012 3:06pm — Mike Masnick

Back at Midem, I did a presentation talking about the importance of being more open, human and awesome is a key component to standing out against the (growing) competition these days. I used the example of Louis CK, but Amanda Palmer would be just as good. After all, her Kickstarter campaign is getting tons of attention for raising a ton of money, leading many to wonder how she did it.

But as the numbers keep going up, it's also raised a second question: where is all of that money going? And so it should come as little surprise that Palmer has opened up and explained in fairly great detail where the money is going, and highlighting that even if the campaign ends up at a million dollars (a real possibility), a very large percentage of that money is actually going back into the "product" being offered. Here's just a snippet, but you should read the whole thing:

7,000+ high-end CD-books & thank you cards cost about $15 a package to manufacture and ship. that’s $105,000.

1,500+ vinyls & cards, at about $20 to manufacture & ship…about $30,000

2,000+ art books (bearing in mind the shipping on those, every time they need to be shipped from the plant, to the distributor, to YOU, plus the signing, is killer) will cost us roughly $80,000.

PLUS we have to factor in about $15-20k to pay our design team to actually design all this stuff, and to make it super-duper amazing and worth your money. those of you who supported mine and Neil’s last Kickstarter know what i’m talking about here. this CD is gonna be a super-deluxxxxxe work of art.

the neil and kyle books are going to cost us a LOT of dough to create…let’s just throw out about $100/copy for about 100 copies…that’s 10k.

if we sell about 100 turntable packages: ordering the tables, paying the artists to paint them, shipping all that stuff around: ballpark another $15k.

arts & crafts/7-inch packages, if we sell about 300 of them, adds about another $30k (we’re planning on spending roughly $100 each on the packaging for those, including not only the vinyl but the fun arts-and-crafts activities. oh, and postage/shipping x5)

There's a lot more, but it adds up. In the end, she basically notes that the purpose of Kickstarter alone isn't to make a profit, but to invest in all of this awesomeness such that it can help sustain things going forward:

ONE…we are committed to doing amazing things for all of you who pledged. sure, it’s going to cost more to make things extra fancy (and for us to ship things for FREE all over the world), but making this stuff amazing IS THE POINT. if i skimped on making the packaging and actual products INCREDIBLE, i’d be an idiot.

and

TWO...a LOT of our income for the next year WON’T COME from this kickstarter. it’ll come gradually, over the following year: from the touring show, from the merchandise we sell on the road, from money we get in donations when i make the tracks available online, from the money i get from iTunes from the people who are sometimes lazy (like me), and so forth. it’ll be a slow burn, like it always is.

Some might think it's incredible that she could "make" a million dollars, and not come out super wealthy out of that process, but as she noted: "that’s FINE with me. it’s almost even THE PLAN." Why? Because it helps set up a variety of things for the future. This is important. As much as we've praised Kickstarter, which is completely awesome, it's not a business model by itself. It can be a piece of a business model, but it's an "event" and a limited time thing, rather than a sustainable ongoing revenue stream. Amanda is using Kickstarter wisely (obviously) not to just raise a ton of money and throw it all away (like a major label advance), but as a way to invest smartly in an awesome product while also setting up a way to keep earning money in the future.

And she's doing all of this in a characteristically open and human way.

As we said, being open, human and awesome is a key way to succeed these days, and Amanda's doing it better than just about anyone else out there.

Filed Under: amanda palmer, crowdfunding, midem, open human and awesome
Companies: kickstarter

224 Comments

Biggest Kickstarter Project Ever Surpasses $10 Million; Cuts Off Funding

Business Models

from the impressive dept

Mon, May 14th 2012 2:57pm — Mike Masnick

We keep hearing that these new business models and platforms really can't handle "big" projects. While part of the charm and power of these platforms is that they can fund smaller "long tail" projects that might never otherwise see the light of day, there's no reason that they can't do bigger projects as well. A few weeks ago, we told you about the Kickstarter campaign for the Pebble e-watch, which was the fastest growing Kickstarter project ever, surpassing $1 million in just 28 hours, and hitting $4.5 million by the time we got our post out.

Last week, the project surpassed $10 million and still had over a week to go. However, the folks behind the project had decided to cap the total number of watches that could be pre-sold via Kickstarter at a mere 85,000. So once that number was hit, they set the Kickstarter to show all the items sold out. While I could see some folks who were waiting towards the end get a little annoyed (thankfully, I got my order in a few days earlier), projects like this should at least open some eyes to the fact that Kickstarter is not just for small stuff. While some have argued that something like Kickstarter could never fund a Martin Scorcese film, remember Kickstarter is just three years old. If Scorcese set up an interesting project with cool tiers, I wouldn't be surprised to see it funded to massive levels.

Filed Under: crowdfunding, pebble
Companies: kickstarter

26 Comments

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