Well here’s my 2cents about the new music business and selling your music online. Well first of all I am an independent musician and have released two projects on my indie label. I have given singles away free and I agree it can be an effective way of getting people to listen to your music. Why buy it if you can get it for free?
I seen it written online that in the future music will be free anyway well that might be true. Unless we as musician’s put a stop to it. I think if your going to give away music posting low-quality downloads and then having a link where people can buy better quality downloads, might be something to look into. But why does it have to be free? It wasn’t free for music lessons, it’s not free to get your Cd mastered and it’s not even free for you to be reading this online now because you pay for the electricity to use your computer.
Is .99 cents really that much to ask? Imagine if everyone’s job just decide to stop paying them. Or the people who were the customers decided that not only do not want to pay for your services but everyone else who does what you do as well.I see all these guys posting what a great time it is for indie musician’s and that’s true but if people are just going to use free or illegal downloads where is the difference between them and those labels that were robbing musicians of their royalties and payments.
I have five songs available for free download.They each so far have average about 30’000 downloads and approximately 2 to 300 a week while I’m grateful for people taking the time to listen to my music but I’d much rather that translate into .99 per download.(hmmm let’s see 5 songs $30,000 each that’s $150,000(approx).Even a fourth of this would be great pay to any indie artist even just for one year I’m very aware that this business has changed because of the internet, and gone are the days of the superstars or so they say.
But, has it changed for the better or are there just new robbers now. If musicians were just able to take care of the cost of living I’d bet we’d have even better music available.Musician’s if you really want to stop this I suggest only posting snippets of your music.
Also before you release your Cd go to bittorrent.com and any other pirate websites you know of and upload fake versions of your Cd.Be sure to include the correct track numbers, names and correct listing order so hopefully when they do bootleg you and they will. Causing confusion amongst the free bandits may deter them. The other thing is to post your album as snippets in one mp3 on your Myspace and set a release date but before the release build your fan base as much as possible.While it is a great time for music be careful with your music because you do want to be able to eat.
Tags: New Music, Touche Maestro