is it cold in your parents basement?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20081026/1928532642.shtml

I think the Instant Automatons were the first, but within a few months there was hundreds of them.

Ha ha PAYING is so 20th century. get over it.

And as my main comment, I’d like to say: file-sharing is an excellent way to get your demos into the hands of your fans, and there are at least tens of thousands of people that would pay for any given song (so long as its good, but that doesn’t mean you have to be Mozart);
the tragic flaw and the cold hard truth though, is online payment mechanisms suck.
Technology has taken file-sharing from its infancy into a near-fully advanced, fully-usable way to bring anything in the world to the fingertips of anyone in the world, and I say this is a good thing.
Online payment, however, is not so evolved. Every online transaction is riskier than an offline transaction, and usually more expensive. The development community has done an excellent job of giving us a way to share; but now we need a new, better way to (financially) show our appreciation, and pay for the goods we like enough to keep.

That’s the flaw. If I need a credit (not debit) card to make an online purchase; if I have to secretly question the trust-worthiness of every off-mainstream website; if I have to pay fees for the priviledge of paying the people whose work I admire; then the payment system is still in the 20th century, and we need a new one.

People do not naturally want to pay for a file. A file is information that can be copied at no cost. It is not an object you can touch. It’s only valuable as a peice of art – it is not a commodity.

If you want to make money, sell people something you can’t copy for free on the internet. Give them a live show – let them participate. Give them an experience. People will pay to see a good live band, and putting your music on p2p will certainly grow your audience.

But all said and done, a lot of artists will just have to come to terms with being poor. But remember: you signed up for that when you became a musician. We are starving artists.

It’s the same as OpenSource Software.
You may not become a millionaire writing Open Source
But, You can make a good living if you are good at it.
and if you look at most programmers they may make good money,
but they’re not billionaires, Open Source or Closed.
Most Musicians don’t make a lot of money,
They’re a re a lot of bands that work full time jobs other then music.
Most bands do.
They are better off giving they’re music away online.
It’s doesn’t coast anything, so it’s all or mostly profit.
and they, if they’re good, will get more paying jobs and sell more merchandise.

JIff
http://www.anonymity.pro.tc

Prove to any venue that you were able to generate 1,000,000+ downloads of your album, and you are going to be able to book gigs for every night of the week.

The record industry has not been around for long at all. They were a blip of the 20th century. How do you think artists survived before?

It has always been tough and will continue to be. The record industry HAD its place in the sun for a while, but now they are just writhing, trying to do as much harm as possible before they die out.

One fact of internet commerce will always be: You Must Pay To Development A Worldwide Brand.

Once that brand is developed it can be harvested many, many, times over. This is what pisses-off so many major record companies- they finance the brand/market development of all of these acts, only to have the bands give them shit when all the money does not come back to the band. I have lots of gripes about large labels, but this is a legitimate issue.

In the end (and this is important), someone is going to have spend $250,000 to $500,000 to develop the worldwide brand of an act (record label, marketing firm, sponsor, etc.). And, if (that’s a BIG ‘IF’) that initial marketing campaign takes hold, then, and only then, will you have a branded market to harvest for years to come. Without that initial investment (and risk) no one will ever know you are there.

This is standard marketing stuff- no smoke and mirrors.
Make the investment to develop an international brand, and you can make millions on donation based revenues. The question is, what’s easier: Getting private backing for brand development, or getting a record label to take that risk?

Bill Wilkins, CEO
Melted Metal Web Radio
http://www.meltedmetal.com/

And they expect to make money from it?

Advertise better, duh.

95% of music that comes out isn’t WORTH paying for.

THEREFORE, only pay for 5% of it.

Customers will however pay for a service such as reliable streaming or selection. This is especially true if the payment is made by having their enjoyment interrupted by adverts.

However, there will always be a place of downloading files, especially safe fast downloading between music and adult entertainment lovers using anonymous p2p using services such as D_a_r_g_e_n_s ( http://tinyurl.com/anonymousp2p ).

Here is another “huuuuge” plateform, with :
- association model (not brussel company like jamendo)
- no ads
- no donate buttons (except to donate to the association so that they can pay the servers and else)
- truly free licenced music (artist signing up on jamendo have to break their NonCommercial clause for the site to make profit)
- a forum where people actually think and talk bright (not fake “I love the guitar in your disc”, “thanks for the ad”, “be my friend” shit)

enjoy : http://www.dogmazic.net
(it’s still a massive archive with good and bad that is uneasy to find your taste match, but like any messy record store after all)

Setting up donation is the least to do, I don’t think its a bizness model.

The other reason so many artists aren’t making any money, is simply that there are SO MANY artists. If the money of all people who were willing to pay for music was split evenly between artists, I imagine they probably couldn’t live on it.
Obviously not all artists are equally good, but nonetheless the problem is that there is NO model which can support everyone who wants to make music.

Still it’s sad to see how something that is so much loved is not respected at all.

Those who want musicians to get a job, I wonder what kind job they have. Based on their arrogance it must be something really important for humanity.