Example:
Step 1 – put music online for free download
Step 2 – ???
Step 3 – profit!

….sorry, that’s not a business model, “new” or “old”

1. being a musician is a hobby, not a career. musicians who try to make a living selling recorded copies of their music (any medium) are dinosaurs or delusional.

2. if 10,000 people download your album for free and 5 pay for it, that’s because your music sucks, not because the business model doesn’t work.

3. the filesharing mob will cheer on any record company that puts their music online for free download, but will also not pay them a cent.

One of the reasons why music doesn’t seem very good value any more is that 90% of the cost of a CD album goes on advertising/marketing/legal fees/CD duplication etc etc. With the advent of P2P, a band doesn’t NEED a record company to do these things. In the age of the iPod, we don’t need CD jewel cases, billboard advertising campaigns etc. We can just look at a website that reviews music, and then get it for nothing via P2P.

To me, it’s fairly obvious that all digital media (including software) will be free of charge at the point of use in the near future. A “respectable” site like YouTube, iTunes, or MySpace will exist, wherein mp3s will be freely available, on the proviso that downloaders will see adverts. Bands will be able to sell merchandise, run forums and promote concerts on such a site. Accepting donations would also be apposite.

It just takes a few more major bands to leave the big companies for the End Game to begin.

Go Swedes GO!

But I want to see any of the coming 70 comments or so tell me a way to utilize file sharing in a profitable way to make it WORTH making music…[/quote]

You seem genuine, and since I don’t expect you to have read every post on this site, I’ll repeat what I’ve posted elsewhere, for your benefit.

It’s already been shown that it’s far more profitable to the musician to go through a Web site or set one up and offer their work for a small cost, rather than through middlemen who retail it for $20-$40 for blind sale (unknown content).

When people see the enterprising way you are going about it, and that you are avoiding these hated labels, and you yourself are NOT greedy; that is, you offer free samples preferrably in good quality, and most importantly, offer your albums for what people can AFFORD to pay or WANT to pay, say $1-$5. You have a system in place where they can EASILY pay and then download in good quality MP3 (VBR). That doesn’t mean giving it away free, as you could still make millions on an album, and why would anyone want or need more than that?

Publicity would be easy and people would be glad to pay it if it was good. Many artists have published their own music doing it the hard way, but now it’s easier than ever. If they can’t learn and implement these basics, it’s just laziness and perhaps they don’t deserve to make money. In any case if I were a musician I’d be happy to and feel privileged to have it distributed to and enjoyed for free to a worldwide audience.

There’s other distribution methods such as what Prince did with the newspaper. Although he gave it away for “free” he still could’ve made a lot from the deal if he’d wanted to. Not saying he did tho.

Since it is extremely hard to prove intent, It’s also very hard to prove copyright infringement, since whatever ‘evidence’ the prosecutor wants to use against you does not accurately prove the intent.

In order to enforce something as banal as copyright, you’d need to either know everything or live in an Orwellian society. Or be a hive mind. Since neither is possible, you can’t enforce copyright. Because in order to prove intent, you’d have to know the intent of the accused at the time of the infringement.

Assumptions go nowhere. Evidence can prove you were at the scene of the crime, but it cannot prove intent.

Until we can prove intent, the RIAA is fighting a losing battle.[/quote]
they can only prove that ip adress x downloaded a file called blabla. not who did it=)

Since it is extremely hard to prove intent, It’s also very hard to prove copyright infringement, since whatever ‘evidence’ the prosecutor wants to use against you does not accurately prove the intent.

In order to enforce something as banal as copyright, you’d need to either know everything or live in an Orwellian society. Or be a hive mind. Since neither is possible, you can’t enforce copyright. Because in order to prove intent, you’d have to know the intent of the accused at the time of the infringement.

Assumptions go nowhere. Evidence can prove you were at the scene of the crime, but it cannot prove intent.

Until we can prove intent, the RIAA is fighting a losing battle.

So obviously that Bolton guy has to leave for more urging pastures, what else was expected? I still can’t believe that so many people can be lured into feeding an over-obvious troll like that…

You shouldnt have started commenting in the first place, since practically all of it was extremist bullshit. You cant force the world to spin the way youd like it to.

I my ears thats like saying that you’d rather that people that haven’t got any more money to spend on music should avoid listening to your music. Then everything would be fine and dandy. Bizzare.

Copying isnt stealing. You may be confident it is, since you are working and not getting paid as much as you’d like, but your business failure does not make copying stealing. Copying is copying. In real world, your extremist luddite opinion does not count. If people do not think copying is wrong, it isnt wrong. Its not very wise, business wise, to live denying simple facts of life.

>to see what can be done to fix

You wont fix anything. There will also be no “compromise” to be reached. Massive filesharing is here to stay. You’ll adapt to people freely sharing your work on the internet, or you will disappear. Living in denial may only hurt you in the long run.

>what’s happening.

Nothing is happening. People are using technology thats available to them the way they like. They exchange information. They communicate. You wont stop anybody from using technology in order to get money for manually delivering copies of music. You just wont. All you can accomplish is pissing people off, so they surely wont attend your future concerts, let alone paying you for useless plastic copies.

I’m sure you know that.

So just keep insulting the people you want to get money from. I’ve heard its working great for the RIAA. :)[/quote]
QFE.
if we follow up on how piracy is evolving in sweden its going to be free on the internet and the live concert is going to cost moneys. best idea ever.

Copying isnt stealing. You may be confident it is, since you are working and not getting paid as much as you’d like, but your business failure does not make copying stealing. Copying is copying. In real world, your extremist luddite opinion does not count. If people do not think copying is wrong, it isnt wrong. Its not very wise, business wise, to live denying simple facts of life.

>to see what can be done to fix

You wont fix anything. There will also be no “compromise” to be reached. Massive filesharing is here to stay. You’ll adapt to people freely sharing your work on the internet, or you will disappear. Living in denial may only hurt you in the long run.

>what’s happening.

Nothing is happening. People are using technology thats available to them the way they like. They exchange information. They communicate. You wont stop anybody from using technology in order to get money for manually delivering copies of music. You just wont. All you can accomplish is pissing people off, so they surely wont attend your future concerts, let alone paying you for useless plastic copies.

I’m sure you know that.

So just keep insulting the people you want to get money from. I’ve heard its working great for the RIAA. :)

I completely agree that we need to incorporate it and I clearly see the distribution power of P2P. I’m just saying: this “Model” is more of a “we’re okay with P2P! Yay!” than a “here’s how musicians can actually make money whilst incorporating P2P”.

Or perhaps the idea is simply for musicians to begin to view their recordings as advertising for concerts. My friend’s band recently played in Moscow and he explained to me that, while they’ve made little or no money in record sales there, bands stand to make a killing on concert ticket sales because… well, you can’t replicate the feeling of a live show and distribute it on P2P. (save it, jerk: bootleg vids and audio of the live show don’t count. I’m talking about BEING there.)

So maybe musicians need to continue to focus on publishing–getting their songs played in films, advertising, TV shows, etc–and playing live shows.

If a band who is unsigned is having their music distributed illegally over the internet, its taking valuable money away from the artist… money he/she will use to payback the costs of their record, to tour to support their record, and to promote their record in order to reach a broader audience.

If you take the money out of this equation, youre left with a group who has recorded an album, but has no means (aside from free distribution), of reaching a broader fan base due to lack of tour support/promotional capabilities. Furthermore, often this will put a band in debt due to the cost it of making the record in the first place. Of course, with a major label artist, this money and promotion comes from the label, so why its still vital for them to sell records in order to satisfy the record company, its not as vital as it is to an independent artist.

Basically, while as an artist I’d absolutely rather have a million people who love and connect with the music than 2 million who buy it but dont like it, its just impractical.

Im in an indie band that has just recorded our debut album… we’re definitely in debt from the recording process and pressing of our album, and we’re scrapping for money, trying to get whatever we can together to get out on the road and start getting a bigger fanbase.

I dont think illegal file sharing has played any sort of significant role in taking away from our sales… all im saying is that having sales is 150% vital to us. Without record sales, we will have to stop making music because we’ll be completely broke.

That being said, if any of you like muse, queen, franz ferdinand, or the cold war kids, check “Carlotta” out: http://www.CarlottaTheBand.com . Gawd… talk about shamelessness :p

Secondly, I don’t care how cheap something is, if there’s a free alternative then the free alternative will always win.

People need to get their heads out of their asses. Piracy is stealing and there’s no way to justify it. I’m not like most people that sit around and make petty excuses for why I download games, movies, music, etc. I download it because I don’t want to pay for it. And yes I am stealing what I’m downloading. Do I care? Not at all. Fuck em. Get it while the gettin is good is what I say. I figure that there will always be enough people buying a game, movie, or album that the makers will see some sort of profit. The profit might be less (and in some cases A LOT less) than what it could have been if P2P wasn’t in the picture but again I don’t care about their profits they still have a lot more money than I do. Yes I realize that in the long run that lower profits mean less of a reason for game/music/and movie publishers to produce a large quantiy of quality material, but again I don’t care. Live for today baby. Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow.

And finally, with the exception of a few albums and a few games, 99% of the shit I download I wouldn’t have paid for anyway so I don’t feel as though I’m hurting the industry by downloading. It’s nice to have all my favorite hit’s from the 80′s in my music collection but there’s no way in a million years that I would have bought all those songs/albums. Had P2P not been there to make them available to me then I guess I’d just live without it.

The only exception to all this is sheet music. I do download a lot of sheet music for the piano through P2P. Had P2P not been there then I guess I would have bought most of it. It’s either buy it or learn it by ear.

The moral of this story is that people need to quit justifying P2P use. It is what it is. Stealing. And all your excuses and rhetoric will never change that fact. At least admit it and quit playing games.[/quote]

I think you’re missing the big picture here. The point is, there *won’t* be any more large companies to produce music and entertainment. There won’t be any gatekeepers above us that allow us to share ideas, but only if we have enough money. The newer model suggests that people will be sharing and creating for its own sake, not to create a multi-billion dollar industry which is still not satisfied. We, the consumer, will soon become the producers, and will be able to share ideas across the world, and improve upon other’s ideas. Have you ever hear of FOSS? There’s a reason there’s such a buzz about it, and its the fact that people all over the world have instant access to it that makes it develop at light speed compared to these mammoth corporations that are filled to the brim with filler and apathetic employees who only work to make a paycheck, not a better product.

Music and entertainment as a part of human culture started well before the MAFIAA, and will not stop when it is gone. If anything, they will be a spot on the human history timeline that we laugh at in the future: “Haha, we had our own culture for thousands of years, and then let big businesses sell it back to us for a hundred or so years before we realized what the fuck we were doing!” Fuck that, I refuse to buy back my own creativity.

While the RIAA sues its customers, and blames filesharing for the decrease in record sales, a coalition of seven independent Swedish record labels explores alternatives that make use of the Internet and filesharing technology….

1) Filesharing isn’t stealing. Even if current laws say it is, it’s just a big mistake in the current laws and nothing else. Such shit happens, you know. Some 150 years ago slavery was legalized too.

2) If you made an album it doesn’t mean anything at all. You can own the original CD, no problem. But it certainly doesn’t mean that you own all of the copies and the whole world is in your debt.

3) You are a musician and you want money? Give concerts, set up a website to sell music to your fans. Umm… what? Ah, you want a Porsche. Well, you can continue to want it, we have no problems with it.

4) Time=money doesn’t work anymore. Learn to live with it. Or die, if you can’t, frankly noone cares.

5) Filesharing causes bad to exactly who? To fat pigs in record labels? Oh, I’m so concerned. To some crappy pop singers who can only lip-synch? Give me a break.[/quote]
;)

Me too, all those fit blondes yum yum!

arrogant? I didn’t make that up. I asked them myself. that’s what they told me. they would check out the myspace, and if they like it, ask a friend to send it to them and think nothing of it. I just lost a customer.

they pirated my music because they DID like it. they’d hear it on myspace, and then ask a friend to send it who either pirated it from someone else or maybe bought it.

the only thing piracy was GOOD for in my case was putting my band in the mouths of a couple people it probably wouldn’t have reached. maybe like +a hundred myspace friends which in reality means what.. nothing?

This is EXACTLY what I’ve been thinking. Filesharing isn’t something that can be fixed by suing people left and right. It is the next step in distribution, music on plastic discs isn’t the shit anymore. Until the record labels figure this out and start taking advantage of this fact they’re going to keep losing money. Adapt or die.

it has everything to do with the attitude of the people. not feeling like paying $10 for a CD is what we do every time we go to mininova and get what we want. I don’t know many people in real life who actually buy their music.

it’s a loss because more people pirated my music than bought it just because they didn’t feel like paying. I asked them myself and got the answers. it had nothing to do with how ‘good’ the music was. I’m not even trying to draw the spotlight to my personal situation. it was just an example.

just because you’re not walking into a store and taking the CD and then distributing doesn’t make it not stealing. you’re just justifying using the available technology to commit crimes. lol.

Ok… To me that sounds just like people who wouldn’t have bought your stuff anyway. (didn’t feel like paying $10)

So why would that be a loss to you?

It might be basic math to you, but it’s more like failing grades in basic economics on your part as I see it.

but no, once again, I’m not employed by some antipiracy company. what do you mean by ‘sell out’? are you 10? I had that attitude when I knew nothing about what’s going on.

I’m not even employed. I’m in a recording arts degree program. I’ll be in the industry within a couple years. I’m trying to spark discussion amongst the people doing the actual stealing to see what can be done to fix what’s happening.

I work right now sometimes doing sidejobs as a freelance mastering engineer/recording engineer and I write my own music. what do you want to know?

what’s inane is that you’re assuming that my music is horrible but first of all, that’s subjective. second, irrelevant because I had sales regardless and people still copied and stole my music. it doesn’t matter how ‘good’ my music is because it still had a market and it was still copied and distributed illegally. this happens on a much larger level when it comes to labels.

there is no undercover when you’re trying to do honest things. lol.

ROTFL!

Here’s my proof that you are the reason i’m not a millionaire. if you didn’t exist, I would have something to show for the the work I do. that’s my proof.

Really… that isn’t a proof, it’s not even coherent reasoning for Gods sake!

You can’t just postulate something and say thats the proof. Get a grip!

1) Filesharing isn’t stealing. Even if current laws say it is, it’s just a big mistake in the current laws and nothing else. Such shit happens, you know. Some 150 years ago slavery was legalized too.

2) If you made an album it doesn’t mean anything at all. You can own the original CD, no problem. But it certainly doesn’t mean that you own all of the copies and the whole world is in your debt.

3) You are a musician and you want money? Give concerts, set up a website to sell music to your fans. Umm… what? Ah, you want a Porsche. Well, you can continue to want it, we have no problems with it.

4) Time=money doesn’t work anymore. Learn to live with it. Or die, if you can’t, frankly noone cares.

5) Filesharing causes bad to exactly who? To fat pigs in record labels? Oh, I’m so concerned. To some crappy pop singers who can only lip-synch? Give me a break.