Comment by Kyla Fairchild on July 7, 2010 at 4:50pm

So now you've got me dying to know what three artists are putting out a record together??

I wish I had the answers to the questions your post poses, but sadly I do not. The points you raise are of particular concern here as 95% of the revenue this site is able to generate comes from labels adverting records.

Comment by Craig Young on July 7, 2010 at 5:54pm

One person buys a CD or digital download, 25 people each burn a copy to CD and the other 999,975 people file share it. Now that is what I call volume!

Comment by Easy Ed on July 7, 2010 at 6:50pm

Your numbers about file sharing are probably not that far from the truth Craig, but only if it's Eminem. Within the genre spoken of here, it's not all as high as you might think. Recently an artist put out an open letter claiming that tens of thousands of their CD were downloaded illegally in Europe. In visiting the various sites where that would or could occur, I found no evidence to that level of activity. I do know a lot of artists think they are losing a ton of sales, but the download demographic is not all that interested in a 50 year old folk singer as they are a twenty-something indie band. If you want to know what's being file shared, go visit Pirate Bay and hit the top 100.

Comment by Craig Young on July 7, 2010 at 8:07pm

I hear what you are saying Ed. The point I was really trying to make was no one will buy music if they can get it for free. Not only that, but I think it's different today... many people are not being spoonfed by mainstream radio or TV. While I agree with Prince that the internet may be dead as far as selling music on the internet, the way I see it, the internet has blown things wide open and splintered the ways in which one can find out about countless numbers of artists, from chart topping mega-stars to bands that are just emerging from their garages. People just have more choices. For me personally, I'm done collecting things, by things I mean LP's, CD's, DVD's etc. shoot I don't even want to save files on my hard drive anymore. I am very happy to stream my music and video, let the internet store it.

Comment by Easy Ed on July 7, 2010 at 8:25pm

From today's Billboard Bulletin:
The rumored Google Music service will launch in the fourth quarter, according to tech blog Gizmodo, which cited an interview with Google's Android product manager Gaurav Jain in an Israeli newspaper. The Q4 launch would correspond with that of the new Android 3.0 mobile phone operating system, which would make sense seeing as cloud based access to music files from mobile phones is a central element of the Google Music plan.

This comes on the heels of Boy Genius Report's prediction that Apple will launch its iTunes-in-the-clouds service later this year as well, according to “reliable Apple sources.” And all of it follows the recent market entry of smaller competitors already offering cloud-based musiclocker-like streaming services such as mSpot, MP3Tunes. Google and Apple have massive marketing bullhorns and having them both loudly blaring a cloud-music message in competition with each other during the lucrative holiday sales season could do loads to help shift the public's understanding of this new music distribution model.

Now if all this comes to fruition, and I imagine it will, think of the new economics. Even if somehow it becomes an artist-direct model (and it won't for now), if you're paying $15 a month for unlimited music, how much will get into the pockets of the songwriters, artists and producers? We're talking tenths or hundredths of a cent. I guess that's better than nothing, but still...

Comment by Brendan McCloud on July 8, 2010 at 7:49am

Just this morning I did a google search of my artist name and once again I find there are hundreds of sites either giving my music away for free or free listening sites where you can be played and never be paid.

On the legal streams and download sites (the ones who actually pay) every so often I get pennies on the dollar for a stream or the occasional 99 cent download.

No one wants to pay even 79 cents for a download when there is limewire and/or free and cheap download and streaming sites.

The internet, as much as I love it, has ruined the music business for independent artists, since yes, one person buys a CD, rips it, puts it on something like limewire and everyone else shares or the commercial sites charge a flat fee for multiple downloads.

I saw on Youtube where Marc Cohn said (something like)"There is no record industry anymore. We used to do concerts in support of albums. Now the albums are made only to support live performances."

BMI has certainly not done anything to track internet plays for their independent artists, but then how could they when there are thousands of sites internationally giving your music away?

I get downloaded in Russia for free (at least for me). How do you get paid for that?

There are no easy answers for this. Even artist direct sales means that the one person who pays 79 to 99 cents can share their files infinitely.

If I didn't love music so much and didn't have the overwhelming compulsion to write songs and music and put them out there I wouldn't do it at all.

I just hope those folks in Russia enloy the music.

Here is what BMI has to say about it.

http://www.bmi.com/creators/royalty/533120

If better than nothing is all we can hope for, then we do it simply for the love of it as Don Henley said in a "Month of Sundays."

Comment by Brendan McCloud on July 8, 2010 at 8:01am

I stand corrected and then some by Google on the number of free download sites:

Type in "free mp3" ad here is what comes up, "About 239,000,000 results."

Admittedly an older, independent artist will never get the number of free downloads that young,"hot" artists get but the point is if there are 239,000,000 "free" download sites you are lucky if you ever sell anything at all online.

Comment by Easy Ed on July 8, 2010 at 8:52am

Hi Brendan...this may not make it seem any better to you or maybe it will, but I ran your name in Google, navigated through the first ten pages and tried hard to find a way to get your music for free. I couldn't.

The sites that are saying your music is available for free are for the most part based in Russia (as you mentioned), Eastern Europe and the UK, but when you try to actually download, it re-directs you to other sign-up pages for subscription services similar to eMusic (which gives you 25 free downloads for signing up). Using an artist database file easily obtained from any number of places, they link every artist's name with a "free mp3" splash page for a reseller or re-directer.

The more likely places for music such as yours to be downloaded are through blog sites, of which I found none. You also didn't come up a being available in .rar or. zip files hosted on the bigger sites such as Rapidshare , Megaupload or Hotfile. And finally, you aren't coming up on any of the torrent locations. For you, that should be some good news.

Now all that doesn't mean that your music isn't still possibly out there for free, because sometimes files can be well hidden and not picked up by search engines. But it's certainly not what I would call even close to being "readily available".

Where an artist can lose some income is in the European subscription services. If you aren't represented by one of the digital distributors and don't have a way to track it, there could be some lost income. Of course, if you've seen a statement from a subscription service lately, it doesn't all add up to that much.

Free or not free, one real problem is perceived value. If I look at the Google search for you and keep seeing "free" coming up even if it's not, I might think it is. So I'd look at Amazon or iTunes, see the prices that they charge and think I'm getting ripped off. And that could prevent me from making a purchase and you losing a chance of making some money.

Comment by RP N10 on July 8, 2010 at 4:55pm

I am convinced that streaming is the method the music industry is trying to use to make back its revenue streams. If you rent rather than buy and the places you used to buy disappear (which they will if comments here on unsustainbility are founded), then the next step is the rent goes up and if you don't pay you don't get to listen to anything at all.

I'm surprised at the costs quoted for a record. I read an interview with Steve Albini recently who said he rents his studio out (with himself as engineer) for $5k per week. A few artists I follow have been pre-selling to raise money for recording and the most expensive I saw (from around half a dozen) was $20k. Albini's point was that if the artists do their rehearsing outside of the studio then a week's plenty to get down an album lasting around an hour. The expsensive econmics don't really work I agree, but if an artist sells through their mailing list/facebook/myspace - which pulls in the base customers - then goes on the road and sells on tour, offers donwloads as well as CD/vinyl via their own or their record comanies website (YepRoc, Bloodshot spring to mind) they get to retain a larger proportion of the $$ and that's the way you can make a living at it. Now you might not be a trillionaire by the time you're 30 and you might have to keep on doing it till you're 65 or older. But thats's what the rest of us do. I agree it's the major artists that suffer most from downloading. A recent study in Europe showed that the people who download the most also buy the most CD's, legal downloads, gig tickets etc.

Comment by Brendan McCloud on July 13, 2010 at 8:46am

Hey Ed,

Thanks for the research. That makes me feel somewhat better.

I am distributed through the The Orchard and they keep pretty close track of streams and downloads, etc. on the majors. My first album is on itunes as well and I have to get the new one on once I have final masters.

I never thought I'd like bait and switch, but if the Russians are making it harder to get the freebies, then good.

"Free or not free, one real problem is perceived value. If I look at the Google search for you and keep seeing "free" coming up even if it's not, I might think it is. So I'd look at Amazon or iTunes, see the prices that they charge and think I'm getting ripped off. And that could prevent me from making a purchase and you losing a chance of making some money."

That is a concern. Amazon is selling my old CD for 13.98 but $8.99 for an mp3 download of the whole album. itunes sells the mp3 album for $9.99. I'd think more than twice about 13.98 myself...

It seems like everybody sells the single mp3's for 99 cents. I've thought of undercutting that on my own web pages with the nimbit console but worry that might affect buying through the major download sites.

I gladly pay 99 cents for something I like and I'm someone who could care less about hype. I'll buy a download from somebody I have never heard of if the music moves me, over somebody with tons of press.

Everybody has to do promotion one way or the other, But I'd buy Chris Whitley, Lucinda Williams or Steve Earle even if they had never had any promotion, once I discovered their music. That's the rub isn't it, discovering the really great music, if it's someone more obscure.

I had never heard of Chris Whitley until I saw his death notice on msnbc. I wondered how I could not have heard of this guy? And he was a signifciant, if not a major artist thoughout the 90's and into the 00's. His first album was more mainstream friendly and did well.

Chris though, was an artist and poet before being a "star" and kept doing more and more of what he wanted to do as an art form and his record company stopped backing him with promotion and eventually dropped him.

The reason I'm tying in promotion, or lack of it, is the whole issue of perceived value.

Everthing is a product and you have to promote to sell products. Most people, (though I'll bet there are numerous exceptions on ND due to word of mouth) buy what they see advertised and promoted. I see movies because of trailers. If I see a cool trailer, I think, "I want to see that movie."

I see lots of press on artists where the reviewer makes them sound like the second coming in music but then when I preview the actual music its more like the third best comic on last comic standing who gets sent home.

So I tend to be a persnickety buyer. But if I hear someone's music I have to have, I do the download. When I "discovered" Marc Selby I downloaded almost all of his songs in one day.

If we are independents we struggle against not having "cool trailers", and lack of a big promotion budget.

And then based on the subject that started this thread its very difficult to make sales. If the Drive By Truckers can't sell, then who can?

Its way more likely that well known bands get pirated than independents. But it makes it tougher being an independent because if you do start to get noticed then you are more likely to get pirated.

The good news? I have very low overhead. So far.

I decided a long time ago if I get even moderate recognition for what I write and record then thats more than enough. Call it "the low spark of realistic expectations."

I'll keep doing it anyway since like most writers I could'nt stop if I wanted to.

A good thread Ed and a lot of food for thought.

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