Outspoken Group Releases Album as Free Download 457
SirNuke writes "Harvey Danger, a Seattle based rock band, has released their newest album Little by little for free mp3 download. They are doing this partially as an Internet publicity experiment, and partially as a stand against the Music Industry's attack on filesharing. From their website, 'In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as "illegal" file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little..., available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website. We're not streaming, or offering 30-second song samples, or annoying you with digital rights management software; we're putting up the whole record, for free, forever. Full stop. Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends.' I suggest you check it out."
Son of a bitch! (Score:5, Interesting)
How is this novel? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it novel and exciting because they also have a record deal? I thought a lot of industry-hating musicians would just refuse record deals on principle.
Re:jeff cliff (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:jeff cliff (Score:0, Interesting)
Bittorrent VC funding... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:MUSIC INDUSTRY BREAKDOWN: Where the money goes (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm on a private helicopter... (Score:5, Interesting)
But for those of you who'd like a geek tie-in, I've been poking through the websites of one of the band members [typepad.com] and come across some interesting commentary about getting things set up on the technical side, from choosing a webserver [geekfun.com] to making sure the files are tagged properly [geekfun.com].
Re:"as an Internet publicity experiment" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great marketing (Score:1, Interesting)
Why this is good... like you didn't already know.. (Score:4, Interesting)
1. I don't buy music. Really, I don't. I feel fine listening to everybody else's music which they bring to work. Or listen to oldie's on the radio. (My local stations have no good music, so oldies it is for me.)
2. There are plenty of bands I've never heard of, and are quite good. I had never heard of Jet, but a friend brought them in to work to listen to. Good stuff. I've heard some old Harvey Danger when I lived in Olympia, WA in the 90's. They were quite the sensation. Good stuff is hard to come buy, and when it does... we get interested and want to find out more.
3. For those who do buy music, they'll buy the album. Seriously, the average consumer likes to support what he or she likes. If the price isn't outragous, they'll pay. Sometimes they'll play again, because they lost the CD somewhere. I've seen it happen all the time.
4. For those who won't buy music, this changes nothing. People who won't buy the music they listen to are probably stealing it... So, this doesn't change the model.
5. For older music, either you already have it, or you have to go find it. If it's available on your band's website, then you can tell them all about your new music, or tours, or whatever.
I've always been of the opinion that if you broadcast any media, it should be public domain. Basicaly, if I can pick it up off the air, why can't I record it and replay it whenever I want? Don't want it to become public domain? Then don't broadcast it: Use pay-service such as Cable or satellite radio. Put it on a broadcast channel?
--Pathway
Re:jeff cliff (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great publicity stunt... (Score:1, Interesting)
I wouldn't be so sure. They'll get extra publicity, thousands of people will hear them for the first time, and may come to the next concert on their your, where they will pay $8-10 for a ticket.
If it works well, they'll get a lot more publicity and money than they would by being the ignored artist on a major label, with virtually no promotion and the label taking 90% of all the CD sales.
Re:Related topic of lost revenue--not for artists (Score:3, Interesting)
I was not happy about it.
Re:I'm on a private helicopter... (Score:1, Interesting)
A Fascinating, Thought-Provoking Experiment (Score:5, Interesting)
As a citizen, it makes me feel American-as-Apple-Pie to vote with my dollar in favor of a principle and model for which I have strong feelings. As a geek, it thrills me to participate in the subversion of the standard monolithic approach to cultural design by a leaner, sleeker, more modular one, built upon a (mostly) consentually standardized set of interfaces.
Sure, this may not be a completely original idea. In fact, this idea has been tried out in various forms for quite some time now. As someone who doesn't follow popular music, I've been at best peripherally aware of this phenomenon. Very little product represented in this way has been of interest to me. Up until now, I haven't had the inclination to support this process in an active way, because, while I agree with it on principle, it has never been presented to me in a manner that is compelling enough to cause me to make an actual change in my behavior, despite whatever antipathy I might have for the music-industry-at-large.
Take me as an experimental group, if you like. My reaction was positive for a number of reasons. First, that the presentation alluded to certain social and cultural phenomena about which I feel strongly, namely culture itself, free cultural exchange, and the rights both to personal expression and to the personal establishment of cultural norms as vehicles for communication (which I assert as self-evident as an arguable premise).
Second, the integrity of the experiment. While the artists retain their copyright, they release the music with, for the intents and purposes of the common listener, no restrictions upon its use and distribution. Express what cynicism you may about the common listener and his social motivations, or the artists and their financial motivations, but the things that motivate people do so because they are rewarding to people. The new model might do much, and the traditional business model certainly does comparatively little, to reward its constituency for simply doing what comes naturally to it.
People naturally seem to want to share ideas and experiences with one another, finding a place in the "noosphere" (if you will) to call home. At the same time, it is difficult to be cut off from diversity and potential. Whereas a society that indoctrinates its members to accept culture as it is handed to them does little to foster a deep-seeded sense of diversity of experience, perhaps a society that rewards vigilance, determination and resourcefulness with breadth and splendor and models for expression that suit the individual's needs will do better.
I'll download the album and listen to it, but I think I'll keep my package wrapped and sealed as a memento of a historically noteworthy occasion.
2 things spring to mind... (Score:2, Interesting)
1st... How you could get people to pay you some money for your songs is to exploit the "first post" urge of your fans, and get them to register at the bands offical homepage, and have a page for the supporting fans. You just need to have the option for paying $1 for the album, and if you do, you get your name added to the supporters page for that release. You then also have a good chat room area, where people have an auto sig that lists or links to the pages, and a summary.
E.g. for U2
User: Mahju (user 164067)
Albums:
Autung Baby (Bronze Supporter - 123456th),
Zooropa (Silver Supporter - 540th Download)
Pop (Silver Supporter - 13th Download)
ATYCLB (Gold Supporter - 2576th Download)
HTDAAB (Bronze Supporter - 10276th Download)
This way you use the force of your real fans to get some payback on the inital album costs. People would want to have their name registered for the bragging rights (what if you were the 1st person to register for U2 Boy? some good karma there...).
Now my 2nd thought... The 'evil' music industry does actually filter out a lot of crap bands, and deliver a certain quality standard of music. Yes not all are great i know, but it does mean that most tone deaf, musically illiterate, idiot isn't flooding the airwaves. That's because the labels don't want to invest money in bands that we wont like enough to pay them some money such that they get a return on investment. If we move towards free downloads, then the distribution model for the music will have to change. I suspect that this will move towards something two things;
1. Tour promoters advertising the bands to us.
2. Review sites listing the new releases. This is a bit like the free street mags (that you get in places like melbourne) where music critics weekly review albums. I used to buy albums on the back of those reviews, and I would do the same for free music too.
Why not having versioning of the songs? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great publicity stunt... (Score:5, Interesting)
Note: This is after I have pretty much decided not to give money towards non-free (libre) works. I am willing to make an exception just to reward someone taking a chance.
Any bands out there listening? Release your albums with a copyleft license (CC BY-SA will do for now, even though I am not fully satisified with it yet.) I have just decided to allocate $50 per month to the purchase of Free Music (in physical form for now - perhaps lossless downloads, we shall see.) Get your share. Slashdotters - get in on the ground floor. How much a month will you commit?
all the best,
drew
--
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145 [ourmedia.org]
Some of my stuff at OurMedia
all CC BY-SA
Re:MUSIC INDUSTRY BREAKDOWN: Where the money goes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MUSIC INDUSTRY BREAKDOWN: Where the money goes (Score:3, Interesting)
For example: very few classic rock and roll albums that are new hit the billboards but Elvis still sells quite well.
So we are either speaking of a classical performance of some dead composer's work, (in which anyone can perform said work and there are thousands of small symphonies playing mozart as opposed to a single Switchfoot playing Switchfoot songs) or a neo-composer of which there is very little interest for such.
Re:that's nothing... my music's been up for 4 year (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll check yours out too, anyway, but get a sense of yourself. (And wow, yeah, you guys have some slow links.)
Re:Great marketing (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know, maybe they just want a donation. They've got a PayPal "Contribute" button. Since I haven't listened to an original, physical CD in years (except for the trip home from the store before the original is ripped), I've got no need for physical media.
I donated less than the cost of gas for me to drive to a store in the next town to buy the CD, and the group will keep a hell of a lot more money than if they sold me a CD through the RIAA. I downloaded via BitTorrent, so the bandwidth costs for them weren't that high. I feel pretty good about this as a distribution medium, and hope that others here are willing to abide by an honor system in the long run.
--Jasin NataelRe:jeff cliff (Score:3, Interesting)
Ummm, if the user has little-to-no-rights, then it isn't "free-as-in-beer," it's "free-as-in-I'll-let-you-drink-from-the-keg-but-n