4 ms·

no monetization? how about selling concert tickets to all of the new people that like your music? or t-shirts?

by htsh 17y ago

williamphipps 17y ago
that's all well and good, but it isn't actually monetizing the music itself. what is lacking is simply an efficient means of charging people for music. i think with the right system, musicians would actually earn more from their music and innovators could develop really cool tools and not worry about getting sued.
- aarongough 17y ago
  The same could be said of the open-source software model. Selling support is not exactly "monetizing the software itself", but it still pays the bills... I think that selling merchandise is a great way to get income, a friend's band (who are a reasonably popular goth metal band) have just started doing this and it's working well for them!
  - ankhmoop 17y ago
    Musicians can pay the bills by playing their music -- be it at a show or in a studio, but providing "support" is not programming.
    - aarongough 17y ago
      Fair point, but I think that it's a reasonable equivalent to the 'Band <-> Merchandise' comparison. I think it's worth noting too that with several years experience in the music industry* I found that most musicians I knew were unable to pay the bills by playing music, the only common exception to this was people playing in cover bands who tend to make more money than unknown original artists. *I worked for Gibson Australia for nearly 4 years.
      - seertaak 17y ago
        Superficially, I can see why you draw this analogy. Open-source programmers make their code freely available, but companies can still profit by providing support. Everyone happy. But we need to remember why this model works. Programming is a relatively highly paid job. A programmer who works for a decade or so can afford the opportunity cost of doing unpaid work. The average musician, on the other hand, works at a pub! Second, look at who are the purchasers of software support. These are invariably companies with deep pockets. Had they not purchased the open-source solution (which is cheap on account of that good samaritan programmer's efforts!) they would have purchased the equivalent closed-source solution, at a greater cost. Compare this with merch in music: the customers here are just individual consumers. And the typical pattern here is you go to a gig, and the first chunk of your money goes to your ticket, next to drinks, and if you have money left over, then you might buy a t-shirt (I'm musician, and was told by a professional manager [she works for the company that manages Amy Winehouse] NOT to buy excessive amount of merch -- she said that it was the weakest link; the one thing the customers really could afford to do without). I agree with your second point regarding the difficulty of making money doing original music. It really saddens me, but c'est la vie I guess: not everyone loves music, and live music at that, as much as me. Demand is what it is. But what really galls me is filesharing, because in that case, the price is artificially zero. It is zero because there is not property enforcement. And that, frankly, sucks.
        aarongough 17y ago
        Well said. Unfortunately I really don't see the situation changing any time soon. Bands like Radiohead can afford to use alternative distribution models because they're already well known. Newcomers don't really have too many viable options apart from trying to get signed to a known label or simply doing it for the love until, and if, they get noticed. I think the whole situation is made worse by 2 main factors: 1: A lot of musicians think that they'll get noticed simply by writing and playing good material. That is not enough. Most successful original bands really have to work to get noticed, it may take many years of constant gigging, demos and networking before anything happens, if anything happens at all... 2: The disparity between the well-knows and the unknowns: Like the film industry there is a huge divide between bands that are well known and the up-and-comers. This makes breaking in much harder because it's almost impossible to advertise enough to get noticed in the sea of advertising and hype spewed out by the big labels. This problem may start diminishing though if the traditional labels fall as hard as I'm sure many of us think they are going to...

no monetization? how about selling concert tickets to all of the new people that like your music? or t-shirts?

by htsh 17y ago

no monetization? how about selling concert tickets to all of the new people that like your music? or t-shirts?

that's all well and good, but it isn't actually monetizing the music itself. what is lacking is simply an efficient means of charging people for music. i think with the right system, musicians would actually earn more from their music and innovators could develop really cool tools and not worry about getting sued.

aarongough 17y ago
The same could be said of the open-source software model. Selling support is not exactly "monetizing the software itself", but it still pays the bills... I think that selling merchandise is a great way to get income, a friend's band (who are a reasonably popular goth metal band) have just started doing this and it's working well for them!
- ankhmoop 17y ago
  Musicians can pay the bills by playing their music -- be it at a show or in a studio, but providing "support" is not programming.
  - aarongough 17y ago
    Fair point, but I think that it's a reasonable equivalent to the 'Band <-> Merchandise' comparison. I think it's worth noting too that with several years experience in the music industry* I found that most musicians I knew were unable to pay the bills by playing music, the only common exception to this was people playing in cover bands who tend to make more money than unknown original artists. *I worked for Gibson Australia for nearly 4 years.
    - seertaak 17y ago
      Superficially, I can see why you draw this analogy. Open-source programmers make their code freely available, but companies can still profit by providing support. Everyone happy. But we need to remember why this model works. Programming is a relatively highly paid job. A programmer who works for a decade or so can afford the opportunity cost of doing unpaid work. The average musician, on the other hand, works at a pub! Second, look at who are the purchasers of software support. These are invariably companies with deep pockets. Had they not purchased the open-source solution (which is cheap on account of that good samaritan programmer's efforts!) they would have purchased the equivalent closed-source solution, at a greater cost. Compare this with merch in music: the customers here are just individual consumers. And the typical pattern here is you go to a gig, and the first chunk of your money goes to your ticket, next to drinks, and if you have money left over, then you might buy a t-shirt (I'm musician, and was told by a professional manager [she works for the company that manages Amy Winehouse] NOT to buy excessive amount of merch -- she said that it was the weakest link; the one thing the customers really could afford to do without). I agree with your second point regarding the difficulty of making money doing original music. It really saddens me, but c'est la vie I guess: not everyone loves music, and live music at that, as much as me. Demand is what it is. But what really galls me is filesharing, because in that case, the price is artificially zero. It is zero because there is not property enforcement. And that, frankly, sucks.
      - aarongough 17y ago
        Well said. Unfortunately I really don't see the situation changing any time soon. Bands like Radiohead can afford to use alternative distribution models because they're already well known. Newcomers don't really have too many viable options apart from trying to get signed to a known label or simply doing it for the love until, and if, they get noticed. I think the whole situation is made worse by 2 main factors: 1: A lot of musicians think that they'll get noticed simply by writing and playing good material. That is not enough. Most successful original bands really have to work to get noticed, it may take many years of constant gigging, demos and networking before anything happens, if anything happens at all... 2: The disparity between the well-knows and the unknowns: Like the film industry there is a huge divide between bands that are well known and the up-and-comers. This makes breaking in much harder because it's almost impossible to advertise enough to get noticed in the sea of advertising and hype spewed out by the big labels. This problem may start diminishing though if the traditional labels fall as hard as I'm sure many of us think they are going to...