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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Steve Turnidge" <stevet@arsdivina.com> |
| Subject | Re: Lower cd prices |
| Date | Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:24:53 -0700 |
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Good post, Holmes! I'll join you all over the map...
I used to have a digital music distribution company called Weedshare. I
still need what it offered for music distribution...
As a rebound from that experience I joined with Alan Heaton in starting up
Burning Sky Records, and did some experiments with CD releases - one of
which was to print the suggested price on the cover.
The pushback was immense from the regular stores. Our intention was to let
the bands that were represented on our albums sell the discs at their
merchandise tables for either that price or give them the ability to prove a
bargain by selling at a lower price. I was thinking that would work for
stores too - they will obviously mark down the price from MSRP, and that
gave a quick proof of that.
We got feedback that it made our discs look like K-Tel product, and that it
probably wasn't even legal - something about collusion to set prices within
the RIAA. Right. We have nothing to do with the RIAA.
What we did do, however, was include a little printed box in the booklet
saying:
"If you received this album without the opportunity to pay for it -- now you
can! Just go to paypal.com and "send money" for the cover price to
burningskyrecords@gmail.com. This gives you the right to burn the CDs to
your computer, scan the art, and if you wish, pass the CD along to a friend,
who can pay for it and enjoy it as well."
That was another reason to have the price on the cover...
But - that really didn't work. People don't seem to equate the value of
music with the value of coffee... Here in Seattle, we pay for our latte's
every day, but seem to think that same price for music we consume every day
(which gives a similar rush, since we love our coffee, and we love our
music) is way too high.
I am a mastering engineer, and have lots of indie musicians through the
studio that have no idea how to distribute or "monetize" their finished
product. My advice to them has evolved over the years since Weedshare.
Up until recently, I thought a good way to go was release on Tunecore to the
digital stores, and then post music and share it through SoundCloud.
"Tunecore is the earth, Music stores are the trees, A music sale is the
fruit, and SoundCloud makes the rain..." with the understanding that this
process works on agricultural timeframes.
Now I'm leaning toward a multiple tip jar strategy - vote with your dollars
about which direction an artist should go.
Use SoundCloud and point the "Buy" tab to your PayPal tip jar - that allows
people to pay more than they would through the stores. Then, have a series
of tip jars that cover your full spectrum of service, be it artist, producer
(or any other service you provide - we all do many things). Those pages can
point to the digital music stores if desired, but ideally you have already
passed the monetization milestone in your relationship with the fan.
Next, analyze. Check the balances at the several tip jars (most are likely
to be zero), but if one makes more than the others, move in that direction
(if desired).
This all comes from my being a big fan of Simple Minds around the New Gold
Dream era, but not so much after that. I wanted to buy New Gold Dream ten
times over if it motivated the band to get back to that kind of music, but I
knew my "votes" were absorbed by the record company. Now we have at our
disposal a full short circuit between "artist" and "fan"...
...Steve>>>
-----Original Message-----
From: audities-owner@smoe.org [mailto:audities-owner@smoe.org] On Behalf Of
Holmes Online
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2010 4:23 PM
To: Auditeers
Subject: Re: Lower cd prices
I started to reply to this post and it got way out of hand, and since some
people's posts have been blocked by size limit, I offer you this instead:
http://drbristol.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/broken-records/
I'm kinda all over the map, but what else is new?
cheers
b
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