Features

	Music Piracy On A Smaller Scale
	Written by: bufftbone on 5/16/2010 8:19:21 PM
Comes courtesy of The Soda Shop (www.thesodashop.us)
Anyone who reads up on any music website/blog will most certainly come across some type of article dealing music piracy. It is a subject today that is impossible to get away from no matter how much you try to avoid it. The general feeling about it is split down the middle. You either do it or don`t. Of course the big record labels (and a lot of smaller ones) are against it. They claim it takes away from their bottom line. That may or may not be true. If you were to Ask Sony/BMG to see their books and look at their bottom line, I`m sure it`ll tell a different story then what they lead you to believe. I think they`re complaining because they make less profit allowing the big wigs take home the big bonuses at the end of the year. The artists are even split about it. Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead are two of the biggest bands to support piracy. Both bands have released, for free, their latest albums. Both bands have also made a lot of money doing so. Now you may be asking how can they make a lot of money if they`re giving away their albums. A die hard fan is going to buy the album from the artist no matter what. Even if they can`t afford it right when it comes out, they will buy it. Radiohead implemented a pay what you think it`s worth method that sold a lot of copies of "In Rainbows". They also produced physical copies of the album for purchase long AFTER the album was out. Trent Reznor made various collectors editions with all types of bonus stuff depending on the package you ordered. Another source of revenue for those artists are concert tickets and other merchandise such as t-shirts, hats, stickers, patches and anything else that hey can stamp their name onto. Now both Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have been around for a while and have had a lot of exposure worldwide and built up a huge fanbase that they can afford to try different ideas. The majority of the bands that we feature and discuss here at The Soda Shop, for whatever reason will never be as big as or acquire the fan base that Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have. A lot of these guys and gals play for the fun of it, others are trying to make it big. Whatever their reason is, they write, record, play and perform with everything they got. I`ve spent a few weeks looking into the subject a bit further. I`ve asked the UK band Grifter, a download blog poster, Scott Hamilton, owner of Small Stone Records and Memphis stoner rock band, The Unbeheld. First I asked Ollie Stygall, guitar player and vocalist for the UK band, Grifter. I asked Ollie "back in August you gave copies of your EP to Mari on the Sludge Swamp to post. I was wondering if sales of the EP are good even though it`s been available for free download for the past seven months?" His response was "It`s a good question and one that`s very hard to answer for a band at our level. The new EP has been out less than two weeks at the minute and the promo campaign is only really just starting as we`re waiting for reviews...etc. I can`t really comment on how sales are going via the label and only from the copies we`re selling. So far we`ve had a few orders online, sold a few at shows on the tour and sold to people we know directly and so far sales are pretty much as I would expect...slow but steady. The EP has been available on a couple of download sites for a few months now. My aim getting it up there was to leave a decent enough gap between them going online and the EP actually getting released. I guess, yes, there will have been an effect on sales as the people who have downloaded it probably won`t buy it now. The question we need to ask is whether these people would have bought it anyway or even heard about it. For a band trying to get their music heard at our level you have to weigh up what is most important...actual physical sales or just getting your name out there and getting people to hear your music. It`s a double edged sword...I want people to hear my band...as many people as a possible...so the download thing is great for exposure and I`ve no doubt we have a lot more fans as a result. On the other hand, however, we do need the income from CD sales to be able to stay on the road doing gigs and to finance recording...etc so we do need to push the CD and sell copies for the continued existence of the band beyond the rehearsal room. It`s a chicken and the egg situation. We also have a duty to the label who have funded the CD to ensure that it doesn`t end up all over the internet for free as we want them to make back their investment. We have been lucky in that there are people who do support bands at a grass roots level and, although the downloads are available, will still buy the physical media as they understand the need for bands to sell copies to function. A case in point is Mari at the Sludgeswamp...I sent her burned copies of both EPs yet she still bought the real thing and I think that kind of support does still exist in the underground. So, really the internet is both the musician`s greatest friend (we`ve had nearly 60,000 hits on our Myspace page and nearly 27,000 plays...we`d never have had that kind of exposure before the internet) but also the greatest enemy by making music too widespread and free. I think the sooner musicians get their heads around this and manipulate it to their own ends rather than being manipulated by it the better." Next I asked Mari, poster of the popular Sludge Swamp about the download numbers on Grifter post. "Yes, Mediafire gives the numbers of downloads (actually I`m not able to see them on Megaupload, maybe I was looking for the numbers in the wrong place ...) I can give you the numbers for the various posts on Grifter`s stuff: - the two EPs were downloaded by 151 people; - the Live 2009 was downloaded by 69 people; - the Elephantine demo was downloaded by 58 people. The downloads for the EPs came almost immediately. However these are not big numbers, I must say, compared to other posts on bands that were playing less well, at least according to my opinion. I also have the suspect that Grifter should take care of the cover arts a bit more, to make them more catchy. Or else it`s just the wavy taste of the swampers! Strangely enough, sometimes the swampers download crazily some of the nasty or semi-nasty stuff but disregard some stoner or psych stuff ... Mah!" Next I was looking for a label owner`s point of view. I ask Scott Hamilton, owner of Small Stone Records How do sales now compare to years ago? What is Small Stone`s stance on torrents/download blogs etc? Has releasing the albums to iTunes a month or so ahead of the physical CD helped gain sales? Scott replied "Well, it is a double edged sword... The availability of the music for illegal downloading on the internet is great to expose people to music they have never heard before, but it is bad for our bottom line. It still costs a whole bunch of money to record, master, manufacture, and distribute an album... So if people are getting it for free, how is a label and or artist expected to make an money, or just break even on all of the money and time invested in their release. Five years ago you could sell more cds, that is for sure... but, just because the market share has decreased overall, it does not mean that the music game is over. Our current trend is to make really good records, without overspending on recording, mastering or over pressing on the manufacturing side. You can always print more... You can`t always just sell more, just because you made them... Something the American Automotive Industry learned the hard way. iTunes is essentially the largest music store in the planet... and it only digital, so people can go on there early and get it... but there is still plenty of room to sell the cd and or vinyl versions a month later to those that prefer those formats.." Recently stoner rock band, The Unbeheld offered their album for free through the up and coming Bandcamp website. I asked the guys "I know that you recently offered your latest album for free or a pay what you feel it`s worth model similar to what Radiohead has done in the past. I was wondering if you could tell me how successful it`s been for you, if you`ve seen a good amount of paying listeners vs non paying and how has this method helped the band?" The guys were nice to respond. This is what they had to say: "To answer your question we`ve obviously had more people download for free than pay for it but that was the general idea. Free music has been a part of succeeding since the beginning of popular music. The radio was free, and people didn`t buy anything you were selling till AFTER they heard it. The biggest question when i was younger was "how do i get heard?" that problem has been all but solved and takes the middlemen (lawyers and A&R douchebags) out of the equation. It also used to cost 50,000 dollars (minimum) to record a professional sounding album. Now it costs about 2 or 3,000. So you`ve cut out your initial investment by like 2,000%. People can`t download t-shirts, they can`t download collectors edition vinyl, they can`t download posters, they can`t download getting hammered at your live show... so give them your friggin mp3`s. Its a lossy format anyways. We took it one step further and included FLAC copies for free/donation for the audiophiles because we`re a relatively unknown band and the only thing we`re concerned with is people having our album. Online sales I think we`ve averaged just under a dollar per download. Which isn`t terrible but we`ve sold tons of merch at our shows. We only brought 40 cds to our cd release show and sold out. We average about 100 dollars in merch sales per road show right now... and we`re unsigned, self-booked, relatively new band." It seems that the continuing trend will be to offer the music free or at a reduced cost to get your music out there. Unsigned bands tend to do fairly well when they handle everything on their own as The Unbeheld have pointed out. They also make a valid point when they say that the fans can`t download your shirts, posters etc. Today`s society has changed and along with it is the way fans obtain their music. This author has been guilty of downloading an album. Just about everyone has. This author also buys a lot of albums based off of those downloads. I know of quite a few people that do the same. Many people have been burned in the past in liking a single that is played on the radio, buying an album and finding out that is was crap. I personally thought that after hearing the hit single "In The Meantime" by Spacehog that the album would be great. I went out and bought the the album it was on. I was greatly disappointed and quickly got rid of it. Of course that was years ago just before Napster took off. No matter what the technology is, fans will go out of their way to get the music, legally or illegally.