The demise of free

[@?,*???&?]

Two articles:

http://www.themusicvoid.com/2009/11/mys ... -freemium/

http://www.themusicvoid.com/2009/11/fre ... %99s-next/

[Gentleman Jim]

It's not the demise of free, because there never was "free." There is always a cost to somebody, even if the end user doesn't directly pay money.

It may be the demise of News Corp footing the bill for bandwidth to the tune of $20 million a month, but that's not the same thing. Terrestrial radio isn't free; it costs a lot of money to put that signal in the air. Free outdoor jazz concerts aren't free; either an organization is paying the musicians to play or the musicians are playing while not being compensated for the actual monetary costs associated with the performance, such as strings, sticks, gas, mileage, as well as any wear-and-tear their gear may suffer.

There is no "free." There is only the choice of who is paying.

To address the subject of the first article, I think a better model for Myspace may be to charge a fee to upload files, and then charge for the amount of bandwidth used. That way, the listener still gets the "free" experience, but the beneficiary of the service, the band/artist, is the one paying. It may be too late for Myspace to put that plan into effect, but if they start to charge a subscription fee to users that will open the door to a competitor pretty quickly.

More to come re: the second article.

[@?,*???&?]

That way, the listener still gets the "free" experience, but the beneficiary of the service, the band/artist, is the one paying.

I sincerely hope this does not become the norm. This will destroy independent music. We're already in the era of 'the deepest pockets wins'.

The advertisers should be paying for the content.

[Gentleman Jim]

Fact is, that there just isn't enough money to pay artists what they feel entitled to, and make a profit big enough for the broadcaster/webcaster/web host as well. This is pretty much the argument behind all of these "What are people going to pay" threads that we see every month or so.

If you want a performance royalty for terrestrial radio, that's going to mean broadcasters have to cut corners someplace else. Recent history has shown that one way they can do this is to have one broadcast center and they send the programming out via satellite to stations throughout the country. That means less variety in playlists, therefore fewer bands/artists getting paid. What percentage of those bands/artists will be independent? Check that FMQB article you posted a few months back.

If you want a higher digital performance royalty for webcasts and satellite radio, then you'll discourage more webcasters from getting into the action and satellite providers will figure out which channels aren't worth carrying. This also means fewer opportunities for artists without deep pockets.

Think about the example of a band paying Myspace or Facebook to host a song. If they can pay a fraction of a penny per complete play -say .2 cents each - then they'd pay a dollar for every 500 times the song was streamed. If you think of that in comparison to radio promotion or freelance publicists, that's a bargain. If you're having your songs streamed 50,000 a month via a site like Myspace*, that means you'd owe $100.

*By "a site like Myspace" I mean essentially having people view a page devoted to you exclusively. This isn't the same as having a song played on the radio or a webcast, because you have the opportunity to show tour dates, offer merch, etc.

[chris harris]

Myspace is already dead. I rarely ever go there. And, when I do, it's just to check out a song from a band. If they drive the bands away, Myspace will cease to exist.

Web hosting and bandwidth is really cheap. I can't really imagine a scenario where only the richest bands will be able to make their music available online.

[Z-Plane]

I can't tell you how much I loathe myspace. BUT, they got their foot in the door with the music player and there has yet to be any meaningful migration away from it, so I still have an account and about a hundred band pages bookmarked that have admittedly brought me great joy. Once I have disabled 90% of it with adblock and flashblock, I can find a happy medium (shame file2hd no longer works), but here's hoping theres a better answer sometime soon.

As for free, have you considered that throughout our long history of making music, we have only traded it for a tiny percentage of that time ? All conversations regarding money and music end up discussing distribution and the control of that distribution, not the magic of music and humans.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Think about the example of a band paying Myspace or Facebook to host a song. If they can pay a fraction of a penny per complete play -say .2 cents each - then they'd pay a dollar for every 500 times the song was streamed. If you think of that in comparison to radio promotion or freelance publicists, that's a bargain. If you're having your songs streamed 50,000 a month via a site like Myspace*, that means you'd owe $100.

but this is just pay-to-play.

no one's buying cds, everyone wants mp3s for free, no one wants to pay artists any royalties, and now bands are supposed to pay just to put a song up on shitspace? ok ok, you can put your song up for free, but if anyone actually listens to it, then you have to pay.

it just seems kinda backwards to me.

[chris harris]

It's totally backwards. Bands use Myspace because it's free and easy. Fans go to Myspace because the bands are there. Myspace isn't losing money because it costs so much to host all of that content. Myspace is losing money because it peaked 2 years ago and they've let it become a miserable place to even go check out a song from a band. They're on the way out anyway... but, if they start charging bands to host music, they'll hasten their demise. I think that Facebook is much better for bands to make a real connection with fans. And, apparently everyone I know feels that way, too. I'm on Facebook daily, and my Myspace profile is like a ghost town. As has been noted, bands will find somewhere else to go, and the fans will go with them. And, Myspace will go the way of Friendster and mp3.com

Summary: Myspace needs the bands more than the bands need Myspace.

[Gentleman Jim]

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:

but this is just pay-to-play.

No, it's pay for use. You can build your own website to stream your content, but you're still going to have to pay for hosting... and it won't necessarily be that easy for people to find. If Myspace or iMeem provide a convenient place for people to find whatever music they want, as well as a way to discover new bands/artists they wouldn't otherwise be exposed to, then why shouldn't the bands be interested in considering it a marketing expense?

If you think that there's just going to be another site that willingly spends over $200 million a year on bandwidth so that fans can stream music for free, I wouldn't hold my breath. Anybody who is starting up a site has to have some idea of how they're going to monetize; even the vaunted bandcamp.mu talks in their FAQ about how they anticipate taking a cut of download and merchandise revenue after a certain threshold.

[Jeff White]

If everyone who uses Facebook for spreading word of their music ALSO used Bandcamp to host that music, the combination of the two would allow for some decent marketing, free and quality streaming, and the ability to set up your own pay structure linked to your PayPal account. Bandcamp is the shit and Facebook is the social networking site of the moment, seems like a winning combination to me.

MySpace is dead. Seriously. It was always a pain in the ass with the ads (and spammy adds) and everything. It always seemed pretty trashy. The music player SUCKS but it is/was better than nothing. I haven't logged on to my account since May or something like that, and haven't spent any time on there for over a year. I plan on logging in and linking my Facebook page at some point, pulling down some stuff, and then it can go the way of the Dodo without my involvement.

Jeff

[chris harris]

If you think that there's just going to be another site that willingly spends over $200 million a year on bandwidth so that fans can stream music for free, I wouldn't hold my breath. Anybody who is starting up a site has to have some idea of how they're going to monetize; even the vaunted bandcamp.mu talks in their FAQ about how they anticipate taking a cut of download and merchandise revenue after a certain threshold.

They monetize by selling advertising. They sell more advertising by creating an experience that drives users to their site. It's not like, all of the sudden, there's been a rush on myspace by musicians with music to post. They can't make any money because their ad revenues are (I'm sure) down. And, it's because both users (fans) and content providers (bands) are leaving in droves.

I feel like Myspace is failing for two primary reasons:

1. They've refused to address the spam. In fact, they pretty much refuse to address anything. Have you ever tried to contact Myspace about anything?!?! Their customer service is pathetic. You cannot reach a person at all. Every time I submit a support request, I get a generic response referring to things already in the FAQ, which often have nothing to do with my problem.

2. They've let advertisers get out of hand with offensive ads that basically TAKE OVER the Myspace experience.

If they provided a better experience, there would be no problem. But, they're bending over backwards for the advertisers, when they should be doing the same for the users. Ads are worthless without people to look at them.

[@?,*???&?]

All conversations regarding money and music end up discussing distribution and the control of that distribution, not the magic of music and humans.

Holy crap. I love this phrase!

[@?,*???&?]

If everyone who uses Facebook for spreading word of their music ALSO used Bandcamp to host that music, the combination of the two would allow for some decent marketing, free and quality streaming, and the ability to set up your own pay structure linked to your PayPal account. Bandcamp is the shit and Facebook is the social networking site of the moment, seems like a winning combination to me.

I will look into Bandcamp. I have heard of it, just not used it. So many of these sites are just 'hosting' sites that afford the knucklehead user the ability to upload and build a page without having to know html.

The genius of myspace was the fact that musicians could build pages and then fraternize with normal, non-musician, people. I doubt there are anywhere near as many plain clothes folks perusing Bandcamp.

[Jeff White]

I will look into Bandcamp. I have heard of it, just not used it. So many of these sites are just 'hosting' sites that afford the knucklehead user the ability to upload and build a page without having to know html.

The beauty of it is that the streaming is great, you choose how you want downloads to operate, and it links to your PayPal account. Obviously your host will charge you per transaction if you do sell anything, because they need to make money in order to provide the service. The main thing is that the streaming quality is excellent. Anyone can upload a mastered record and Bandcamp takes care of encoding it as MP3, FLAC, etc. I am not aware of any other service that does this for you.

Obviously if someone wanted to design their own site and work in a shopping cart/download section they would not have to pay a percentage of their earnings. However, they would need to pay for a domain, hosting, etc, as well as a web developer if they could not DIY their own site.

If MySpace is acceptable, Bandcamp is progressive.

The genius of myspace was the fact that musicians could build pages and then fraternize with normal, non-musician, people. I doubt there are anywhere near as many plain clothes folks perusing Bandcamp.

You are correct. However, all it takes is a link to send someone over to your Bandcamp site. Most of the (poor streaming quality) music that I listened to on Myspace I found due to a link from another site. And you could not listen to the Myspace player and navigate through Myspace simultaneous without having a second browser window open anyway. So I see no difference except a much more artist and user friendly experience. Did I mention zero ads as well?

There are links in my signature to friends' Bandcamp hosting pages. Check it out.

Jeff

[MoreSpaceEcho]

There are links in my signature to friends' Bandcamp hosting pages. Check it out.

*checks it out*

that is SO much better than myspace. clean, neat, simple, you can buy the thing right there....