If musicians had nearly as much stake in their distributed product, from a percent standpoint, as a startup founder has in his/her business, or if the music industry were remotely as equitable, all things considered, as the software industry, then the essay's apparent allegory might ring a little more true to me. But the practical reality is musicians don't have a similar stake, or a similar chance at making a sustainable living, as software founders.
If I were to reverse The essay's tactic, by way of, for instance, rewriting a paragraph of another certain famous essay about the music industry (which is admittedly dated but still mostly relevant even in the age of iTunes), you could see the contrast pretty quickly. I doubt that anybody would agree that the software industry is this bad. Let's call this hypothetical essay "The Problem with Software" and see if you agree (with apologies to Steve Albini):
"Whenever I talk founders who are about to sign with a major startup incubator, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless Angel Investor at demo day holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed."
Let's say my hypothetical essay goes on to itemize point-by-point in a detailed and authoritative way how startup incubators and VCs virtually always end up screwing over founders and developers every time...well it couldn't because there are no such numbers, no similar data, because in general software startups don't operate that way. The dynamics in the two industries are entirely different and the analogy doesn't work, for various reasons not the least of which is that the average founder has a far higher chance of making money, according to the known risks, than the average musician relying on sales and downloads. VCs, in general are far more equitable (big assumption there but I'll stand by it anecdotely) than the average label, which operates on long-standing numbers-manipulation that rarely if ever compensate artists fairly or transparently. This doesn't make piracy right, it just makes attacking it relatively inconsequential to the artist.
The essay is right, albeit ironically so, about one thing. The music industry has indeed moved on. The future is much more than live events, though, it's innovative business models (like, say, for instance Earbits', which I'm intrigued by and really hope works) and creative manipulation of new media, as bands like Pomplamoose and OK Go have done. The music industry is a dinosaur, and piracy is only a small part of the problem. The main issue is that the music buying public is jaded, fragmented and far less easily manipulated into buying than in the past. The available music is vast in number and the average music fan can listen and partake in countless genres and acts, only a few of which might be shared by friends.
The essay's principles are in the right place -- defending the incomes of musicians, but the allegory ignores a chasm of differences between the two industries, the massive inequity of the music industry towards artists, and the simple truth that there's nothing anyone can do about it, certainly not through the old RIAA/ASCAP/etc. model.
The simple fact is that most startup founders not only create the products that define their success, but drive that success almost entirely on their own, with modest help from their investors. As much as everyone likes to hate on record labels, the good ones do almost everything involved in the business of making your music successful. The artist is the product, but very rarely does the artist drive the business. Most are terrible business people. The amount of money a record label puts into a deal might look like a small VC deal. But the amount of work they put in is something else entirely. That is why they take a larger share, and as long as they're fair and do a good job, they deserve a significant amount of the returns.
Their behavior for the past 20 years can be cited as a reason not to want to contribute to them as businesses, but the reality is that, while most artists who have a label make very little, most who don't never make it at all.
I'd say this is only partially true. These days labels are not, and I would argue should not be the artists' primary target for income. Touring and new media are things artists have control over to a much larger extent and that's where artists should be focused.
If a good independent label wants to pick you up, like say Bella Union or Merge or Sub Pop (still) or the like then go for it, it might help. Or it might not. For some it's a big deal, but mostly in terms of promotion and profile, better tours. The good labels, like Bella Union, get very involved in that side of it, others not so much. Even then those lucky acts that are on good labels are still primarily touring bands, and downloads and sales and royalties are a small percentage of their income, unless something really breaks on radio, and that my friend is whole other ballgame and extremely rare from the average artists' perspective. Better to hope to get on a TV show or film, raise your profile some and get better tours.
Also, most of the time those higher-profile independent labels came along and were interested because those acts already had something going, some sales, regional numbers or whatnot that made the label relationship more like a partnership.
It helps to go into it from a position of strength, where you know you can walk away. And if you can walk away, you might not even need the Independent label. Mostly you need good management and good promotion to get better tour numbers going, build into a position of strength and really think about what means of income are available to you in an age where access to distribution channels (the primary former attraction of labels) are now available to virtually everyone.
That's the same as startup getting investment because they have "traction", and most won't if they don't. And the benefit of having a label is that, while you don't need one to tour and focus on new media, it sure as hell helps to have professional help from people who have done this countless times. There are thousands of independent labels. Some will do nothing for you. Those that do their job can do things that a fraction of 1% of artists can do on their own. Nobody should sit around waiting for a label, but nobody who knows what a good label can do would say they're not extremely valuable and worth signing over some of your "equity" to.
This is all true, and it's important to distinguish between "The Industry" and the good indie labels. Bella Union is one I have first-hand knowledge of and they are incredibly fair, and involved in the artists' tours and PR to a large degree.
If you know that's the kind of label you're looking at signing with, great! But the idea that labels are gatekeepers to distribution and royalties is a thing of the past.
Labels work best now when they act more like YC and less like RCA.
You make a great point, that artists usually are terrible business people, and in a label relationship are usually passive and unaware. I think that, as much as any other aspect of the music industry, is what artists need to change.
The average artist could learn the world from the average startup founder. Most don't have the temperament for it, and that's unfortunate. But those that do can take control over their income and business model in ways artists 20 years ago could never dream of. Earbits, Spotify and Pandora (which will pick up interesting unsigned artists, I hear them all the time) are great examples. iTunes and YouTube are still and will remain for a long time, viable and important ways to raise your profile.
This is the just the world we live in, and many artists I think are slowly realizing this as well. You can't passively rely on a distribution machine that operates in near total numeric obscurity to treat you equitably. Artists have no choice but to become business-minded, social networking and new media-savvy, and aggressively creative in that area.
I just suspect that you don't want to live in a world where the only music that surfaces to the top or provides a living for its creator is one where all good musicians must also be astute business people. You miss out on a lot of good art that way.
Very true, I really don't and I'm pretty burned out on trying to convince a lot of the very talented songwriters and artists I know and sometimes play with that they can't passively wait on some label system to put them on a treadmill to success.
I myself have a hazy dream of a promotion/tech/PR/consulting company that can hand-roll technologies, web, mobile and such, tailored to the creative ambitions of musicians, to find new creative tools and ways of manifesting their visions that go beyond the album-tour-album cycle, which I also think is more and more a thing of the past.
I just want to translate YC into music. Interview people and make sure they're all insanely talented, super dedicated, and not assholes. Make sure they can afford rent and food for a few months. Put them in a room together and let them find their best co-founders (or bring co-founders with them), and finance the creation of a low-cost demo product. 3 months later, put each group on stage in front of the world's best independent label heads, and help them get fair deals from good people. One day, Radiohead will come along and say they love what we're doing so much that they want to give every band $150k with no cap and no discount. You almost don't need to do anything differently. ;)
One shining example of a band that "gets it" is Pomplamoose. They may not be getting rich, but dammit they're making good music on their own terms and it looks like they're having a lot of fun doing it:
And indeed the market has spoken, and most android developers have listened: Apps Should Be Free(mium). That's the difference between startups and Big Music. Startups figure out how to make money out of free apps.
>Startups figure out how to make money out of free apps.
I don't know if most of them do. If I look around in the android market there are some great apps, that very likely do not make any money although they offer actual value to the customer.
I don't get it, why should apps be released for free?
Especially on Android I am surprised as to how many free(mium) apps are available, which could and should be paid apps, since they offer value to the user.
Many apps however useful may not generate enough revenue by offering an ad-supported version of their app.
It's sad to see that the developer community is shooting itself in the foot by releasing so many apps for free/ad-supported. I am pretty sure that most ad-supported apps will not create a great revenue stream for the developer. Buyers simply get accustomed to this trend. See the divergence of revenue models between Android and iOS. I don't know if it's the market that speaks here, or maybe just a trend in developers not trusting in the value of their own product. All in all it seems that this trend of releasing apps for free does nobody any good, since it will stall innovation at some point.
On a side note, I would really like to see a comparison of how some similar apps perform which are either paid, freemium or donate. Maybe there is some threshold for when it makes sense to publish an app either freemium or paid.
> All in all it seems that this trend of releasing apps for free does nobody any good, since it will stall innovation at some point.
It does nobody any good? How about the users? I don't buy the "it will stall innovation" argument. Having Linux be free didn't stall innovation, quite the opposite. I'd even say without it being free, we wouldn't be where we are now in regards to innovation. Large companies would still be in control. I know many companies depending on Linux, Firefox, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, Flash, Apache, BIND, OpenOffice, irssi, Postfix; and the many innovations these free products provided and facilitated. If I think about the projects that weren't out to make money, but to do something good, the value of free software becomes even greater.
But at the base of it all: For some of us technology is still more about solutions and making life better, rather than just money. I have a job, I'm happy, why should I take money for software I would've written anyway?
That logic only applies if you think of an app as an end-in-itself, as the final product to generate revenue. While that may be a viable business model in some cases, I think it misses the true opportunities for making money with a mobile app.
In my experience, apps work best as a gateway to another revenue stream or as an add-on product to an existing service. I only use free apps but I have subscribed (and paid) for web sites associated with those apps for expanded services.
A good example is an exercise tracking app which records your exercise routines, maps routes, etc. If this app is free but uploads your data to a web site which provides expanded functionality, online communities, and other services, I'd gladly pay for an account on the site.
The idea that a customer should pay you to install your app is naive and out-dated. You will simply be beaten by competition who allow customers to install the app for no cost (i.e. everyone else). But beyond that, if your only way to exchange value with your customer (i.e. they give you money in exchange for something), is at installation, then you are missing out on most of your revenue.
There are tons of articles about this online. There are regularly articles about it on HN. Noel Llopis is one of many app developers who blogs about his real-world experiences. Here is one such article: http://gamesfromwithin.com/one-price-does-not-fit-all
thx, actually quite an interesting read.
I wouldn't say that the concept of selling an app is naive and outdated. But yes, competitors will probably release a similar app for free, which indeed is a dilemma.
Also, not all apps have potential to generate an alternative revenue stream, if so, great, otherwise I believe it can be quite problematic to monetize on many app concepts.
or even better, have some type of in song currency that is used to purchase the new songs, that can be acquired either through sending the old songs to your friends, playing the old songs well, or just outright buying the in game currency.
I think the new bjork album started going in this direction, but could have done it a bit more.
You may well be right and perhaps there is no future in paid apps. However that should be the choice of the creator/publisher, not somebody who cracks the app and re-publishes it. If their app is worth 99 cents or whatever then people will vote with their wallets.
If I were to reverse The essay's tactic, by way of, for instance, rewriting a paragraph of another certain famous essay about the music industry (which is admittedly dated but still mostly relevant even in the age of iTunes), you could see the contrast pretty quickly. I doubt that anybody would agree that the software industry is this bad. Let's call this hypothetical essay "The Problem with Software" and see if you agree (with apologies to Steve Albini):
"Whenever I talk founders who are about to sign with a major startup incubator, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless Angel Investor at demo day holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed."
Let's say my hypothetical essay goes on to itemize point-by-point in a detailed and authoritative way how startup incubators and VCs virtually always end up screwing over founders and developers every time...well it couldn't because there are no such numbers, no similar data, because in general software startups don't operate that way. The dynamics in the two industries are entirely different and the analogy doesn't work, for various reasons not the least of which is that the average founder has a far higher chance of making money, according to the known risks, than the average musician relying on sales and downloads. VCs, in general are far more equitable (big assumption there but I'll stand by it anecdotely) than the average label, which operates on long-standing numbers-manipulation that rarely if ever compensate artists fairly or transparently. This doesn't make piracy right, it just makes attacking it relatively inconsequential to the artist.
The essay is right, albeit ironically so, about one thing. The music industry has indeed moved on. The future is much more than live events, though, it's innovative business models (like, say, for instance Earbits', which I'm intrigued by and really hope works) and creative manipulation of new media, as bands like Pomplamoose and OK Go have done. The music industry is a dinosaur, and piracy is only a small part of the problem. The main issue is that the music buying public is jaded, fragmented and far less easily manipulated into buying than in the past. The available music is vast in number and the average music fan can listen and partake in countless genres and acts, only a few of which might be shared by friends.
The essay's principles are in the right place -- defending the incomes of musicians, but the allegory ignores a chasm of differences between the two industries, the massive inequity of the music industry towards artists, and the simple truth that there's nothing anyone can do about it, certainly not through the old RIAA/ASCAP/etc. model.