[LAU] Campaign: "The most remarkable album on this entire planet"

Simon Wise simonzwise at gmail.com
Tue Jun 1 12:06:15 UTC 2010


On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Jeremy <jeremy at autostatic.com> wrote:
> On 06/01/2010 01:21 PM, Leonard Ritter wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 11:31 AM, Jeremy <jeremy at autostatic.com> wrote:
>>> 4) Perform your great work live (this is where the money is at the moment)
>>
>> Completely impossible if you are a studio artist, and your music can't
>> really be performed. You could still set up a con show, but that will
>> reflect badly on you in the long run.
>
> Hello Leonard,
>
> My personal view is that studio artists appeared together with record
> companies. And what goes for record companies these days goes for studio
> artists too if you ask me. Nowadays you *have* to promote your work, you
> *have* to let it out in the wild. Giving it away for free is not enough.
> You need a way to get your work noticed.

if you want to sell your work you need to decide who could be the
buyer - if you can't play it live, then obviously that isn't a live
audience, but recorded music is played and payed for in lots of
places, some of the music download sites are now selling play lists to
the many places that want recorded music played publicly, and the
proceeds of those sales are split between the distribution and the
artist.

I have no idea how successful this has been, it would probably vary a
lot depending on the way royalties have been collected in the past in
each country, and how well the studios have locked in a monopoly on
this (as a very intentional side effect of the whole IP debate and
legislation). There is a large range of sites where people can buy
music to download, often at a price set by the artist with a split in
the returns between the artist and the site. The artist gets a much
bigger percentage than they ever got from the studios, but of course
there isn't any upfront support either.

But this isn't the only market for a studio artist, recorded music is
used, and paid for, in films, games, a huge range of places. If it is
out there and liked by an audience it is easier to sell to these
markets - either existing work or commissions. Allowing free downloads
with a Non Commercial license doesn't stop you selling for commercial
purposes, and may well help make the sale happen.

All this depends on the style of music, the artist, where you are ...
 and lots more.

Finally, the cost of making a studio recording with current technology
is mostly the time spent by all concerned, if you want to retain full
ownership yourself then you need to pay for that time, but if the work
is good it is very possible to get a group together to make it and
share the ownership, and the returns if there are any. That can drop
the up-front costs a lot.

Simon


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