Something I've been thinking about lately is the importance of labels, and holding onto your music rights... and how that plays into marketing and so on. I'm a big fan of open source software, and I love when people take the open source initiatives into other areas... but I love it even more when they succeed at it.

Not that these two are open source, but I've been following Trent Reznor and Radiohead's latest antics quite closely. That is the free music... or almost free. And distributed directly. How ripe do you think the market is for this kind of thing?

I'm just starting to create my own music now, and I've toyed with the idea of releasing it all under Creative Commons licensing, or something else where I'd essentially be giving my music and remix rights away for free. I want to create a bunch of awesome tracks over the course of my music career, but mostly as a vehicle to get more gigs. (This is a known dynamic of our industry.) So, if money from tracks wasn't really a concern, do you think this would be a wise approach?

But what about the fact that nobody knows my name... unless Armin and Tiesto start hammering my future tracks (always a good goal). What about starting off licensing all your music, for movies, ads, whatever... to build up a reputation, then eventually cut ties and go out on your own (more akin to what NIN and Radiohead have done)?

There's also U2's approach, who chose to own all the rights to their songs since day 1, and it took them much longer to make money, but now they're making ludricous amounts because of the critical mass, and no one else to pay fees to (obviously they pay fees, but you get my point).

I think that open source software is always a good start. Some open source programs are even more popular than their proprietary rivals. You stand a better chance of finding out who the lead developer for apache web server is than finding out who the lead developer for Microsoft IIS is.

My point is that free stuff markets itself, and you don't need to do all this promotion mumbo jumbo. On the flip side, you will probably need funding to continue as a producer. => Do some songs for free (if you are so inclined) and do others for $$. The free ones are your promotional tools to sell the ones that aren't ~ just make sure that they're all good, and your best are the ones that cost.

I think I should do something like that, to some extent.

Interesting... I hadn't been watching the news, I didn't know Radiohead had dropped the online model. A pox on them... that's shameful.

Who said they dropped the online model?  Just letting you know they basically got jacked by their "fans"...   

So I did some more reading, and I had watched Radiohead pretty close when it all started, I was thrilled.

Deal is, they offered "In Rainbows" as a download from their site. Pay what you want, plus a small service fee. Then a month or two later they planned to release a "discbox" for those who wanted the real experience, with CDs and Vinyl included, for like 40$. So you had two options, these were explained from the start.

I can't find it now, but I read somewhere that something like 85% of people paid the minimum, around 1$ for the entire album. Not a big surprise really... but Radiohead still took in 1 - 7 million from that. (Again... this is memory, I concede I could be fudging this, but I remember thinking at the time, WOW, this is good news I think for the industry to move this way).

Anyway... now they've pulled the downloads and are offering everything through conventional methods, Walmart and such. Trent Reznor thinks they're dirtbags for a doing a bait-and-switch.

So, that's a sad ending, in my opinion.

I guess that just leaved Trent being a legend. You know he also started releasing his music under Creative Commons, and encourages everyone to remix it right away.

^ haha, fair enough.


Article.

You know, one thing that always gets me when people argue about labels and copyrights is that they won't get a good contract or are concerned that they'll be abused. In just about EVERY comparison though, the Big 4 or 5 are cited. The problem with that is in our type of music, EDM, just about every single label is small and independent. In other words, as long as the label is being paid, they really can't afford NOT to pay you or abuse you. It still happens, but those labels won't last.

Yes, they are still businesses. Yes, contracts are still involved that mean you are "signing" away your rights. The thing is, these small labels are EXACTLY who we should be supporting.

For example, if you were to start a label today, you probably wouldn't be any bigger than NDM, Deeplife, Queep or a 100 more labels out there today. That's YOU opening up shop. What evil could YOU do with such little power. You would be fighting just as hard as all the other small labels to get on Beatport. Once on beatport... you just have to prove yourself. The benefit of signing with a Queep or Deeplife though is that they've already fought this battle for you and can allow you to focus on writing more material while they focus on selling it.

Forget the Big 5(4). They don't really mean a thing when we're talking about EDM. Proof? Where were they at WMC this year?

So how hard is it to get onto Beatport, iTunes? If your music is excellent? (I don't care to talk about non-excellent music, as it doesn't belong in the world).