One way to deal with piracy

[pklima]

From an article in the Economist about the Nollywood movie business:

As soon as a film is released, copyright thieves rip it off. It takes the pirates just two weeks to copy a new film and distribute it across Africa. The merchants must take their money during that fortnight, known as the “mating season”, before their discs become commodities. As soon as the mating season is over they start thinking about the next film.

Now, that's movies, and music in the same land doesn't operate like that, but couldn't this work? I personally have my doubts, but the idea is interesting, totally different from the longer-term deals that even tiny record labels do.

Could a label do one-album deals that terminate two weeks after an album's release, with the band getting any copies that are still unsold? Or maybe take it even further - self-release an album, sell it for one day only, then just destroy any unsold copies and declare it's out of print? That's got potential as a publicity stunt for a moderately successful band if nothing else.

[Jim Campbell]

Originally Posted by pklima

From an article in the Economist about the Nollywood movie business:


Now, that's movies, and music in the same land doesn't operate like that, but couldn't this work? I personally have my doubts, but the idea is interesting, totally different from the longer-term deals that even tiny record labels do.

Could a label do one-album deals that terminate two weeks after an album's release, with the band getting any copies that are still unsold? Or maybe take it even further - self-release an album, sell it for one day only, then just destroy any unsold copies and declare it's out of print? That's got potential as a publicity stunt for a moderately successful band if nothing else.

that assumes every potential buyer is lining up,cash in hand to buy that particular album on that particular day.......i know that concert tickets work that way,but only for the biggest name acts,and even then it is the secondary sellers,which are no more than scalpers,buying up the bulk of the tickets to resell at inflated prices later....i somehow doubt that limited time releases would work.....i think the wave of the future is downloads,and the elimination of the hard disc....

sadly ,i think that many movies,and albums will be chopped up or reduced to mp3 to satisfy the i-pod generation's thirst for quantity over quality

[KingRazor]

If you have to give away 1,000 tracks to sell 100, you still sold 100.

[Jorm]

Fighting piracy is a waste of effort and resources that could be put to better uses: Selling merchandise .

Then again, I've always had a "piracy is publicity" attitude.

[EatADeadGoat]

You'll always have the people who will steal music/movies whatever, pirating/bootlegging, ect. It usually doesn't turn out as good as it could, and when people realize that they are listening to an inferior product, they are more likely to want to go and get the real thing. they're just another resource to abuse. Don't fight them. Just let people know that the version that can be BOUGHT is superior.

[BassNoob1]

Originally Posted by Jim Campbell

that assumes every potential buyer is lining up,cash in hand to buy that particular album on that particular day.......i know that concert tickets work that way,but only for the biggest name acts,and even then it is the secondary sellers,which are no more than scalpers,buying up the bulk of the tickets to resell at inflated prices later....i somehow doubt that limited time releases would work.....i think the wave of the future is downloads,and the elimination of the hard disc....

sadly ,i think that many movies,and albums will be chopped up or reduced to mp3 to satisfy the i-pod generation's thirst for quantity over quality

I use an iPod, and I only buy quality music. I've yet to fill an 8 GB iPod Nano, because I'm very particular about the music I listen to. Now I understand what you're saying about a lot of people just buying a ton of music that they'll never listen to, but there are also people that only buy music if they will actually listen to it, and the majority of my music is from CD's, I'd just rather not carry that many CD's around with me all the time, and I'll always have the CD as backup because I don't use it very often and don't have to worry much about it getting scratched.

[Boot Soul]

Anything that can be converted into binary code is now and for evermore free, and there is no way to fight it. The fight is reminiscent of the war on drugs. The ship has sailed, the cat's out of the bag, etc. It is not about what is right and wrong, it is the market as it exists. Binary creations must be sold with tangible goods that people desire. If it can't be held in one's proverbial hand, as a discrete object, that cannot be copied at no cost, then it is worthless.

[dystopiate]

Originally Posted by KingRazor

If you have to give away 1,000 tracks to sell 100, you still sold 100.

I hear this thrown around an awful lot and I think it's poisonous because people believe it. There are two distinct, severe problems with the thought, however:

1) The first is that when you give something away it lowers its perceived value and it reduces the potential buying population. Talk to someone who has had to promote something for a living. The phrase I always hear is: "1% rule." A 1% return is a good one. If you hand out 100 fliers expect one person to show (if you did a good job). If you give away 100 mp3s of good music, expect one person to care. So really what should be said is "If you have to give away 10,000 tracks to sell 100, you still sold 100." But this leads us into problem #2:

2) There's a hard limit. What do you have to give away to sell 100,000 copies (this is where most bands really start to make middle class money)? 10,000,000? Let's go with the original 1,000,000 mark... Even if this were true, it's actually fairly hard to give away 1mm copies of anything.

And to make matters worse, let's look at some costs from a band I know:

Last album cost of recording studios, producer/engineer, per diems to stay alive, flights, equipment, reproduction, etc: $100,000

20% split with management on gross
50% split with label after recoup.

So, if they are able to give away a million copies (A MILLION) without spending on promotion (I'll go out on a limb and say this is about as likely as winning the lotto at which point you can just give away all your music and sell none), and 100,000 people buy albums (the real number will probably be closer 10% of that), here's what you've got:

1mm gross
800K after managment
700K after label recoup
200K after label split

50K per guy.

Not bad, except for the part where 100,000 sales is ludicrous & no promotion money of any kind was factored in. Promo costs 3-4K per month... take that and the 1% rule and the band is severely in the red and will stop making music as that band in the near future.

Here's what intentionally giving away a million copies will probably get you:

10,000 albums sold
100K gross
65K after a year of PR
45K after management
-55K after label recoup
0 split with label because the band is already 55K in the red
Around 2K per guy in mechanical royalties.


The model has to change. Technology isn't going to be stopped, but pro musicians will be if some clever revenue production doesn't fall into place.

[dystopiate]

Originally Posted by EatADeadGoat

You'll always have the people who will steal music/movies whatever, pirating/bootlegging, ect. It usually doesn't turn out as good as it could, and when people realize that they are listening to an inferior product, they are more likely to want to go and get the real thing. they're just another resource to abuse. Don't fight them. Just let people know that the version that can be BOUGHT is superior.

I honestly don't think any meaningful percentage of the population cares about "lossless." The truth of the matter is that most people can't hear the difference between a CD and a high bitrate mp3, and most of those who can are lying or are doing a direct A/B comparison where they can listen for things like splashy high-end.

[Boot Soul]

Originally Posted by EatADeadGoat

You'll always have the people who will steal music/movies whatever, pirating/bootlegging, ect. It usually doesn't turn out as good as it could, and when people realize that they are listening to an inferior product, they are more likely to want to go and get the real thing. they're just another resource to abuse. Don't fight them. Just let people know that the version that can be BOUGHT is superior.

Unless you are referring to the artwork or photography as it is printed, then there is nothing superior about the actual product. Most new movies, music, gaming, and other software are available via Bit Torrent in the unabridged form. Movies are available as BluRay full files (don't even need to be burned to a disc to play), music is available in FLAC, and the games and software exist as complete files, identical to what is on the original retail discs.

Most pirates are satisfied with and trade in DivX .avi or .mkv videos, and mp3 audio, but that's not due to unavailability of the uncompressed (and lossless) file formats. It's just a matter of the limits of time and disc space.

[Selta]

Originally Posted by dystopiate

I hear this thrown around an awful lot and I think it's poisonous because people believe it. There are two distinct, severe problems with the thought, however:

1) The first is that when you give something away it lowers its perceived value and it reduces the potential buying population. Talk to someone who has had to promote something for a living. The phrase I always hear is: "1% rule." A 1% return is a good one. If you hand out 100 fliers expect one person to show (if you did a good job). If you give away 100 mp3s of good music, expect one person to care. So really what should be said is "If you have to give away 10,000 tracks to sell 100, you still sold 100." But this leads us into problem #2:

2) There's a hard limit. What do you have to give away to sell 100,000 copies (this is where most bands really start to make middle class money)? 10,000,000? Let's go with the original 1,000,000 mark... Even if this were true, it's actually fairly hard to give away 1mm copies of anything.

And to make matters worse, let's look at some costs from a band I know:

Last album cost of recording studios, producer/engineer, per diems to stay alive, flights, equipment, reproduction, etc: $100,000

20% split with management on gross
50% split with label after recoup.

So, if they are able to give away a million copies (A MILLION) without spending on promotion (I'll go out on a limb and say this is about as likely as winning the lotto at which point you can just give away all your music and sell none), and 100,000 people buy albums (the real number will probably be closer 10% of that), here's what you've got:

1mm gross
800K after managment
700K after label recoup
200K after label split

50K per guy.

Not bad, except for the part where 100,000 sales is ludicrous & no promotion money of any kind was factored in. Promo costs 3-4K per month... take that and the 1% rule and the band is severely in the red and will stop making music as that band in the near future.

Here's what intentionally giving away a million copies will probably get you:

10,000 albums sold
100K gross
65K after a year of PR
45K after management
-55K after label recoup
0 split with label because the band is already 55K in the red
Around 2K per guy in mechanical royalties.


The model has to change. Technology isn't going to be stopped, but pro musicians will be if some clever revenue production doesn't fall into place.

You're assuming the only income of a band is the sell of the CD/music. What about general merchandise? Tickets to their shows? Things of that nature supplement the band's income...

[Jorm]

At least from a punk perspective, whatever cash there is to be made comes from the T-Shirts.
While pirates probably won't buy your record, they're as likely as non-pirates to buy your t-shirt.

[dystopiate]

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

You're assuming the only income of a band is the sell of the CD/music. What about general merchandise? Tickets to their shows? Things of that nature supplement the band's income...

Very few bands I know make money on a per ticket basis. They draw, so they collect a set fee for the night. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I can't think of any I personally know. FWIW, this often works out in the band's favor over time and allows for a certain amount of budgeting on the road that would otherwise be impossible.

As for merch, typically the label will front the cost and then assume the lion's share of profit until they've recouped the merch money, then the band will start to make good money on merch. As always, the devil is in the details (of the contract) -- it's often the case that the label will continue to take a huge cut of merch until they break even on all monies spent. How much merch is being sold? It would have to be a fair amount for the band to be able to support themselves on it. Likely upwards of 50 units/day (365 days/yr) if the label ISN'T taken the lion's share. If they are, probably upwards of 150 units. This units also don't include CDs, which are a big seller at many shows.

In the more realistic example (the second set of figures), the band is in deep to their label, so making some money on shows and merch doesn't mean they're doing well. They might be able to get by if the label doesn't assume any of the show/merch money for recoup, but the label is likely to pull any contacts, tour support, and promo once things don't look good, so being able to continue on the road will be hard, and being profitable will be near impossible.

[pklima]

Originally Posted by Jorm

Fighting piracy is a waste of effort and resources that could be put to better uses: Selling merchandise .

Basically, yes, make recordings a promotional expense and use them to promote your profitable product. Depending on your genre that could be live performances, T-shirts, if you're a bigger name then product placement in videos etc. That seems to be where we're going.

That's all right. I don't feel any need to "save" audio recordings from becoming a promotional expense. Videos have pretty much always been treated as a promotional expense, even though video is a more powerful medium for music than an audio-only recording.

[Jorm]

^This.


And why the Hell do you need a label anyway?
They don't get the lion's share of anything if you've got no label.

At 5 bucks profit per T-shirt, each t-shirt sold is one clean buck for each band member.

If you upload your music on the internet, free of charge, the piracy crowd WILL know about you. And they do buy merchandise and tickets to gigs :P.

Do the math. Ditching the label and living off gigs+merchandise is entirely possible. And some folks DO buy CDs at concerts, if more as a souvenir than anything else .

[dystopiate]

Originally Posted by Jorm

^This.


And why the Hell do you need a label anyway?
They don't get the lion's share of anything if you've got no label.

At 5 bucks profit per T-shirt, each t-shirt sold is one clean buck for each band member.

If you upload your music on the internet, free of charge, the piracy crowd WILL know about you. And they do buy merchandise and tickets to gigs :P.

Do the math. Ditching the label and living off gigs+merchandise is entirely possible. And some folks DO buy CDs at concerts, if more as a souvenir than anything else .

I've done this both ways. I was in a very successful independent band that was able to buy a van, tour, had our own merch, had an engineer in the band so we didn't really pay for our recordings outside of a few mics and some plug-ins, etc. I'm now in a band that has been signed in the past, and currently enjoys the benefits of private investment (essentially, individuals who act as a label). So really, I've done this three different ways.

Guess which was the most profitable.

[Blacksack]

my band has found a way to beat piracy....... we just dont record any songs or burn any disks off so the only way to hear them is live after you've bought a ticket and before anyone says they could sneak a recorder in to a live gig WERE WAAAAY AHEAD OF YOU when we play live we play out of time and out of tune that way any recordings made would sound rubbish

my band-1 pirates-0

[Jorm]

Originally Posted by dystopiate

I've done this both ways. I was in a very successful independent band that was able to buy a van, tour, had our own merch, had an engineer in the band so we didn't really pay for our recordings outside of a few mics and some plug-ins, etc. I'm now in a band that has been signed in the past, and currently enjoys the benefits of private investment (essentially, individuals who act as a label). So really, I've done this three different ways.

Guess which was the most profitable.

The successful independent band?
Not paying a percentage to corporate middlemen surely left more income for the band members.

[dystopiate]

Originally Posted by Jorm

The successful independent band?
Not paying a percentage to corporate middlemen surely left more income for the band members.

Well, to be fair, we've yet to see what our future will look like with the private investors -- it sounds like the best deal and is the reason we passed on a label deal this time. That said, being with the label provided us with contacts and starter money we wouldn't otherwise have had access to. Sure they were recouping a lot of money (money spent on our behalf to improve our chances of success), but we were literally bringing in 7x as much revenue and playing to 25x as many people each night. The label was by far the better situation.

This is the gripe against piracy: both in the independent band and the signed band our biggest seller was CDs, then mp3s, then everything else. If it weren't for piracy both bands would have done much better. We saw no tangible benefit from people who illegally downloaded. Even worse, we probably would have seen an escalation in the points/album with the label, made more, and been pushed harder by the label b/c more money would have been coming in.

[mambo4]

Originally Posted by Boot Soul

Anything that can be converted into binary code is now and for evermore free, and there is no way to fight it. The fight is reminiscent of the war on drugs. The ship has sailed, the cat's out of the bag, etc. It is not about what is right and wrong, it is the market as it exists.

that's pretty much where I'm at on this. Not to devalue the effort and work that must go into it, but the age of the recording as a product unto itself is coming to an end. Now we are moving into a situation more like donation supported freeware or podcasts. "If you like it, please help support us by clicking here. "