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Originally Posted by Mike Caffrey  If you saying that you don't think someone will go buy a CD after they have an MP3 in their possession, I agree.
If you think that the idea is so absurd to be funny, I'm not even sure how to charaterize that. For nearly the entire history of the music business has been based on people buying an album after hearing the songs. As a concept it's not absurd, radio has proven that. It's sematics wheter it comes over a wire or airwaves.
Why would someone pay for something that they already have in their possesion? They wouldn't. The post you responded to said "support the band" not buy a CD.
How much do you think the average U2 fan spends in a year because of the band - meaning, the total the spend to go to a concert including ticket, merch, food/drink, gas, parking CDs, DVDs pay-perview concerts?
Now subtract $20 for the cost of a CD. There is still so much money coming out of fans wallets that the band and any label or management could make as much or more without selling music.
Look at hip hop. Do you think Jay Z would every bother to check a royalty statement if he put out an album? He'll probably make more money from selling clothes each year than double the income from his highes selling album or even double the artist's portion of the highest selling album in the past 20 years.
Jay Z is a brand because of his songs. The wider his songs spread the more clothes he can sell.
Album revenue, especially from the artist's perspecitive has always been a joke compared to the other sources of revenue. That's what you should be laughing at.
I laugh at the people who don't see that that's the way it's been since at least 1980.
How do you sign Brittany Spears without making a clothing line part of the deal? Did it not occur to them that she might be a famous teen pop icon? Isn't that why they signed her? Did they not read Mim Udovitch's NYT Magazine article on the Olsen Twins making half a billlion a year?
Clearly you live in drug free suburb. That's why you've never seen the idea of giving away product to get people hooked and then draining every last cent because they need what you have - they need your concert, they need your t-shirt. Check out what the hip hop artists are selling - pantone colors! Check out the list of Kiss merchandise - there are over 600 products that say Kiss. Surely you've heard about the Kiss coffin, right?
What income amount would it take for you to decide that the artist's revenue from a successful album was relatively worthless? There are pleny of artists who make enough from other sources that that's the case and it's certainly the case with poorly selling albums.
Hell, even DIY bands printing 1,000 CDs make more profit in a year of gigs than in a year of selling their CDs. They'd have more money at the end of the year if they gave away their music digitally than from pressing and selling CDs. |
Jay wouldn't be a brand if he never sold CDs. So looking at a situation that was caused by selling CDs originally is not fair to the discussion. You are discussing individuals who made what they are doing today possible by selling CDs remove that from the process and you have a totally different situation.
Also CDs are NOT Drugs. Your comparison is a stretch. With coke, If i give you a dime, you no longer have it tomorrow when you want another one. But if you could smoke the same dime every day and nothing would happen to it, you'd never come back to me.
Your argument about other revenue streams does not apply. You are totally missing the point that these revenue streams started because record sales were the catlyst
Tshirts, Concert tickets are sold because people appreciate the band. If everyone is bombarded with free samples of music all day every day, there would be little interest in finding the gems if you had to wade through Months worth of bullshit to find one.
Your concept of a loss leader is not likely to apply. Americans don't really respect what they get for free. There is no prestige attached to ownership.
You are overlooking the very nature of the industry. There are loss leaders, the single is given away to promote the album. But you are discussing giving away the ALBUM. It would work fine for Jay or Kiss, because they built their audiences by selling units. But for a new artist with good music what do you think would make him stand out among all of the MILLIONS of other wanna be artists giving away music?
If every day you opened your mail you had 1 MILLION pieces of junk mail, how many of them would you read?
Let's not apply other things to the record industry that don't apply and let's not consider things/conditions that exist for stars today as if they apply to the entire industry.