Tue 20 May
IPO Festival
The Cavern Club, Liverpool
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Alun Parry Blog
A New Model For Downloaded Music?
Those who read my ramblings on here will know my view that gigs, rather than downloaded music, is where I think it's at.
And you'll also know that I don't think downloaded music can command a high financial value due to it's ease of replication.
If Radiohead's experiment in their own version of Buskernomics is anything to go by, then even an established act with a huge fanbase can only command £2.90 per album.
And it seems that everyone in the music business is scrambling round trying to find a way to ensure that some money comes in from recorded music.
The bullyboys who cling to the past try to sue the fans.
Others are more creatively trying various inventive experiments to come up with new models for recorded music.
Yet it strikes me that there is an already working model that is right under our very noses. All that needs to be done is for it to be applied to music on the internet.
Think of bars. They play music don't they? You're sat there having your pint and in the background some song is playing over their PA system. What if that's your music? How do you get paid for that?
The answer is through the Performing Rights Society. The bar get a license to play music, and the musicians get some cash for the music they've played.
It strikes me as hard to monitor to 100% accuracy but it's a system that does the job and is pretty much accepted by all.
So why not the same for internet music?
Let's imagine that the PRS charged a relatively cheap monthly license to downloaders, and that once you had paid that license you were entitled to download anything at all from them.
Given the PRS collect monies on behalf of so many artists and publishers, their catalogue would be enormous.
How attractive is that? You'd be able to download pretty much anything for a small subscription. And legally too!
Sure, you could get it completely free if you wanted to be a smart alec, but why bother when this is so cheap and convenient?
Moreover, it'd be crystal clear to the PRS which songs were downloaded, so it'd be unbelievably easy to pay the artists accordingly.
What do people think?
1:06 PM | Permalink
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I think your idea is a brilliant one, Alun :) I've never downloaded music from the net; I prefer to hear it live or I buy the CD. I'd feel guilty downloading for free, or even for 99 cents a song, when all you hardworking musicians out there don't see a dime of it!
xxjann in new yorkxx
Posted by
Jann |
Sunday, November 25, 2007
hi jann
nice to hear from you as ever.
personally i've no problem people downloading my music for free and sharing it with as many people as possible.
i actively encourage it.
in fact, they're doing me a favour when you think about it.
if someone hears my stuff and thinks "oh my mate'd like that, i'll have to do them a copy of it" then they're doing the kind of targetted marketing for me that money can't buy, because its done with passion and enthusiasm.
but there is a debate going on about whether there can be a model for downloadable music.
if there can at all, i reckon it'll have to be in some form of communalist licensing mechanism, like the PRS that already exists now.
its great how the information revolution is putting capitalism under strain. only cooperative models really work with data products in my view, so i threw that option into the debate as a possibility.
ultimately though, the name of the game is to win supporters, and the best way to do that is to let people here your music.
so feel free to go and get my music jann. its at http://www.parrysongs.co.uk/music.html
I'm much happier with the idea of you singing along to my songs as they play on your ipod than not hearing them at all.
so go and get the music, even if its for free, and if you know anybody who you think would appreciate the songs, send them that link too, or make a copy of the music and give it to them as a present.
old thinking may be that you're doing the artist down if you do that - but in fact you're doing a massive favour when you think it through.
bestests as ever to you in new york
al 8-)
Posted by
Alun Parry |
Sunday, November 25, 2007
oh dear i spelled hear my music as here my music.
and i can't even edit it. this grevious spelling error is here for posterity!!
i do hope my old English teacher isn't reading this!!
Posted by
Alun Parry |
Sunday, November 25, 2007