Free Music is The New Standard
Half a decade ago there were only a handful of musicians who shared their music via file-sharing networks, but this has changed radically.
BitTorrent sites have slowly started to replace record stores, with peers taking care of the music distribution.
More and more artists and indie labels have decided to give away their music without charging a penny. Instead, they hope to gather new fans that will support them through concert visits and by buying merchandising.
At FreakBits we are more than happy to support independent artists who publish their work for free on BitTorrent. One such band that recently uploaded its music onto BitTorrent and various other places is Citizen Collision.
“Citizen Collision is a band from Dallas, TX, ranging from rock to acoustic in genre. We offer all our music for free,” band member Caleb Killingsworth told FreakBits. “We feel that you should get our music from us instead of paying a company for it.”
“We all know most artists make the majority of their money from ticket and merch sales and that’s why we don’t charge for our music.”
“You can download Citizen Collision music off of most major music trackers, or download it from a new site I just launched for musicians to share their music, with no compression on your tracks like other music services,” Caleb added.
Of course the best way to get your music out to the masses is by uploading it to some of the major torrent sites, and that’s why you can also grab a copy from The Pirate Bay.
Photo by MarS.
well… the problem with pages like these is, that most artists are in the states… so there are no spontaneous “hey I like this band, let’s go to a concert” actions…
Did Someone say Free Music?
TF/FB’s Sister site, p2pnet.net (A HOTTT sister at that JOKE JOKE xD) offers free muse > http://www.p2pnet.net/story/34209
I like Freedom Pirates by the Copyright Anarchists
To be honest, though I don’t think the country thing is a major problem, it would be pretty cool if somewhere comitted to freely-distributed content (say, Mininova) did make it really easy to sort by country.
It’s not that I don’t want to listen to music from elsewhere, but I’d far rather download music by a band I might get the chance to see.
Free music will NEVER be the model for working musicians. It will only work for youngsters who have nothing to lose, low overheard and cheap/crappy production values. Just because you CAN produce an album with GarageBand, doesn’t mean it will sound great. If you want to record in a real studio with real equipment and have a real PRO (i.e., somebody with fantastic ears and skills who’s been recording, mixing and mastering for decades) work on your project, you’ll be spending $10k minimum. But it will probably be more like $15k to $40k.
Does anyone really think musicians can recoup those costs by playing live? Musicians earn about the same thing now for live gigs now that they did 20 years ago. Compensation hasn’t even kept pace with inflation. I think people who write these silly proclamations don’t know anything about the music businesses, or they’ve based their opinions on a small slice of the market: indie bands. That genre isn’t representative of musicians at large, nor will it pave the way for new music compensation models.
@CarriBugbee
At last, a sensible, well-written & intelligent piece on why all this “music should be free” crap is wrong.
Of course bigoted Pirates will ignore this and claim and steal their wares until that infringement notice or disconnect arrives in the post
YArrrrrrrrrr
At the last two posts, you’re absolutely correct that the free model for music doesn’t benefit the musicians, but to be honest, neither does buying their CDs/Digital Music. We’ve seen enough cases where the Music Companies (More recently there’s been a court case over Sony BMG) where they are lying and cheating the artists out of their money. If you don’t believe this, try using Google, look for posts for recent events with keywords “Spotify” and “Sony BMG”.
Being in the Digital age now, I would only buy my music online, but when I’m told by these companies what I can do with the file I own, I’d rather pirate. Only having music on X amount of computers is unacceptable. Even then, some of my older Nickelback CD’s won’t even let me rip them to iTunes. So I went and downloaded them.
It isn’t that pirates don’t feel bad about what they do, it is about the consumer rights and how these organizations who the artists must yield to are dictating to us what we can or cannot do with material we purchased.
Another huge issue is pricing, Online vs. CD. The same 12 songs bought online would cost you almost exactly the same in CD form, but how does this make any sense? They kept it that way to fleece the users out of more money, though you aren’t paying for the CD, case, cover art, etc.
The way I see it, is I already pay a levy on CD’s, a tax on ALL Blank CD Media, to the CRTC, because it MAY be used for Copyright infringement. I’ve payed enough to cover the cost of thousands of songs just by accusation and assumption here.
In the end, its the consumer that needs to be catered to. I don’t mind paying fair prices for music, but I do mind giving my money to the pocket of companies who refuse to pay their musicians to begin with.
Pirates are not the only issue, and until people can open their eyes a bit more and see that, piracy will still be a problem. Its a lot easier to blame the thieves in the spotlight than it is to blame the respected head of a company hidden in the shadows.
Problem is you don’t “own” the file. you paying for a licence to play the file.
@Carri Bugbee – disingenuous. You well know most musicians make their money by playing live. Not by selling vinyl or CDs. They make their name by playing live or these days on youtube or on the internet somewhere. Musicians are making more money playing live these days than they ever did. We’ve seen the charts of the music industry income.
Only a rare few ever did make money when they sold their musical soul to music distributors. The distributors made heaps though selling studio time and professionals and much more at inflated prices to the musicians and only paying back fractions of what they earned.
Most people get their music for free, by listening on the radio, by borrowing from libraries or friends. It’s not going to change.
If having slick production is all that’s important let’s get back to live music, the sooner the better.
Bowie, The Beatles, The Who, Dylan, Quo & many others got very rich from royalties and even stopped touring as they didn’t need to.. All the crews lighting venues etc sucked money from touring and bands often made losses on touring.
In those days you could see a top band for about £3=4.00, now tickets cost £50, 60 70
Theyre making money from both. And they get pre=release money on top of royalties, money each time a track is played on radio
Still doesn’t mean you have any right to obtain content for nothing, when other people legitimately pay to obtain music.
Peace
What previous posters seem to be missing is that just because it’s not monetarily beneficial for musicians to give away their music, doesn’t mean it’s not beneficial. Any band could ALWAYS gain a larger fan base. And to many musicians, they would rather you have their music for free opposed to not having it at all. Most musicians are not writing songs to make money, they’re writing them because that’s what they love to do.
I’ve gotten a few hundred downloads of my music today by this article. I wonder how much it would have cost me in marketing to get 100 people to download my music from iTunes. I probably would have lost money because the cost of advertising/marketing would not match the amount of music sales. Carri, you might be able to shed some light on this as it is your expertise. Also, ticket sales are not the only aspect of live gigs. Merchandise is very prevalent and profitable with every live gig.
“Musicians earn about the same thing now for live gigs now that they did 20 years ago.”
How is that possible? I am paying ten times the amount for a concert ticket now! Where is all the money going then?
@No
Exactly! I was going to address this but I didn’t even know how to reply haha
http://www.emule-project.net supporting artist and creators, and sharing between all
[...] Music is The New Standard” recita il titolo del post apparso l’altro giorno su FreakBits e parla di come ormai sia una pratica sempre più diffusa diffondere sul web la propria musica [...]
@CarriBugbee
You have a flawed look for pro artists..
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Free music will NEVER be the model for working musicians. It will only work for youngsters who have nothing to lose, low overheard and cheap/crappy production values. Just because you CAN produce an album with GarageBand, doesn’t mean it will sound great. If you want to record in a real studio with real equipment and have a real PRO (i.e., somebody with fantastic ears and skills who’s been recording, mixing and mastering for decades) work on your project, you’ll be spending $10k minimum. But it will probably be more like $15k to $40k.
You well know most musicians make their money by playing live. Not by selling vinyl or CDs. They make their name by playing live or these days on youtube or on the internet somewhere. Musicians are making more money playing live these days than they ever did. We’ve seen the charts of the music industry income.
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Actually the RIAA have made a multibillion dollar industry from selling cds.. Do you care to list where these so called industry charts are.. Most top artists haven’t played a so called live show in atleast a year (if not many more).. This includes charity events and the such.. The goal of the riaa is to preserve their income via physical sales.. They aren’t sending artists out on tours even today where they stand to gain more profits..
Regarding your first paragraph although it may be true kids have nothing to lose the industry doesn’t pay a professional 10k to record and mix.. Add a few extra zeros onto the end first.. The industry seems to think they can live in their old model..
The bottom line is the cost of production is almost next to nothing these days for an amateur or a pro.. Yes you can thank Apple for that.. Indie bands stand to gain way more sharing music then pros.. Pros only see dollar signs at this point.. They don’t care about the music.. Hence the indie artists turn to BT and gain monumental amounts of exposure.. This activity alone could turn millions of people away from the top 40 and onto indie bands which would decimate the top artists income anyways.. Seems like a whole lot of complaining from the RIAA Mafiaa..
LOL, are u guys saying that Radiohead and NIN produce crap albums? LOL, oh yes, they are free……and yes they are using it as a model….looool…thks, You’ve made my night.