Another (UK) Study Shows Downloaders Buy More Music

Via Jeffrey Remedios: Yet another survey, this time from the U.K., shows that the people who are most likely to download music are also the people who spend the most money on it. To the best of my knowledge every independent (not funded by the music industry) study on the subject, in any country, has shown the same thing. The particulars of this one though show that:

"People who illegally download music from the internet also spend more money on music than anyone else, according to a new study. The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of £77 a year on music – £33 more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.

The findings suggest that plans by the Secretary of State for Business, Peter Mandelson, to crack down on illegal downloaders by threatening to cut their internet connections with a "three strikes and you're out" rule could harm the music industry by punishing its core customers."

The lessons here are fairly simple:

1) There is absolutely nothing that can be done about downloading - every attempt to curb it ends up costing far more than is ever recouped and no attempt to curb it seems to have had any impact to date. Even if you were somehow able to shut down torrents there is now free software that will let users record any radio stream and make individual mp3s of the software. Radio is now a file sharing service.

2) Overt attempts to curb downloading wind up alienating your core audience / best potential customers - making them less likely to buy anything.

All of the lawsuits to date have amounted to sheer spite. Yes there are tens of thousands of songs per minute being downloaded illegally - if you catch one of the downloaders, sue them for millions and ruin their life it has no impact on the overall problem. You can't possibly sue enough people to have an impact, it obviously doesn't scare people off of downloading - if anything they download even more out of spite, and you are unlikely to recoup the money you are awarded or even enough to pay the court costs. So it is perceived, in the public, as 'the music industry' ruining someone's life out of spite.

As a recording artist, or rights holder, your only real hope is to have a fan base that feels a personal connection to you and that respects you enough that they want you to earn a living - then they will buy your album, go to your show, buy t-shirts etc., but again - the main point of this whole post is: the people who are downloading the most music are the people who will make up the core of any paying audience you may have.

A New Section of NxEW for Musicians (& Their Associates)

I've added a new section to the site, and it's the only section that isn't all about Canadian music. It's called Music 2.0 and it's an aggregated feed of sites about the business of music - promotions, marketing, web tools and other things for people trying to do it themselves or for people who are trying to make the most of the opportunities available on behalf of someone else.

Included at this point are Artist House Music, Musician Wages, New Music Strategies, New Rock Star Philosophy and DIY Musician.

In short - if you just want to hear about new albums, tours, watch videos etc., this probably isn't of much interest to you - if you're a musician, manager, publicist, promoter or otherwise are very interested in the business side of music you might want to check it out.

It's been added to the feeds, the most recent few stories will show up at the bottom of our home page and a longer list of recent articles can be found at nxew.ca/music2.

You can also Subscribe in a feed reader or by email and get it delivered to you.

I'm going to be adding worthwhile feeds to this as I find them but feel free to make recommendations.

Is the Indie vs. Mainstream Battle Over?

The Indie vs. Mainstream battle has raged for decades now: there's the indie is good and mainstream is bad side and the never ending 'what is indie' side. If you grow up fighting a particular fight it is sometimes hard to know when the fight is over. I've been pondering it lately and I think that this one is. It is not over because one side or the other won, it is over because indie and mainstream music are not even in the same business anymore. Some time, about 10 years ago the 'music business' came to a fork in the road and indie went one way and mainstream went the other. I think at this point they are far enough apart that they own have their distinct territory without much overlap and I think if you take a hard look at any music it is easy to see which side of the wall it falls on.

mainstream sues people over file sharing, or for playing their CDs at a place of business or ... well anything to keep the lawyers busy really.
indie may not be happy about file sharing, but most on this side also recognize the promotional value of free music (and if they are honest with themselves many if not most on both sides will download a song or two themselves sometimes.) If indie walks into a dentist office or hair salon and hears their album playing they are very happy, they don't ask to be paid for it.

mainstream is primarily about the relationship between labels, wholesalers and retailers.
indie is primarily about the relationship between artists and fans.

mainstream is as much about a performers image and their off stage exploits as it is about what they do on stage or in the studio.
indie is almost exclusively about what happens on stage and in the studio.

mainstream is about pure entertainment value.
indie should be entertaining but it is about the art of music - scantily clad choreographed dancers are a rarity at live concerts - at least on stage.

mainstream hires stylists, image consultants, and makeup artists
indie does not

mainstream is $15-20 at HMV or Wal-Mart
indie is $8 at Zunior or $10 for a physical copy at the merch table ($15 for vinyl).

mainstream is an industry it cranks out music and popular entertainers with all the same level of passion that a soap factory cranks out bars.
indie is an art (that like all art would also like to make a living.)

Finally - unlike the old days mainstream is not out scouting for bands they can sell (ruin) - they manufacture bands now. Between their stylists, fashion consultants, hair and make-up people, image gurus, airbrushing, planting of stories with the paparazzi, song writers, music writers, auto-tune, studio tricks etc., they can take pretty much anyone regardless of description or talent and make them a salable commodity. There is no point in going out and seeking out bands who might have integrity and/or ideas of their own.

That fork in the road I mentioned above was the internet. When it arrived it brought inexpensive music production, marketing and distribution, file sharing and social media. It also brought the million channel universe. In the old world the same companies that owned the mega-labels also owned the radio and television stations, newspapers and magazines. They played and covered largely their own artists. The arrival of podcasts, internet radio and internet tv meant the monopoly of the entertainment conglomerates was broken. Independent artists and small labels saw an opportunity and took it. The big labels, the traditional giants of the music business took it as a threat and lawyered up.

The indie vs. mainstream battle at this point reached a fever pitch. There have been (and still are) attempts by the big labels to control the internet, to limit access to sites they don't approve of etc., (to keep up to date on these efforts just watch Michael Geists blog.) By and large though I think the battle is over.

When I talk to people I don't find alot of overlap between audiences. I find very few people who listen to 50 cent AND Buck 65, none who listen to Britney Spears AND Basia Bulat. There is the occasional crossover like Feist but for the most part they are two different worlds. I don't find many people anymore who think that Feist or Arcade Fire aren't "indie" anymore just because they've become successful. Generally, the people I talk to who are into indie music don't even watch the same television shows, listen to the same radio stations, or read the same publications as the people who are interested in more mainstream fare.

At some point when no one was paying attention the two warring factions simply became different countries. Mainstream music is no longer the enemy of music. The mainstream has almost nothing to do with music, they manufacture a product (like lug nuts, or donuts) and sell that product. Indie, for lack of a better term at the moment, has claimed the mantle. In future books on music history there will be almost no mention of the mainstream 'music industry' except as a footnote. So, having taken over it's time for us to simply turn our backs and walk away from the old music industry and focus on strengthening what's been built.

Indie (or whatever we want to call it) understood the internet as an opportunity, seized it immediately and is more and more successful every year. Mainstream (or the 'music industry that was') is still suing and lobbying governments to try to make the internet go away (the only way they'll ever even slow down file sharing is to shut down the internet entirely.) They took the internet and technology as a threat and still do and every year they get weaker and more remote. The war is over, now it's time to rebuild.

Bad Reviews are a Critics Way of Saying "Look at Me"!

Just a quick thought for you all: I mentioned here that, according to the Toronto Star there were "750,000 albums produced worldwide in 2007 compared to 38,000 in 2002". I don't have numbers since 2007 but we can assume that given the fact that technology has become even cheaper and easier to use and the delusions of granduer inspired in many by Guitar Hero that the number of albums is well over a million now. It would be nice of the number of really talented musicians was going up as rapidly, but that is sadly not the case. Don't get me wrong, there is more good music out there than ever (especially in Canada) but the rate of good musicians is not going up as fast as the rate of music produced.

In music and elsewhere all that cheap technology means that the world is flooded with information and opinions - tweets, blogs, facebook, magazines, newspapers etc., etc., Information overload is becoming a real problem for more and more people. If you are going to review albums and over a million have been produced (annually), your job is now to root around in the haystack and let people know if you find any needles. The only reason, in this age, I can see for shouting out (in print or online) when you find hay is to draw attention to yourself - not the band. Finding a bad album in a world where anyone with a computer can make an album is not news and doesn't contribute much to the online discussion. You are telling people not to buy an album that they likely never would have heard of otherwise. It is not about drawing attention to the album or the band, it is about drawing attention to yourself.

Just some food for thought, directed at no one in particular.

Record Label Launches It's Own Subscription Service

This is a Canadian blog and the subject of this particular post is an American (Nashville, TN) label, but the point is not their artists it is their approach and their creativity. Via Jeffrey Remedios comes word that Nashville's Third Man Records is starting a service whereby subscribers get access to photos, video, tickets and music that is unavailable to anyone else. Just some food for thought for everyone. There is plenty of money in music still, it just doesn't work the way it used to.