Source Link

Posted by: Mike Collett-White
Tags: Fan Fare, Coldplay, pop music, Prince

OK, they may not be Prince in terms of their importance and popularity, but youthful band McFly are a pretty big deal in Britain, boasting seven number one singles and two chart-topping albums. So when they announce they will be giving their new album away for free with a Sunday newspaper, perhaps they should not be ignored.

The band is following Prince’s lead to the letter. The U.S. star also issued an album free with the Mail on Sunday last year in a move that enraged retailers and record labels, for obvious reasons, but which was seen as a commercial success when the tour he was promoting sold well.

McFly will release “Radio:ACTIVE” with the same newspaper on July 20 in order to lure more people to their live shows. It underlines the trend in pop music towards giving your music away for free, or at least selling it for a song, in order to make money through live performances, merchandising and advertising.

Prince has done it, Radiohead has done it with their “pay-as-much-as-you-want” scheme, Coldplay gave away a single from their latest album online — the list gets longer and longer. The reason? Selling music does not make enough money, due to online piracy and the popularity of other forms of entertainment like video games.

Artists are convinced they will be the winners in the long term as revenues from touring go on rising. Record labels are going to end up among the losers if the trend continues. But there is another potential loser. The music fan.

Industry executives, perhaps unsurprisingly, argue that the more music is given away for free, the less money music labels make, and the less money labels make, the less money they spend on discovering new talent.

Do you buy that argument? And will the trend towards cheaper music continue to the point where some or even all of it is free?

I know I'm being repetitive, but I lived the first 45 or so years of my life under the impression that music was free to listen to.

Item 1 -- Industry executives, perhaps unsurprisingly, argue that the more music is given away for free, the less money music labels make, and the less money labels make, the less money they spend on discovering new talent.

Discovering new talent? They used to do that? Must have been before they started spending the money on DRM and lawyers.

Item 2 -- Artists are convinced they will be the winners in the long term as revenues from touring go on rising. Record labels are going to end up among the losers if the trend continues. But there is another potential loser. The music fan.

Item 1 is supposed to be the reason behind Item 2.

By this measurement, the music fan is already the loser. The record labels are placing far more more money and effort into suing music fans than they ever did discovering new talent.

If the labels dry up, the music fan is the winner, and the artists win, too. Except for the ones whose careers were manufactured.

Oh, well.

It will only be free for one day though, won't it? The paper will pay them money for it and then after that day fans will have to buy the album in the shops. I hardly think that a cheap marketing ploy by an on-the-slide boy band constitutes a drastic shift in the way music is sold and distributed.

Music already is free.

AND, truth be told, it ALWAYS has been free.

------------

You want to know what is NOT free?

people

(1) ...who have been convinced that music and/or any other artistic/intellectual expression is "property".

(2) ...who allow their government/society to get away with making "rules" about music/art/expression as if.

(Stop sitting on you asses folks!)

What about bmgmusicservice? Buy one, get 14 free. Music has been free for a long time.

Music already is free.

AND, truth be told, it ALWAYS has been free.

Yes, agreed. it certainly has.
and it will continue to be free, created by those who love music, not necessarily money. Music will survive because some have a passion, a drive, to create the music.

(Stop sitting on you asses folks!)


And for the record, I've been active against the riaa for a long time. I'm certainly not sitting on my ass all the time.