A couple of months ago, I wrote about the challenges musicians face trying to recoup their recording costs. Specifically, I asked how bands and musicians that do not tour frequently recover
these expenses when the general public wants their music for free? Jimmy Ether, a musician, engineer and studio owner
responded with such thoughtful and detailed comments that I thought his
reply would be better suited as its own post, so here it is:
"Hey
man, just taking a peak at your blog and thought I'd offer my
perspective on all this. First, a little correction on the recording
side of thing. There is a big difference in major label and indie rates
in the recording business. There are literally dozens of good recording
studios in every major city who provide great quality recording at
around $500 a day, and a lot of those are having to cut deals to entice
the home recordists to step up in quality. $1500/day studios are
strictly for major label acts and there isn't a single sane independent
artist that would use them.
That said, it would be quite impossible in this day and age to track
and record an album in less than a week and you'd need another week to
mix (unless you are, like Frank Black,
going completely live to 2-track. Most records take about 3 to 4 weeks.
But, you're price is pretty close. Most quality indie "studio" records
are made in between $4000-$10,000.
I agree that there is no way the industry can function on a entirely
free model, but I also firmly believe that most bands and labels are
far too short-sighted with their tight-hold on their music. Free music
goes both ways. If you can entice (essentially link-bait) press,
bloggers, fanatical music lovers, etc. to write, talk, review,
distribute and promote your music by giving them music for free, then
your gain far outweighs your cost (in fact, in digital, the cost is
essentially nil provided that the person otherwise would never have
purchased it). There just have to be terms and limits. You have to
figure out the value of a digital asset verses the potential value of
an action resulting from allowing that asset to be given to someone
free. The more direct control you have over that, the better return on
investment.
There is also a pricing:convenience ratio. If the price is
reasonable enough and the payment/download process is significantly
easier than dealing with P2P, a large enough percentage of people will
buy the download to make it profitable. $1 a song... is *not* that
price.
I'd love to see a number on the budget being spent to subvert P2P
file-sharing. If that amount were instead spent on making the
experience easier for the consumer and *especially* on artist
development (which is basically non-existent these days), then the
industry as a whole would be in a much better position.
People who trade on P2P are a label and band's best friend when you
get the model right. They are DJs sans-payola. P2P is the new radio. It
is practically impossible for an indie-band to get attention without
them. Just look at the correlation between the artists who are traded
on these networks with the playlists on top college radio, 'zine
coverage, indie store sales rankings, paid digital downloads, and blog
coverage. Is it that the media is feeding the P2P? Nope, because the
records are getting leaked (by, *cough* smart label promoters) to P2P
*way* before even press copies get mailed. They'll never admit that in
public, but the smart ones know it works.
I'm not saying the Radiohead
model works. It doesn't, *unless* you are already a famous artist on
the level of Radiohead. They only rose to that level because millions
of dollars were spent in the promotion of their previous albums.
Promotion costs a lot of money and far eclipses production and
manufacturing costs. That's a budget that has to come from somewhere.
And where to find that money is the major problem we face with new
industry models.
Good blog BTW!"
Great feedback Jimmy, and I agree with you that P2P can certainly be a musician/band's best friend "when you get the model right." This philosophy also seems to be the direction Larry Lessig is suggesting, as seen in this video - as it becomes a middle ground where P2P becomes the distribution vehicle for music, but artists are still compensated.
Again, thanks for your detailed reply, and best wishes in 2008!
Btw readers, the picture in this post is of Jimmy Ether's studio.
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As I finished this post, I was listening to: Melpo Mene - Hello Benjamin via FoxyTunes
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