"How To Make Money In The Digital Age"
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Music Publishers |
The internet is opening a brand new world in music. Mass distribution and marketing on a global scale have allowed new products to come out on the market. While this worked well with electronics and cars, music and movies always felt more forced.
However, new tools are erupting to corner niche markets. Broadband internet allows users to access information faster, cheap bandwidth makes hosting sites more affordable, and the popularity of sites like YouTube have allowed new creators into the business. While the top of the charts stars are not affected, this allows smaller artists to compete with mid-level artists.
This is creating a new creative market, and new styles and sub-styles in music are erupting. The talents range from passable amateurs all the way up to those with true talents. There is also a breaking away from the use of entertainment executives, and more artists are able to publish and distribute their works on their own.
The internet opens numerous doors for the music industry. Even a high-quality encoded album will not usually take up more than 100MB of memory space. With the gigabytes of storage and the amount of information exchanged daily on the internet, there is little to keep music from being shared from one source to another.
This has created a unique challenge for the older music stars. Internet downloads have caused recording sales to drop, and some of the older musicians are taking back on the road searching for new ways to create revenues. These musicians were around before the digital era, and are used to building a fan base that is loyal to their music. Touring also gives them the opportunity to spread their songs to a new, young fan base, and often is one of the best ways for an artist to make money.
Music piracy has become a major headache for the musicians, though some fans believe it is a call for the artists to get back to the roots that made them great -- their fans. For some people, copying a music file is no different than saving any other piece of information that they can download online. Plus, if it is available to them for free, they may be less likely to shell out the dollars to buy the CD. Plus, many artists' CDs include a popular song or two and several fillers. Online, the listener can download just the songs that they personally enjoy without downloading the ones that they do not. On the other hand, it is hard to recreate the experience of a live show with a saved computer file, and many fans will still pay the price for the live experience.
While downloadable music programs make it easier for legalized digital distribution of music, the owners of the programming essentially have the final say in what is available. For independent artists, there is a need for a place where they can distribute their music for a minimal cut of the profits of the site.
Until then, the best way for up and coming artists to create their fan base is the old-fashioned way -- one tour at a time. This can help weed out the true talent from the imposters as well as generate an interest in their work.
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Brian Cook is a freelance writer whose articles on music and songwriting have appeared on many websites.
You can find more of these at SongwritersGuide.com.
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