Why this new record label is giving away all its music for free | Hacker News Reader

Why this new record label is giving away all its music for free

thenextweb.com

> Normally, the launch of a new record label wouldn’t be the kind of thing we’d cover at The Next Web,

I can see that. This is like a music blog covering the release of a NoSQL database. They just don't have a clue.

There have been netlabels with free music downloads on the net since before mp3s were popular. The days that these only published amateur music of mediocre quality are long past. Many labels have had mixed free/non-free downloads for years, too (i.e. some releases are free, some aren't).

ps. if I upload some mp3s to a wordpress blog, do I get to feature on thenextweb too?

This feels like a publicity stunt. DigSin is single-oriented (that's even what the name means!), and it's far from unusual for labels to release a free single to promote the album. Meanwhile, plenty of independent artists on sites like Bandcamp and labels like Quote Unquote Records release all their music for free w/voluntary donations.

Well, I had a browse. Bandcamp list under their folk tags an artist called Daughter. Daughter releases an EP called His Young Heart. Daughter has a gig at a tea shop in Liverpool on a day when I can't get there, such is life. My paypal account is £3 lighter and my hard drive 93Mb heavier as a consequence of all this.

Discoverability is the big nut to crack. Anyone here working on that? It was easier in the days of 45s and LPs and bins in your local record shop, but, I suspect there was less.

The issue is cross-silo thinking. Web seems to feedback things I 'like', and confirm other's likes (people bought this also bought...). Daughter's music is outside my normal territory but only half a football pitch, not a mile.

The other issue is images. The photo on the EP is important. The artist I suppose had some input on that.

The producer of this music is a risk taker. Maybe if his stand is, if he can't beat the piracy, then he will go on a trend. He allowed people to download the music not necessarily for the money but also for the study purposes. Maybe if he is able to establish what age listens to certain music genre, then he will target to produce more music of that kind because he knows many people will listen to it.

I just hope that he will gain more money through the advertisements so that his effort will be reciprocated.

Ugh, I feel bad for them. That is the wrong way to try to drum up interest in music. It is already free. What they need to provide is something else that hasn't already been done. Like support online communities for bands that could write the bands' lyrics and music, if those user had a subscription.

Sounds like a spin on the Spotify/Grooveshark model, who give the music away (maybe with some ads in between) and sell the geodemographic information of who's listening back to the music labels. The difference is this guy IS the label.

I actually kind of don't get it, MegaUpload made some pretty good money from showing ads, didn't it? This guy says he doesn't expect to make much from the ads. As long as he has songs people actually want...

He's attempting to understand who his audience is with this act. I don't read more into it than that. This isn't the same situation the recording industry is in. If they gave their music away for free they would be broke.

Megaupload made the bulk of it's money from upselling customers into premium accounts.

The only way to make good money from ads is if the ads are relevant for the people who come for the content. I can't imagine many relevant ads for people who are coming to a new record label's site for a particular band. They'd probably make more money selling band t-shirts.

For a record label with a big catalogue of artists that don't attract many paid downloads, selling premium accounts probably isn't the worst revenue model, at least until it comes to deciding who deserves royalties...

Allow the customer to assign weighted values to who gets the money from their premium service.

Or if it's a streaming service divide it among the artists that were actually listened to.

I don't much care if it is free, I just want to know if it is any good?

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