I see three type of artists today:
1. Still obsessed with the old model of getting a deal and having their music heard by that one person that can change your life.
2. Pure artists that have no knack for business and unfortunately will not break through today’s market.
3. Artists that get it, or at least want to get it. They realize the business model has changed and still have a viable chance to succeed. They want to know the business and learn as much as they can before venturing out into the volatile world of the new music industry.
Artists have numerous outlets available to them to get their music out to the consumer, but for just as many legitimate web portals to market their music through, there are even more file sharing cess pools, awaiting to have the artist's intellectual property uploaded to their servers, and cause the artist to be cheated out of the little revenue they are already bringing in as an employee of the major distributors and their affiliate record labels.
It's never been cheaper to distribute music, and recording costs are now fantastically inexpensive. That's old news, but it looks like marketing costs are actually increasing, and the number of artists making ends meet remains depressingly slim. In fact, the latest finding shows that less than 30,000 artists are actually earning a living.
Meanwhile, the costs of actually marketing music effectively is increasing. Topspin CEO Ian Rogers at New Noise Santa Barbara over the weekend said that, "Technology has allowed the cost of production to come down, and the cost of distribution has come down," Rogers relayed. "But the cost of marketing has come up, because you have empowered consumers and unlimited choice."
Not only that, successful marketing is extremely time-consuming, resource-consuming, and the results highly unpredictable. Welcome to the new music industry, one whose real dynamics are just starting to come to light - and forcing entirely new approaches and expectations.
In fact after doing a little research, there are actually over 100 companies from the dawning of the digital age of the new music industry that actually bit the dust along the way as the business model has transformed, and became deformed. It seemed that at the beginning of the digital age, there would be companies that came along that would help push the new music industry into a new era of ideas and opportunity, but then file sharing monstrosities passing themselves off as legitimate companies sprung up overnight, at least it seemed, and have literally destroyed the business, just as the major distributors had years before with their MAPS agreement.
Here are the top 100 P2P and E-Commerce sites that bit the dust along the way via the RIAA or through it's own mishandling.
1. Napster (I, that is...) 2. LimeWire
3. Spiralfrog 4. Overpeer
5. Ruckus 6. TotalMusic
7. AllofMP3 8. Amp'd Mobile
9. Imeem 10. MediaDefender
11. Snocap 12. Muxtape
13. Uplister 14. Mercora (Social.fm)
15. Angry Coffee 16. Aron's Records
17. Spaceland 18. Coolfer
19. Tower Records 20. Passalong Networks
21. Weedshare 22. Kazaa
23. mp3.com 24. Qtrax
25. iMesh 26. Helio
27. BurnLounge 28. AudioGalaxy
29. WebNoize 30. Cdigix
31. ICast 32. Clickradio
33. iCast 34. Nareos
35. StreamCast Networks 36. MusicIP (Predixis)
37. Waxie Maxie's 38. CuteMX
39. Blender 40. Radio & Records (R&R)
41. SDMI (Standard Digital Music Initiative) 42. Creem
43. RIP (magazine) 44. eDonkey
45. Scour Exchange 46. Odeo
47. Sonific 48. PlaysforSure
49. Reciprocal 50. Kick.com
51. Pressplay 52. MediaNet I
53. SkreemR 54. DigiPie
55. Lumberjack Distribution 56. Sony BMG Music Entertainment
57. WorldSpace 58. Musicane
59. MyStrands 60. Xingtone
61. Imesh 62. VoyMusic
63. Musicrypt 64. Liquid Audio
65. Echo 66. Reboot Music
67. Muse.net 68. Radio Free Virgin
69. Zingy 70. 411-Song
71. Oink 72. Virgin Megastores (North America, Asia)
73. Morpheus 74. Torrent Entertainment Network
75. LiveUniverse 76. P2P United
77. Circuit City 78. Pinnacle Distribution
79. Neuton 80. Songbeat
81. Amiest 82. Fusion Distribution III
83. MusicGiants 84. Millennium Music
85. The Box 86. CBGB's
87. Digital Entertainment Network (DEN) 88. PluggedIn
89. Soundbuzz 90. OOiZiT
91. Mulve.com 92. WinMX
93. MediaSentry 94. Topspinner
95. Colombo-BT.org 96. Relatable
97. Cashbox 98. Musicland
99. Sony Cassette Walkman 100. FatBeats
100 legal sites that stream and download free music.
http://blog.merrycode.com/100-legal-sites-to-stream-and-download-free-music/
Of course Garage Band, ITunes, CD Baby, Tunecore, and numerous others are making inroads to what the new music industry can possibly be in the near future, but even these portals for both indie and major artists can prove to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. There are millions of songs loaded up to these companies web portals, but very few if any of these artists are making a sizable profit from their music uploaded to these sites, yet these web portals rake in millions from sign up fees, uploading fees, etc.
There are over 200 Million blogs online, along with hundreds of social networking sites, and although social media has become a part of promoting an artist's product to the masses all in one single click. How many of these clicks are actually targeting a certain geographic, and utilizing the marketing tactics that actually generate consumer interest in that product? I see tons of so called "promoters", selling services to artists offering eBlasts of a list of individuals that they more than likely never had any contact with, and have no clue or are familiar what their listening habits might be. There is only a 1% to 2% chance that those that receive the eBlast will even open up their email. So many artists are duped into spending thousands of dollars believing that these "promoters" know what they are doing, and the promises of radio airplay, marketing and promotions on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc., are just not an end all to reaching those consumers that will eventually be interested in purchasing or supporting that product. I've witnessed with my own eyes, some of these "promoters" charging for "duplication", and actually going to Staples, Costco, etc., purchase a 100 pack of cd', thermal print on the cd's, burn the music from a cd the artists has given them and then charge the artist thousands of dollars for those "duplicated cd's.
Even promises of radio airplay is not telling the truth of the current business model of radio. This was formerly the practice of radio; walking product into a station, talking with the program director, and then making subsequent calls to see if that product was being played and/or added to the playlist. Now stations that were previously independent have been gobbled up by radio broadcasting networks such as Beasley Broadcasting, Cox, CBS, Fox, Clear Channel, etc., and have corporate boards that hire radio consultants to determine what should be included on their entire network of radio stations' playlists. So program directors and even mix show dj's now have very little wiggle room when it comes to adding to or playing outside of that playlist sent down by the corporate board, yet these "promoters" make these outlandish promises to artists only to persuade the artists to pay an extravagant amount for their services.
Also there is the issue of the "ticket touting" which has become a plague. This is the practice of purchasing a large block of tickets, then reselling them via EBay, etc. at often more than double the price they were being offered on the ticket retailers site. mobile ticketing will soon eradicate this practice, I believe, but until then the artist pays a heavy price if they are depending on part of the gate for their performance fee. The promoter doesn't feel any pain, because even if the touters don't sell any tickets, they have made their money from the original sale.
Here is a clip of XZibit on the Mo'nique show speaking on the old music industry and adapting to the new music industry:
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