Lefsetz legt het nog maar eens netjes uit. Eigenlijk is het hele artikel de moeite waard om te lezen. Maar het belangrijkste stuk citeer ik hieronder.
Knowing exactly who your fan is, that’s the key in the future. And so far, the acts do it better than the labels. But, if you capture the e-mail address at the point of ticket sale, and you continue to market to those who want messages, targeted missives, not spam, you can build something. But old wave thinking is short term thinking, we haven’t got time to invest in our future, we’re focused on the bottom line!
Don’t focus on albums, focus on fan relationships. A dedicated fan will want all the material, in whatever form it can be acquired. He’s going to want the bootleg and the authorized live performance. When you give away music, you don’t lose money, you invest in your future!
The Internet is the new medium. It’s not only killed physical retail, it’s put a huge dent in radio and now television. To try to corral people into old behaviors is as fruitless as getting people to refrain from buying televisions in 1949.
All this is true. So I’d recommend that people look twice at services such as YouTube, DailyMotion and Spotify that offer to offer your music for more or less free to THEIR audience. You will get nothing – no rights, no links, no e-mail addresses and you don’t get to build a relationship with the people watching your stuff. Plus, I can download all the music I want off YouTube. Why would I bother buying it afterwards? Has not YouTube become Pirate Bay? Sorry to say something so unfashionable, but you have to think your strategy through, guys. Being thrilled by the n° of people watching a video is one thing; making this work for you is something completely different.
Thanks for your comment Michael.
However, I think the first important thing is that your fans know YOU. In this effect I would be very happy to have my music on YouTube, DailyMotion, Spotify etc.
But it’s true, that doesn’t make you know your fans. Here at http://www.mmmotion.com we are working on that part. I also think that, as a music industry, we should lobby with the tech firms such as YouTube to get such things included on their websites: a ’subscribe to the mailinglist’ link, a buy link, etc.
If I was a negotiator for the collecting societies (like Sabam here in Belgium), I would bargain on this issue. I wouldn’t force them with all means to pay old school copyright licensing fees. I would look for a win-win situation where both artists and tech company can make a profit. What if all YouTube videos were properly tagged and obligatorily contained a link to the artist’s webpage or mailinglist (for free)? And a link to download stores such as iTunes and there was a split revenue deal on the cash made by the clickthroughs?
I think YouTube would be eager to do that. It’s a good business model for them, they get rid of the annoying copyright claims and it’s good for artists.
The last week I’m quite convinced about this adagium: ‘Context is king’ replaced ‘content is king’. Content is so copyable these days, the money is in the context.