Bandwidth Music & Technology Conference - August 17&18th - San Francisco, CA
Just spent a very interesting two days at San Francisco’s Bandwidth conference.
I’ll just skip to the (many) bits & ideas that rocked my socks. All of this will take much digestion, and maybe it’s the beer talking, but there’s an absolute gold-mine in here. I’ll highlight a different point or two over the next few posts.
The Economics of Abundance or Give All Your Music Away for Free
As you may know, I’ve been intrigued by this proposition lately. At the ‘E-Merging Labels’ discussion (basically a panel about Label 2.0 ), I brought up the idea and was roundly shot down by the speakers:
- IODA’s Marketing Chief
- Real Networks/Rhapsody Indie Music head
- GM of Label Quannum Projects (Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, DJ Shadow)
- Founder of Label/Social Network, Fuzz.com
That was not the end of it the matter, though. At the final panel about “The Future of Music”, the theory raised it’s head again, although it was passed over very quickly. The panelist who raised it?
Pop Culture & Entertainment editor of Wired magazine, Nancy Miller.
The same Wired magazine who’s editor, Chris Anderson, proposed the “Long Tail” theory and is currently finalizing a book, “Free”, on the subject here at hand. And yes, he’s giving it away.
I pressed Nancy at the bar afterward, and her response was basically, you need to sell you. Sounds silly, but it’s really the Russell Simmons model. An extreme example? A locally popular New Orleans band started their own business, branding their product with their name.
CDs? Not a chance.
They’re making (and selling) Hot Sauce.
Ridiculous cross-promotion tactics aside, this raises an interesting question: For a small, unknown label, giving all music away as a "growth-of-market" tactic makes sense. But if you were Rounder (who’s got about 500 Sound Recording copyrights) or even my employer: How do you suddenly tell them that the very thing that brings value to their company, as it stands, is essentially worthless in today’s music economy?
And another thing that just hit me: What does it say that at a conference that is largely attended (and populated) by people who rely on the monetization of digital media, that this idea is largely ignored? HEY! It's MY blog and I can make a stretch once in a while, OK? ;-)
Here's more on the Economics of Free.
Coming up – The Death of Artist “Mystique”, Warner Bros. VP dodges questions about DRM/Scarcity, Celebrity Deathmatch! - Pandora’s Tim Westergren Vs. SoundExchange’s Jon Simpson at the Streaming Rates Panel, The Vinyl Boom: Here to Stay?, Collapsed Copyright, The “Science” of Online Marketing and The DEATH of DRM. Whew!
