Music Piracy & the Profit Tipping Point
Some significant data were released last week by the (suddenly very visible) music reporting service, MusicMetric.
Significant, in this case, equates to over 400 million instances of illegally downloaded music around the world during the first six months of 2012.
Disaster.
Crisis.
Death of music.
And yet…
Of Piracy & Profiteering
What most struck me about this report is that the headline artists, those most downloaded in any given country, aren’t of the old guard. From Drake in the US, Ed Sheeran in the UK, and the largely unknown Billy Van in a number of other countries, all are musicians who have risen to prominence in the last few years.
This is important, because the long-trumpeted argument against illegal downloading has been that it kills artist development. These new artists can’t be successful if you don’t pay for their recorded music.
But Drake is now a household name in North America, selling out arena-headlining tours this year and grossing close to $1 million for many shows. And across the pond, Sheeran recently closed out the Olympics, visible to billions, and will play to close to 25,000 people over five sold out nights in London next month. And all this, impressively, from a ginger ninja.
If piracy is the death of music, someone forgot to e-mail all these folks heading out to support these artists in the real world… or perhaps they were simply fixated on their torrent windows and missed the message?
Fair & Balanced
All flippancy aside, I understand that these are breakout artists and that there are many musicians still struggling for attention, or even a few bucks/quid when they play the latest toilet on their live schedule. But the argument from all the major players in the recorded music industry, that artists will never be able to develop and rise to fame in a culture that doesn’t pay for their recordings, is being torn up, chewed, and spat right back in their gnarled, bitter faces with examples such as these.
Over the last decade, the one chink of sunshine through the otherwise gray and gloomy skies of the music industry has been the relative health of the live sector. Festivals have gone from strength to strength and ticket sales have remained a reliable source of income for everyone playing to crowds in the triple digits and upwards. For a while it was suggested that only legacy acts, those built on the revenues and marketing of the pre-file sharing era, were the main beneficiaries of this phenomenon.
As more and more acts graduate to worldwide fame and exploding ticket sales without those record label development budgets and marketing support, however, the justification for blaming all of the wider industry’s ills on piracy rings ever more hollow.
Increasingly, we see that the challenge facing actual musicians isn’t how to get listeners to stump up for recorded music, but how to gain wider attention for their songs and leverage that recognition into income from other sources, be it ticket sales, diverse merchandise, or licensing agreements.
The Curious Case of Billy Van
The third example I mentioned on this report should be conspicuous by his absence from my preceding bluster, and with good reason. More so than the others, Billy Van exemplifies this nascent attention economy in music. As a dubstep artist, one small element of a burgeoning EDM scene with massive potential for touring revenue, Van faced a challenge even to get his music noticed so early in his career.
In this scenario, breaking through the sea of competing noise and becoming a familiar sound to a groundswell of listeners, is the most crucial part of forging a career that pays.
Billy Van is one of the few artists in this case who has primarily given away his creations for free, as a means to break out. Making it that much easier for fans to access his music has clearly helped it to be shared widely and built a momentum of its own, leading to this (admittedly unorthodox) point of recognition by more mainstream media channels. Step one complete, he has our attention.
Step two is where the rubber meets the road, however, and is playing out as I type… can he turn that attention into loyal fans who support his craft with their wallets? Given the phenomenal success of individual artists like Skrillex, whose prominence has again come during this supposed barren period for developing new acts, the rewards on offer if he can pull it off are enormous.
Takeaways
So what can you take away from this jarring shift in the sands of the music industry?
1. Free Isn’t Failure – Giving away music may not yet be the right model for everyone, but it certainly doesn’t equate to a failure on your part. On the contrary, it could become the foundation of your career.
2. It’s an Attention Economy – First and foremost, you need to attract ears and show people why they should care about you. There’s way too much music for any one person out there… what makes you stand out?
3. Ways to Pay – Recorded music isn’t the only way to make a buck or two. Once you turn those listeners into fans, offer them plenty of ways to support you. I talked about this more in Diversify Your Product.
Is this report a sign of an emerging new era for the music industry?
Or is it simply another indictment of a culture breeding little respect for recorded music?
Fire away in the comments below!
Categories: Case Studies, Opinion, Success Stories
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by Music Piracy & the Profit Tipping Point | Stan Stewart's Blog on Sep 26, 2012 at 1:04 PM
Nice and insightful post~ when the industry’s propaganda had us by the throat at the beginning of the 21st century, we were all convinced that we were indeed criminals. But as it turns out, it was just the sheer magnitude of their information channels http://dailyinfographic.com/the-illusion-of-choice-infographic
12 years into the 21st century… it turns out that, it was actually the Big Content Industry overreacting at the time: https://sharingisliberty.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/piracy_cartoon.gif (and they continue to overreact).
Now we are left with this grueling damage to society that Hollywood has left on us, and no good way to show people that piracy has been the BEST thing that has ever happened to Artists in the history of artistry. I’m glad there’s more people talking about how piracy helps more than it hurts. We don’t really want 70% of US’ young people (under30) to be branded criminals under the ‘Corporate America Regime’.
Ty for the post~
Btw I make some similar points on the attention economy http://fuwanovel.org/faq/2 That Neil Gaiman youtube clip is very insightful
by Aaeru on Sep 26, 2012 at 6:37 PM
“Giving away music may not yet be the right model for everyone, but it certainly doesn’t equate to a failure on your part. On the contrary, it could become the foundation of your career.”
This has become a question in the writing world, as well. Interesting to see this topic from different angles, regardless of the art. There are several indie-authors getting beat about the head for giving their work away for free, but as you suggest, it seems to be working rather in their favor. Attention is attention, right?
by Andi Roo on Sep 27, 2012 at 1:25 PM
Points and Issues raised here only evidence a long standing consumer revolt from the traditional spoon fed bloat from terrestrial radio onto the masses … and that is choice matters matters more than free. New artists should seize upon the opportunity it offers to broaden exposure among the music consuming population globally. I can tell we’ll spreading the link love over her from theleakreport.com when its relaunched.
by MyBklynReport on Sep 28, 2012 at 6:40 AM
@Aaeru Thanks for reading and commenting… really appreciate it and some great value added to the discussion with this further reading. Plenty of people made the argument that increased access to fans could only ever be a good thing for new artists, but it was too early to prove with any substantial data and the headlines almost uniformly taken by declining sales of physical product….quelle surprise! That’s what happens when a business model becomes defunct, it’s just that this one transitioned far quickly for anyone to react and litigation/damnation was the choice made by the existing major players.So you’re right, 12 years on and people are beginning to see the other side of the tunnel. I still think we have massive strides to go in the very first point of your article, “More access to content = more fans”. Though I believe that can be true, once you add the element of massive competition for attention, actually reaching those fans is still a massive challenge to most independent artists. The playing field is certainly more level, but there are many many more teams on the field! For me, it comes down to having that little extra quality and also cultivating each individual fan relationship far more than ever before, creating the core of ‘True Fans’ that you also reference. So much work to be done and so much food for thought here…. please visit again and continue to add your unique perspective, thank you!
by Steve Birkett on Sep 28, 2012 at 10:11 AM
@Aaeru Thanks for reading and commenting… really appreciate it and some great value added to the discussion with this further reading.
Plenty of people made the argument that increased access to fans could only ever be a good thing for new artists, but it was too early to prove with any substantial data and the headlines almost uniformly taken by declining sales of physical product….quelle surprise! That’s what happens when a business model becomes defunct, it’s just that this one transitioned far quickly for anyone to react and litigation/damnation was the choice made by the existing major players.
So you’re right, 12 years on and people are beginning to see the other side of the tunnel. I still think we have massive strides to go in the very first point of your article, “More access to content = more fans”. Though I believe that can be true, once you add the element of massive competition for attention, actually reaching those fans is still a massive challenge to most independent artists. The playing field is certainly more level, but there are many many more teams on the field!
For me, it comes down to having that little extra quality and also cultivating each individual fan relationship far more than ever before, creating the core of ‘True Fans’ that you also reference. So much work to be done and so much food for thought here…. please visit again and continue to add your unique perspective, thank you!
by Steve Birkett on Sep 28, 2012 at 10:11 AM
@Andi Roo I think so, Andi, and thanks for your insight. Per our discussion on Twitter, I do think that any creators, regardless of which branch of art, face very similar challenges in the digital era. Their work can be accessed by everyone, yet so easily reach no-one, given the amount of other content vying for limited attention. Time is the only finite element in this scenario, so the art needs to resonate with people (quality) and be there for them to get at easily (access… free is easier!) Getting attention in the first place is now the challenge, after a decade of gradually accepting that this is the world we now live in.
by Steve Birkett on Sep 28, 2012 at 10:37 AM
@MyBklynReport Cheers Michael, appreciate your visit/thoughts as always. I’ll keep a close eye on The Leak Report coming back online
by Steve Birkett on Sep 28, 2012 at 10:38 AM
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