So earlier I had an interesting discussion about people downloading music for free for whatever reason and it's effect on the music industry. It got me thinking. Is it really such a bad thing? I mean it gets the band exposure right? If even half of the kids that download the music for free really get into it and start turning up to the shows, thats more money for the band right? I also read an interesting blog a couple of weeks ago on AP.net. It said, with evidence from numerous bands both small and large, that releasing the music does not actually pay the bills. The respective label gets around 80% of the money, the retailer around 15% and the band only about 5%, sometimes less. This is all off of about £10. Now, surely that makes downloading for free not seem so bad. One of the other ways of making money that was put forward was touring. Now this blog also addressed that. Lets take a band, say Kids In Glass Houses. Now they haven't really 'broke' yet, so are still building up a fan base. If they were to tour for 4 weeks straight, the money they made would be minimal. The tour costs an extortionate amount of money to actually put on. Money has to go to labels, the venue, lawyers, insurance, the bus and fuel, paying support bands etc. Overall, for the set amount of money that they receive from ticket sales, costs can quickly rise. The band members themselves find themselves living on about £3-£5 a day, of their own money. Thats to eat 3 meals a day and for other things that might crop up. A band like KIGH might also get a support slot for a bigger band, say You Me At Six. Now this is probably worse for them. They actually get paid less than it costs to go out on the tour, meaning that they are paying to be on that tour promoting themselves. So you might now be saying how do bands actually make money? Not off of CD's? Not off of tours? The answer? Merch. A band will have to buy their own merch off of their label, at a discounted price, but after that all the money they receive is profit. That is how bands make money. Now I've seen bands release music for free. Bands like Angels And Airwaves. Their album cost $500,000 to record, yet they gave it away for free, presumably to drum up support for their movie. As well as this, You, Me & Everyone We Know released 2 free EP's at the start of their career. They were downloaded 75,000 times but this helped the band be signed and they are now making money off of music. I have seen numerous bands call it quits due to lack of fund, most recently Ace Enders. He has since set up a pledge system that lets the fans pay for the album to be recorded and help him to continue recording music. This, in my opinion, is the future of music. If bands cannot make money after releasing the music, then they can at least record an album, then any sales after that is pure profit. This also takes away some of the responsibility of the Label, which literally eats the profit that the bands music makes, meaning there is more profit for the band. Remember I called it first. Haha. One final point though. Just remember, making music is a musicians full time job. You wouldn't go and steal a Coke, because that would be morally wrong, so don't download music. These guys have to make a living and feed their families and releasing music is their way of doing things. And even if you do download the music, just make sure you make the effort to make it down to the shows and buy a t-shirt to help them through it. And if you do download it, and like it afterwards, buy it. Every little helps, as Tesco would say.
Also, here is that AP article. Worth a good 5 minutes read of anyones time - http://www.altpress.com/features/entry/no_money_mo_problems/
