More Musicians Recognizing The Power Of Free

from the good-for-them dept

Every time I think we're finally reaching the point where these types of stories aren't necessary any more, because we've shown so many different musicians give away their music for free and make more money because of the additional business models they put in place, we see someone making a statement like: "but, if they give music away for free, they don't make any money and won't keep producing music." So, apparently, the message still isn't getting through. Just because you give away your music for free, it doesn't mean that you don't make money. You just need to put in place a business model where the free music increases the value of some other scarcity.

So, here's yet another example, this one sent in by Mark Rosedale, about musician Derek Webb, who also started NoiseTrade, yet another in an increasingly long list of sites that help bands connect with fans. Webb gave away his last album as a free download, requesting a little info in exchange. The results were that he ended up making a lot more money, rather than not making any money:

"In three month's time Webb gave away over 80,000 full downloads of his record and collected valuable information for as many new fans. In addition, Derek has since seen many sold out shows and increased merchandise and record sales, including a curious spike in sales of the very record that was given for free."

Indeed. That said, there are a few questionable things about NoiseTrade (having the entire site in Flash, for one thing, is a bit annoying). As Mark notes, the service seems to have an odd feature where you have an option of spamming your friends instead of paying, which seems a bit annoying. But, the main point remains: giving away your music can make a musician more money. Of course, now we'll see a bunch of comments explaining why this is an exception. Yet, at this point, we've seen so many exceptions that it's difficult to see why it's not the rule.

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