The Flashbulb - and some thoughts on the era of digital music
Friday, June 27th, 2008Just recently I ran across some rare copies of Boards of Canada’s three cassettes Old Tunes Vol. 1, A Few Old Tunes and Old Tunes Vol. 2, and being a BoC fan I was very excited about this find.
If I still was in my teenager years fifteen or twenty years ago, I immediately would have created a playlist and posted a blog with all these tracks, accessible to every of my readers or visitors. Back then I wouldn’t even waste a thought about “copyright-violations” or “unauthorized broadcasting” of this material, or how private, public or accessible my blog was. I would just happily announce “look & listen to what I have found… great stuff!”
Of course fifteen to twenty years ago we didn’t have the web as it exists today, we didn’t have music in mp3 or other digital formats. But we shared music and mixtapes, recordings from vinyl, radio or television, photo-copies of book pages or magazines — all material that had always been protected by copyright laws. The only difference between then and now existed in that we met with real people in a comparably small real-world environment. It wasn’t an internationally accessible forum, and this exchange of copyrighted material could not be monitored or followed by the production companies, agencies or law-firms. If they had the means to do that back then, they might have pursued the creation and sharing of mix-tapes, or made mix-tapes part of their exploitation chain.
The cassette tapes from back then didn’t stop people from buying vinyl records, sticking posters onto the walls, and being a fan of the music and artists they loved. The digital files today didn’t stop me from buying CDs and vinyl records and being a fan of certain musicians. I give some music a listen, just like I used to listen to the radio in order to discover new music. If I don’t like it I dismiss and delete the song. If I do like it, I’m eager to welcome this and other albums in a tangible format to my collection and keep up with the future releases. And in some cases I buy something not only once, but as both vinyl, CD, that collector’s edition box-set or the accompanying t-shirt, hat or whatever merchandise. And if there is a live-show, I still happily pay the money for the tickets, the ridiculous processing fees, and at the venue, the signed CD and other merchandise as well. No digital file would ever change anything about that.
And yet companies try to maximize their profits by criminalizing the exchange of copies rather than treating it as a free promotion and fan-generator. The old debate goes on about copyrights, file-sharing, digital rights management, etc and so on. The excitement about music fades away and becomes more of a disappointment about the dirty ways of the music industry. I for one am very disappointed about having to worry about such things as copyright laws, unauthorized publications and licensing fees rather than just freely enjoying and sharing the excitement. What is this world coming to if every music consumer has to have or become a lawyer? How could anyone know all the answers to questions like “Am I allowed to post that song or picture on my blog or website?”, “Am I allowed to post that rare, unreleased, out-of-print album on my blog or website?”, “Who do I have to ask to get official permissions to share that song or album?”, “Will I have to pay any licensing fees if I post that song?”, “How much?”, “Do my 6 readers of my blog really matter that much?”, “Will I have to limit access to my site to 5 people?”, “Are the copyright laws in the United States the same as in Germany?”, “What about other countries? Considering the Internet is international?” , “And what about those Boards of Canada cassettes…?”… the list could go on and on, but all I really want is to enjoy, write about and share some of my music and excitement. I shouldn’t even have to think about these things. Something is seriously wrong there.
Music used to be a product that required the machinery of a big music label and studios. Music had to be recorded professionally, records and cds had to be produced and manufactured, and a huge promotion campaigns, radio and television appearances, concerts and world tours had to be organized, and all the products had to be distributed to the record stores world-wide. What a gigantic undertaking… Today, however, free, legal netlabels like thinner or autoplate, small independent labels and even individual musicians without a label are able to produce music with the same and even better quality than the big players. Perhaps it doesn’t surprise that they are trying to grab the last straw.
All this really is no new news, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts on this topic. New is a musician I just discovered when I was looking at those Boards of Canada cassettes. Benn Jordan, also known as The Flashbulb. I really liked, loved the pieces I have listened to so far. Beautiful and inspired. Some reminded me a little of the mood I like so much about BoC. His music touches a wide range of styles and influences and makes me want to hear more. But what I found most remarkable was this readme-file in which he writes:
“Hello listener…downloader…pirate…pseudo-criminal…
If you can read this, then you’ve more than likely downloaded this album from a peer to peer network or torrent.
You probably expect the rest of this message to tell you that you’re hurting musicians and breaking just about every copyright law in the book. Well, it won’t tell you that.
What I would like to tell you is that my record label understands that a large portion of people pirate music because it is easier than buying it. CDs scratch easily, most pay-per-download sites have poor quality and shitty DRM protection, and vinyl is near impossible to find or ship without hassle.
In many cases I wonder why people buy CDs at all anymore. A few like the tangible artwork, some haven’t adapted to MP3s yet, but most do it because they have a profound love for music and want to support the artists making it. Kind of restores your faith in humanity for a moment eh?
So, now what?
Like the album? About to go “support the artist” on iTunes?
Well, don’t.
Alphabasic is currently in a legal battle against Apple because NONE of our material (Sublight Records included) receives a dime of royalty from the vast amount of sales iTunes has generated using our material.
Want to buy a CD just to show your support?
If you don’t particularly like CDs, don’t bother.
Retailers like Best Buy and Amazon spike the price so high that their cut is often 8 times higher than the artist’s. Besides, most CDs are made out of unrecyclable plastic and leave a nasty footprint in your environment.
If you do particularly like CDs, buy them from the label (in our case, alphabasic.com). After manufacturing costs are recuperated, our artists usually receive over 90% of the actual money coming out of your wallet.
In addition, all of our physical products are made out of 100% recycled material.
Want to show your support?
Go here and browse our library of lossless, DRM-free downloads.
Already have that?
Then feel free to donate whatever you want to your favorite artist. 100% will go directly to them.
Hell, you can even donate a penny just to thank the artist.
If you really like ‘The Flashbulb - Soundtrack To A Vacant Life’ and want to show your support without it going to greedy retailers, distributors, and coked-up label reps, then click the button below.
If you send us your mailing address, Alphabasic may occasionally send you various goodies (overstocks, stickers, even rare CDs) in appreciation and encouragement for your support.
Thanks for reading.
Who knows if my little business plan here will work to fund new releases, but even failure is better than the crappy label/distributor/retailer system musicians have suffered from for over 50 years.
We hope you enjoy the music as much as we do releasing it.
Finally, if you plan on sharing this release, please include this file. The only reason it is here is to show the listener where he can support his favorite artists!
Benn Jordan
CEO - Alphabasic Records”
Wow… finally someone who just gets it and brings it all to the point. Why aren’t more people treating digital music like this? Radiohead already proved with their last album that new approaches like offering an album as legal download and allowing customers to select their own price can really work. I think if more artists and labels, rather than being threatened, just used the new media and distribution channels as a way to promote their work, get known and lead people to their sites, blogs or stores — more people will eventually switch to a new way of consuming music and supporting the artists they love. As soon as it leaves the illegal gray-zone and becomes a regular customer-producer relationship, I’m sure the downloaded “preview” will eventually transform into a purchase of tangible media or merchandise or even just a donation. I think the more people do it, the more people will join, and nobody will feel exploited in the end. The customers will feel good about supporting the artist and producers and still enjoy spending money on their favorites — the labels will not have to fear that downloads will completely ruin their business but actually benefit them. Perhaps it’s a bit like a critical mass of cyclists… the more people ride bicycles, the more will join, the more have joined, the less threatening becomes the motorized traffic, and they all happily coexist and share the roads ever after.
Benn shared some details about his experiment and interesting numbers in his blog From Pirates to Profit. Here is an excerpt:
“[...] It would be absolutely impossible to come up with an accurate statistic since I have no way of finding out how many people on the internet downloaded and listened to the album. I’ve taken the stats from 4 sites that I believe to be the top contributors. As of this morning:
What.cd had 8532 downloads, Waffles.fm had 432, Idmtrade had 2144, and Piratebay had 1238. These 4 sites add up to a total of 12,346 downloads of the full length album in either V0 or FLAC format. This is definitely estimating low, as this blog and Alphabasic.com had hits in excess of 150,000 per day last week.
If we are to assume that ALL pay-per-download purchases were from people who downloaded the album “illegally” (very unlikely), then 0.55% of downloaders bought a pay-per-download copy of the album. Surprisingly, I only sold 69 digital downloads in February for a total of $673.73. The expenses run around $130 a month to maintain the download server, so after transfer fees I’m hanging out at around $500 without touching another 3rd party service. Not bad, not good either.
The donations turned up a little better.
1.83% of downloaders donated. Those 227 people donated an average of $11.02 each, totaling $2490.97.
The total percent of people who either donated or purchased a digital file (under the assumptions I’m making…that definitely side on the positive end) is 2.38%.
If only I could somehow figure out what is going on with that other 97.62%. How many of them thought the album wasn’t any good? How many of them were too broke? How many didn’t have or feel like setting up a Paypal account? How many simply don’t pay for something they can get for free?
Now compare this to the gross income from the CD sales, which from 1429 total CDs sold chimed in $21,435. I’m not going to attempt to figure out if the torrent ordeal helped or hindered CD sales, but before the album was released, I had 969 preorders…which is beyond double the sales I had in February.
So, did I do good? Is piracy helping my income or hindering it?
Well, if you don’t count the cost for gear, hiring musicians, or any of the other expenses that go into making, manufacturing, or shipping an album…I have grossed $24,598 in the first 2 weeks of it’s release without spending a dime on promotion. I’d love to say that my little torrent experiment brought me to that number, but the bulk of that sum was in CD preorders.
Again, without calculating expenses, it is like earning $12,229 annually or $235 weekly. If I had a bunch of hipster roommates and lived very very modestly, I suppose I could get by from just writing and releasing albums (which is probably my life long dream).
That being said, me playing about 10 shows or licensing/composing for 1 big ad campaign brings in more money than that “whole year’s work”…so until my album sales go way up, I’ll continue to divide my time working in television and flying around the world clowning out my art.
Wait! Before you say it…
I’m not bitching! I understand that there’s plenty of people who wish they were in my shoes. Although I do admit that I often envy those with boring office jobs, as they allow the person to not only enjoy the benefit of a guaranteed paycheck, but they can separate work from their passions. I hate to admit it, but even writing this article waters down the innocence and purity that comes with writing music.
…which I guess is my point. You probably think that 2.38% number is disappointing. But it also allowed me to expose my life’s work to, at the very least, about 10,000 new people. By running all these numbers I expected to add to the argument that the music industry needs more creative business plans, which I’m not sure if I have or haven’t done…
I’m too distracted by the content feeling when looking at the numbers. It reminds me that after all the labels, tours, contracts, and bullshit…I’m still making albums for one reason…because I simply fucking love writing music. [...]”
Yes, that number looks disappointing, but I’m convinced it will increase over time. I downloaded first, loved what I heard, absolutely appreciated his model, the openness and his transparency, the numbers, so much I didn’t even hesitate once about purchasing these two CDs that were still available. If more people knew about and discovered his music and if they like it I’m sure more will actually follow through with some purchases. Of course tastes are different and not everybody who downloads the music will also like it. But it reached somebody, and somebody took the time to listen to it. And even if the person just downloaded it to spread further around, that’s just free promotion then. No harm done.
I hope other musicians and labels will follow Benn Jordan’s example and embrace the new web of digital media instead of fighting it. He deserves all respect and applause. Check him out at the official website, his blog, and his label.
However, I thought the following clip is worth mentioning. I don’t know why, but I was very surprised to find all these favorites combined in a single video mix. I mean, what are the chances that somebody’s taste would so closely match my own all across the board from François Truffaut’s French 1959 classic Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), Darren Aronofsky’s black and white indie-math-thriller Pi and his brutally disturbing Requiem For A Dream to Ulrich Schnauss’ Stars?
