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Posted

"In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as “illegal” file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little…, available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website. We’re not streaming, or offering 30-second song samples, or annoying you with digital rights management software; we’re putting up the whole record, for free, forever. Full stop. Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends."

 

http://www.harveydanger.com

 

The band Harvey Danger has decided to experiment with free online distribution of their new album. I for one am fascinated by the notion that a band can release their album to all for no cost and still make money down the road. People on both sides of the P2P issue claim that they have statistics to back their claims of whether or not internet piracy actually hurts the entertainment industry in the manner in which they claim to be hurt. HD will certainly let us know how their experiment goes...In the meantime, it's a pretty good album! Everyone may as well check it out, it's free. I would personally recommend either Bittorrent download (one is VBR MP3 and the other is Ogg Vorbis). There is also a direct download as well.

Posted

Pros:

- fun for the fans

- cheap if you don't have a big marketing budget (mouth-to-mouth promotion still works)

- no need for an extensive distribution network (handy if you're not with a major or have a contract at all)

- from what I've heard, most bands make their money touring rather than selling albums anyway

- good for beginning bands in search of a record contract

 

Cons:

- getting noticed is harder (you don't have the contacts the record companies have, will have to be really good or really clever to stand out)

- lots of competition out there

- good for acts that lack artistic merit and need a big PR machine

Posted
Sonic Goo' date='Oct 4 2005, 01:48 PM' post='15628']

- getting noticed is harder (you don't have the contacts the record companies have, will have to be really good or really clever to stand out)

- lots of competition out there

 

It's interesting that you list these two as cons because those are two primary reasons why they did it.

Posted

If you already have a bit of a name, the fact that you're doing it is news. If you're just starting, nobody cares. And I think there's more competition on the level of just starting than on the level of x million marketing budget.

 

Maybe you could ask these people how they do it?

  • 3 weeks later...

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