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Paying for music.


ambient
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When you come across music that you like, maybe on Bandcamp for instance, if it's 'pay what you want', do you always pay for it ?

I do, even if it's only £5 for an album, or a £1 or so for a track (bear in mind I'm a student).

I've had an album and separate tracks on Bandcamp for a couple of months now. They were priced at 'pay what you want'. I thought it was better for people (and nice) if people downloaded it, and maybe let friends/family hear it.

The first time someone just downloaded it, and didn't pay, I felt actually felt quite a bit aggrieved and cheated, quite odd really :).

I was looking at the stats on Bandcamp a couple of days ago, and out of the 120 odd downloads, 21 were free. So now I've changed the pricing so it's £1 per track and £5 for the album.

Keep in mind that it's all totally original music, I composed, played, recorded, arranged and mixed it. Some came straight away, others didn't. It's 'work' that I've done, is it wrong to expect to be paid ?

If it was a 'physical' something that I'd made, then people would naturally expect to pay for it, so why should music be different ?

Just wondered what everyone else thought ?

:)

Edited by ambient
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Oh, and my thoughts are along the lines of being very happy that 5 out of 6 people considered the music worth paying for. I'd be focussing on the on the 100 that paid and figuring out what the 21 might be happy to spring for. Any opportunities to get the email addresses on bandcamp?

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[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1415317266' post='2599267']
Out of curiosity, what was the average price paid by those who purchased?
[/quote]

It varied a bit, 50p or £1 per track (some tracks are over 7 minutes long, one over 10 minutes, only one is less than 4 minutes), for the album the lowest was £3, the highest £10, most paid £5.

:)

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[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1415317513' post='2599270']
Oh, and my thoughts are along the lines of being very happy that 5 out of 6 people considered the music worth paying for. I'd be focussing on the on the 100 that paid and figuring out what the 21 might be happy to spring for. Any opportunities to get the email addresses on bandcamp?
[/quote]

I can see where they are, but I think you have to subscribe to get the emails.

:)

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[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1415317556' post='2599271']
It varied a bit, 50p or £1 per track (some tracks are over 7 minutes long, one over 10 minutes, only one is less than 4 minutes), for the album the lowest was £3, the highest £10, most paid £5.

:)
[/quote]
At a fiver, that's about 50% over the average price people paid for Radiohead's In Rainbows. :)

Shame you'd have to pay for the email addresses - in marketing terms a free download is a cheap price to pay for that kind of lead.

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I can't really see the problem. The music was offered on a 'pay what you want' basis and only about 18% of people didn't want to pay anything.

It's certainly not wrong to expect to be paid, but if that was important then why allow the buyer to decide the price?

While there are no real rules on pricing such things, the convention that most people are used to is that the seller sets the price. The buyer may try to haggle that price down but they are unlikely to try haggling it up! How many of us have bought a CD and thought "wow- that's brilliant! - I must give them some more for it"? Isn't that the whole reason people advertise things for "£xxx ONO"? Price it high to avoid selling too low, but allow some flexibility in case the price really is too high for the available market.

But if you start the pricing at £0 and allow people to choose to pay more if they want, then you can't be surprised if some will decide to take up the £0 offer.

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I personally view recorded music as a portfolio. The more people that have a copy of it the better it is for us as artists since it will be more likely that more will come and see us live. Painters and photographers go to great lengths to make sure as many people see and save their portfolios as possible, which they spent a lot of effort and expense in creating. Because bytes are essentially free to replicate the cost of distributing our work diminishes but the money is still in the actual performance of our craft, just like how it's always been.

Edited by heminder
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[quote name='heminder' timestamp='1415321619' post='2599302']
I personally view recorded music as a portfolio. The more people that have a copy of it the better it is for us as artists since it will be more likely that more will come and see us live. Painters and photographers go to great lengths to make sure as many people see and save their portfolios as possible, which they spent a lot of effort and expense in creating. Because bytes are essentially free to replicate the cost of distributing our work diminishes but the money is still in the actual performance of our craft, just like other types of artists.
[/quote]

I kind of agree with you, that's why I originally decided it to be 'pay what you want'. I thought it'd be good for it to be heard.

What really decided me to change the pricing, was something I heard at uni, a discussion about why do people think they should get the creative output from someone for nothing.
It is after all something that can be enjoyed over and over again. People think nothing of spending £2 on a cup of coffee from costa, £2.50 on a sandwich or £3 on a pint of beer, all things that have a finite life and enjoyment period.

The music that you own is there indefinitely, you may tire of it after a bit, then go onto something else, but unless you delete it, its still there and available for that moment that you feel you want to delve into it again.

:)

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I guess I also maybe naively thought that people would pay for it, if they liked it, as I would myself.

The thing with Bandcamp is that you can just listen to an artists music, as many times as you want. It's not like Amazon or iTunes where you can preview a track, and you maybe get 30 or 40 seconds. You can be pretty sure that you like it, before you buy it.

There are albums that I've downloaded where I've had to listen via Bandcamp, simply because I didn't have the £5 spare to be able to download them, even though they were available for free if I'd chosen.

Maybe I have too much respect for people and their music ?

:)

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[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1415322527' post='2599304']
I kind of agree with you, that's why I originally decided it to be 'pay what you want'. I thought it'd be good for it to be heard.

What really decided me to change the pricing, was something I heard at uni, a discussion about why do people think they should get the creative output from someone for nothing.
It is after all something that can be enjoyed over and over again. People think nothing of spending £2 on a cup of coffee from costa, £2.50 on a sandwich or £3 on a pint of beer, all things that have a finite life and enjoyment period.

The music that you own is there indefinitely, you may tire of it after a bit, then go onto something else, but unless you delete it, its still there and available for that moment that you feel you want to delve into it again.

:)
[/quote]

This is true, but at the same time when was the last time someone paid similar change for amazing desktop wallpaper? I myself don't know anyone, but we'd all totally buy a print of a photo/painting just like we'd buy a pressed CD/merch if we became fans of the music. If we're really huge fans we'd commission the artist for a photo/painting, or the music equivalent of that - see them live.

Edited by heminder
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It's weird these days, that a good quality studio recording which costs the artists a lot of money to do properly and will last pretty much forever is expected to be free, while people seem to have no problem paying for the ephemeral experience that is a gig and which in musical terms may be massively inferior...

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[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1415357573' post='2599505']
It's weird these days, that a good quality studio recording which costs the artists a lot of money to do properly and will last pretty much forever is expected to be free, while people seem to have no problem paying for the ephemeral experience that is a gig and which in musical terms may be massively inferior...
[/quote]

I agree and some people also wont pay for music but will happily pay over £3 for a dreadful coffee in a paper cup that lasts a minute or two!!

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[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1415323874' post='2599310']
Maybe I have too much respect for people and their music ?
[/quote]

Very probably (well, not 'too' much) - because you are passionate about music, you understand the creative process and you are rightly proud of your creations.

And herein lies the thing about music. We can write a song, change it, add a bit, delete a bit, work on it for days, weeks, months, maybe have an idea rattling around for years, until we're finally happy with it, then go through the process of recording it and again adding/deleting/changing/tweaking it until we have faithfully replicated what was in our head, all the time investing huge amounts of intellectual and emotional energy and condensing it intop 3, 4, 5 minutes of this thing we call music.

Then, when we are finally happy to release it to the world (perhaps in a live performance after more weeks of rehearsal with other musicians to hone the performance to perfection), most people will spend the 3,4,5 minutes listening to it and say 'yes, very nice' before moving on with their lives and never listening to it again.

This music lark is a very asymmetric business and musician will inevitably have an inflated sense of the importance and worth of their creative output.

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I think it depends on where the musician is in their career; I will generally pay for the recordings or a CD of a smallish or unsigned act if I like them but for bigger artists I'll expect to get the recordings for free or included on a music service (that I subscribe to).

In my experience artists often are quite behind the times in their understanding of the business side of the industry - they will often allocate a large "worth" to their recordings when in reality (as in the business plan of most record labels) recorded music is just a promotional tool to get people to go to the gigs or buy the merch. This can be shown by those numpties that kick up a big fuss about pulling their content from Spotify et al, they clearly don't understand the bigger picture yet were more than happy to accept the inflated advance for their 360-deal.

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Guest Jecklin

Very interesting thread.

I have a skewed perspective on it though as I've stopped buying downloads if I can get the music in a physical format.
Often I'd use bandcamp (or other) to listen to the tracks and then buy the CD or record or tape etc etc.

When the music is only avaiIable as a download I actually prefer it to have a stated price.

I don't see a problem with offering tracks on bandcamp for a fee and then having a few of the same tracks as a free download from your website or soundcloud or whatever.

When uploading tracks as an Ep or Album to Bandcamp can you designate that one track is a free download, but the rest have to be purchased?

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[quote name='Jecklin' timestamp='1415365985' post='2599633']
Very interesting thread.

I have a skewed perspective on it though as I've stopped buying downloads if I can get the music in a physical format.
Often I'd use bandcamp (or other) to listen to the tracks and then buy the CD or record or tape etc etc.

When the music is only avaiIable as a download I actually prefer it to have a stated price.

I don't see a problem with offering tracks on bandcamp for a fee and then having a few of the same tracks as a free download from your website or soundcloud or whatever.

When uploading tracks as an Ep or Album to Bandcamp can you designate that one track is a free download, but the rest have to be purchased?
[/quote]

Yes, you can set it so that there's a fee for the album, some tracks can be free others need to be paid for.

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[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1415317556' post='2599271'] It varied a bit, 50p or £1 per track (some tracks are over 7 minutes long, one over 10 minutes, only one is less than 4 minutes), for the album the lowest was £3, the highest £10, most paid £5. :) [/quote]

Really interesting thread. I had no idea of the sort of numbers and conversions from Bandcamp. That 80% are prepared to pay, and pay decent amounts. Obviously a reflection of your great music :) but when you can access most of the last 50 yrs for £5 a month, its great that people are digging deep to support new music.

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[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1415358381' post='2599530']
Very probably (well, not 'too' much) - because you are passionate about music, you understand the creative process and you are rightly proud of your creations.

And herein lies the thing about music. We can write a song, change it, add a bit, delete a bit, work on it for days, weeks, months, maybe have an idea rattling around for years, until we're finally happy with it, then go through the process of recording it and again adding/deleting/changing/tweaking it until we have faithfully replicated what was in our head, all the time investing huge amounts of intellectual and emotional energy and condensing it intop 3, 4, 5 minutes of this thing we call music.

Then, when we are finally happy to release it to the world (perhaps in a live performance after more weeks of rehearsal with other musicians to hone the performance to perfection), most people will spend the 3,4,5 minutes listening to it and say 'yes, very nice' before moving on with their lives and never listening to it again.

This music lark is a very asymmetric business and musician will inevitably have an inflated sense of the importance and worth of their creative output.
[/quote]

Truth.

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