Crowd Patronage: How A 400 Year Old Model Can Save The Music Industry
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Re: Crowd Patronage: How A 400 Year Old Model Can Save The Music Industry
#2Hey guys, I wrote this thing, and ready to discuss it here on HN. Come at me with your best shot!
Re: Crowd Patronage: How A 400 Year Old Model Can Save The Music Industry
#3I'd like to think that this would rather make artists more independant and kill the music industry.
Re: Crowd Patronage: How A 400 Year Old Model Can Save The Music Industry
#4Hey guys, I wrote this thing, and ready to discuss it here on HN. Come at me with your best shot!
http://i.saac.me/post/what-if-bittorrent-was-invented-before... I wrote an article discussing similar themes on my blog a while back, and I too think the Kickstarter model is the future of the creative industries.
(I might do a follow up to that article with some further thoughts. Basically, I think the reason the crowd patronage model is the future is because it allows the artist to cover their fixed, up-front costs. Since the Internet has made distribution costs effectively 0, covering your fixed costs is the way to go)
Re: Crowd Patronage: How A 400 Year Old Model Can Save The Music Industry
#5I'd like to think that this would rather make artists more independant and kill the music industry .
I personally define "music industry" as whatever generates revenue for artists and their managers. I do agree that there's a lot of old growth in the current ecosystem of the music industry that's inevitably going to die off.
Re: Crowd Patronage: How A 400 Year Old Model Can Save The Music Industry
#6@aw3c2 - I think it all depends on how you personally define the music industry. In your mind, is the industry defined by the record labels or is it defined by the community of artists?
Re: Crowd Patronage: How A 400 Year Old Model Can Save The Music Industry
#7TL;DR The arts used to be (like Mozart's time used to be) supported by wealthy patrons who commissioned works that were subsequently enjoyed by the public. The notion of music as a commodity to be consumed like sugar and paprika is a modern one, and, M Kim argues, a historical quirk whose time has passed. We should thus separate consumption from patronage, with the latter greatly enhanced by crowd-funding technology, e.g. Kickstarter. Artists should raise funds from crowds directly and then release their recorded music for free, with private perks accruing to the patrons.
My comments:
I like the structure, but am concerned about the separation of consumption and patronage. Our society has become far more consumerist since Victorian times and ignoring that cultural shift could be problematic. I propose fortifying crowdfunded patronage with a matching fund that would match crowd patronage dollars.
In college I was cheap and pirated music. Now I care more for convenience than a few dollars and so download my music via iTunes, where cover art, filing, and synchronising is taken care of. I suggest adding an optional (or maybe not) extra $1 (or whatever) to be directed into a matching fund. This fund would then match, at a ratio to be determined after further thought (would probably be a moving scale), crowd patronage dollars to artists. Thus, the consumption and patronage are joined somewhat.
One could still have free music for those who value dollars more than time. The downside is the iTunes of this analogy would be a power centre. That said, it would be naive to assume any such system wouldn't concentrate power. It might be good to have an iTunes figure opposing the Kickstarter one.
Re: Crowd Patronage: How A 400 Year Old Model Can Save The Music Industry
#8Hey guys, I wrote this thing, and ready to discuss it here on HN. Come at me with your best shot!
Great job. I am probably biased since this is nearly exactly how I see things going (and want them to go) as well, but your explanation and the historical examples chosen make a great argument.
If you are demanding I take a shot then I have a nitpick: First paragraph has the Traditionalists, Incrementalists, Apologists, and Defeatists. What about the school of thought that the widespread ability to freely share music is inevitable and artists, as they always have, will find a way to make money because people love music? What school of thought are you and I in?
Do you think this model will turn the music industry into even more of a hits based business (like the app store model has done to software) or less of one?
I can see books moving to this model as well, but movies seem a bit more problematic unless budgets fall drastically.
Re: Crowd Patronage: How A 400 Year Old Model Can Save The Music Industry
#9TL;DR The arts used to be (like Mozart's time used to be) supported by wealthy patrons who commissioned works that were subsequently enjoyed by the public. The notion of music as a commodity to be consumed like sugar and paprika is a modern one, and, M Kim argues, a historical quirk whose time has passed. We should thus separate consumption from patronage, with the latter greatly enhanced by crowd-funding technology,…
I personally hate anything that "feels" like charity to the artist, I don't think that's sustainable. Even though I call this theoretical model "crowd patronage", I feel it would only work if the fan "feels" like he's getting more than some altruistic warm feelings of supporting something. They should also feel the real value of relationship access. Just the illusion of having a closer relationship to artist will only enhance the feeling of supporting the artist. But at a minimum, there must be that value back of some sort of relationship reciprocation. Does that make sense?
Re: Crowd Patronage: How A 400 Year Old Model Can Save The Music Industry
#10Hey guys, I wrote this thing, and ready to discuss it here on HN. Come at me with your best shot!
Awesome well thought out article. Agree on many points. Mike Masnick (of www.techdirt.com) has been blogging about very similar models for years now.
The fundamental point he gets at is that you want to 'Connect with Fans' more than anything. This is why people like Amanda Palmer, Trent Reznor and the Juggalos (oh my) have been so successful. People connect with their music and their persona.
The second part is to give those fans a 'Reason to Buy'. In your article you talked about things like close up access, neat events, and being added to the liner notes: these are all concrete reasons to buy.
That formula is sort of what you were hinting at.
Use the infinite goods (the smell of the food in your metaphor) to sell the finite goods.