I’m a big fan of free music. Legal free music. The way the music industry is going nowadays is all completely free and very easily accessible. The internet is the new radio, except now, you can pick and choose at your free will what you want to listen to and when you want to listen to it. Over the years, artists, especially independent artists, have struggled to make a living off of their record sales. The real money is made at shows on admission and merchandise. So why not give away your music for free?
This concept is so new and uncomfortable for so many people. Change, often times, is feared. Especially the kind of change that insists giving things away for free.
But here’s a great video from Derek Webb, musician and co-founder of Noisetrade.com (also, my biggest musical influence).
Derek Webb, in September of 2007, gave away his record ‘Mockingbird’ for free on FreeDerekWebb.com. He gave away over 80,000 digital copies of ‘Mockingbird’ in exchange for 5 email addresses from the downloader. All you had to do was spread the word about freederekwebb.com by emailing 5 of your friends. And it was a huge success. Not only that, but record SALES went up AFTER he released it for free.
Derek follows in the path that Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and American Author of business are paving for the music industry. If you’d like to hear more about the music marketing brilliance of Seth Godin, click here.
I am excited to see where the industry goes in the next few years.
