Price Ceiling of Music is “Free”

By Steve Poland   •   February 28, 2008

Caution: This is a bit of a freeform flow of information from my head…

Ultimately, all music will be free someday — ok, 99% of it. OK, maybe I’m wrong. I was thinking of TV — that’s all free to consumers. I was thinking of Newspapers and online writing (blogs) — that’s all free. Those are all subsidized by advertising revenues (including paid classified listings in newspapers, which is advertising essentially).

But then I started thinking about Books — that’s writing, but they charge money for them. Or Movies — that’s a more packaged/produced piece of video (typically) — and those cost money.

Music has radio — radio is free. Although you have to listen to whatever radio broadcasts out to you — just like TV — just like online newspapers & blogs. So the CD is the DVD is the Book is the Video Game.

Video Games don’t really have a “free” equivalent. (I can’t think of a free equivalent to Halo 3 — I guess the free online games offered at like Yahoo! Games and Pogo?)

And the concert is the movie theater — both are experiences; you pay for the experience of the big screen, or the roar of the crowd that’s familiar with a music band/artist. T-Shirts and stickers — along with all sorts of other branded crap by a band/artist or movie — is the ancillary stuff that sells and makes those industries more extra money. For newspapers, the equivalent are the paid classified ads I’d say.

Time is money and the only resource we all lack — and which we all value the most. If a consumer spends time listening to your music, and telling their friends all about it, which results in selling out your shows — that’s the “virtual currency” (or labor cost) they are putting up, rather than spending their valuable free time watching TV, or watching YouTube, or watching a movie, or playing outside, or playing video games, or brushing their teeth, or listening to another band. If a consumer spends the time to listen to your music (out of the millions of artists and albums that exist out there — and likely billions of songs), then consider yourself talented — and the money will follow.




Related posts:

  1. MUSIC MARKETING GIMMICK: Non-Stop Listening I love music — and I love marketing. It’s natural that I have ideas for the marketing of music (or bands in general). An artist should do a 1-week, 2-week, or 1-month marathon of their...
  2. IDEA #28 - Fan-submitted Music Video Ideas I’m obsessed with music and marketing, so some of my ideas will be around music — plus, deep down, I really want to be a rock star (who doesn’t). I was just watching the video...
  3. Music recommendation: The Silent Years I never talk about music on this blog, despite it being likely my biggest passion in life. One band that blows my mind is a small band out of Detroit called ‘The Silent Years‘. Their...
  4. Obsessed with Music, but Can’t Be a Rockstar? I should have listened to Fred Wilson a year ago — Guitar Hero for the XBOX/Playstation is AMAZING. I thought it would be corny, but it instantly turns anyone into a rockstar! If you love...
  5. IDEA #38 - Invest in a Music Band! Fantasy Music Stock Game Last.fm tracks how many times songs are listened to daily by users of the service. Every time I play a song on my computer, info on the song is sent to the Last.fm servers and...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Comments

2 Responses to “Price Ceiling of Music is “Free””

  1. MyAvatars 0.2 Jay Parkhill on February 28th, 2008 2:44 pm (perm link)

    I don’t think so, Steve. Music has been “free” for decades- listening to the radio costs nothing (beyond the hardware) but that never stopped the record (and 8-track, cassette and CD) business.

    I think free-to-own is going to become a much larger part of the musical experience than in the last 100 years, but it’s going to take another decade or more to get there without the risk of being sued.

    At the same time, some people will always pay for convenience. Make it simple to buy on impulse and a lot of people will. Free will be a solid floor, but not the ceiling.

  2. MyAvatars 0.2 Justin Goldberg on March 4th, 2008 1:26 am (perm link)

    There are many free 3d shooters on sourceforge, and some are very good an complete, but I suppose you’re right, none exactly like Halo.

Got something to say?





*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.
Click to hear an audio file of the anti-spam word