The digital music industry has changed the landscape. On one hand, the industry is much more accessible. The rise of the micro-genre has opened the door for specialty musicians to thrive in smaller markets. On the other hand, the perceived value of a song has been significantly diminished in the mind of the consumer.
Services like iTunes have set the perceived value of a song at less than $1 and services like Spotify (as much as I love it) send the perceived value even lower, instant on-demand access to unlimited music for $10/month. It's a hard sell to convince someone to pay more for your music, particularly digitally.
The way I recommend artists combat this is by finding new ways to make money from music including licensing, specialty gigs, and custom songs. But, the best way to convert your music in cash is by building your brand. This means making awesome music and getting as many people to listen as possible - whether you make money or not. It also means engaging with fans as often and as diverse as possible. A powerful brand can be leveraged for cash much easier than music alone these days.
I like the peertracks service. It looks pretty cool and I think I'll try it out. I also like your idea - I just think realistically we, as artists, have to rethink the way we do music.
the whole concept PeerTracks is presenting with the concept of artist tokens - like issues artist in the stock themselves - is definitely a game-changer.
expansion in progress.
there's opportunity beyond just selling music and traditional routes of income generation for artists, with the whole crypto game. look at Steemit, for example. as a writer - I've made some decent money. but I've also been earning "stock" in the company that can serve as an ATM for years to come...
what's to say the model couldn't be duplicated, catered more to musicians & artists...
if they've already got a fanbase - the value they could create by leveraging their network, bringing it onto a new platform could have value that'd serve to profit them in the long term - as well as the platform providing access to a new listenership and new forms of income...
not everybody may want to pay a dollar for a song... but what's it costing any of us here to click to upvote anything here??
same model could be duplicate to music...
and the artist tokens... I can't even fathom the full possibilities at this point...
lots of different collaborative possibilities as well... i.e. a platform fusing elements of these different existing ones - throw in decentralized co-creative studios like Splice or Skytracks - on which various artist could collaborate in a project, potentially tracking each's contribution... putting up loop packs or sound patches, throwing a digital license into the blockchain to be tracked for micropayments from any other artist using it...
too much to think about all at once, without some good psychedelics... lol :-)
nice job on starting this discussion, Ben. the gold is in the comments...
I am creating a private chat channel to talk through some ideas on the app if you wish to join in there just tell me your username for steemit chat
Yes please ! This is really something we have to continue to brainstorm
Yes I think maybe you could weigh in on what types of feeds would be good for artists. There could be a trending feed and a new artist feed along with new song feeds. I don't really care about advertising dollars being pumped into this (that might make me less money, but I care more about the artists than padding my bank account).
I think this would be a great place to have podcasts as well without needing to go to itunes if you didn't wish to.
My real goal would be for steemit to discover an artist, have him or her be able to quit a current job with the revenue they receive, and go on to be a successful artist (maybe solely supported by steemit)
I'd also love to decentralize a place like ticketmaster (I hate the monopoly they have in my opinion). Coming up with a way for artists to sell directly and have the ticket have some sort of barcode would prevent the multiple dollar fees that always appear as a "convenience" fee even if you print out your own tickets. I'd be ok if that "convenience" fee went to the artists, but I am 99.9% sure that it just goes to ticketmaster.
Decentralization is going to shake up the world as we know it along with the internet of things. The early adopters will have a huge advantage over those who have no idea what is happening and try to catch up once it is commonplace.
I like the concepts here a lot. If money isn't the driving factor, you open up lots of additional avenues. I'll think on it and get back to you.
Absolutely. Money is nice, but to be innovative why not buck the trend and give back 99.9% to the artist, give the developers the .1% and let users moderate and police the system to cut back on copying legitimate artists work. I think it can only add value to the platform.