Seth Godin and the New Free

Posted on 12. May, 2009 by refe in STRATEGY

Free markets are cyclical. Economic trends will start out slow, pick up speed, boom, plateau, BUST. Take our current recession – three years ago even someone like me could afford a McMansion and a four car garage (boom,) and now we’re losing sixty-thousand jobs a month (bust.) The same can cycles can be found in the cost of goods and services.

Apply this principle to the cost of music and you end up with what Seth Godin has coined “the new free.” Here’s what he writes in a recent post to his marketing blog:

Free online has two distinct elements. Breakthrough free, like the first free ebook or the first free email service, and sample-this free, which decreases the cost of trial and lowers boundaries of the spread of an idea.

As the market for free gets more crowded, we’ll see more and more people promoting their free products, stuff that people used to have pay for. A complete shift from ‘you will pay’ to ‘it is free’ to  ‘I will pay for ads to alert you it’s free’ to ultimately, ‘I will pay you to try it’.

Mr. Godin is not a prophet – this cycle has already begun to run it’s course in the music industry. In fact, as we reported several weeks ago, at least one band has reached what Godin might call the final stage of free. The industry should have seen this coming a long time ago when CD’s began climbing higher and higher in price until they became downright ridiculous. A bust was always imminent.

Where does this leave musicians?

I’ve been telling people to give their music away for a while now, and I don’t plan on stopping. Regardless of where the market cycle is taking us most indies don’t have the resources to stand alone as the sole band still charging for their recorded music. If you don’t give your music away you won’t find the audience you need to fill venues and build a solvent career.

On the other hand, more progress needs to be made in the search for ways to add value to recorded music. We really can’t get to the point where everybody is pulling an Officer Roseland and paying fans to download – where would those resources come from?

I can tell you right now that the first place bands should be looking as they evaluate how to elevate their music above the din of a saturated market is the quality of their songs. It sounds simple, but in the social-media driven world we live in it can be easy to focus all of our energy on marketing and PR and forget about quality all together. Are your songs really all that good? Are they better than the thousands of other songs freely available to the same listeners you are trying to hook? That may sound harsh, but it’s what it will take now that you can’t price your music any cheaper.

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6 Responses to “Seth Godin and the New Free”

  1. Jayrope

    13. May, 2009

    I don’t think, that all bands or musicians are equally good.
    And i do believe, that consumers value higher what they paid more for.

    In other words: a 40 Euro colored vinyl 12″ of my fav band is what i value high. I put it up th wall and adore it. But if i pay nothing for a download or physical media, then it lands straight in the “all the same to me bin”. Obviously it wasn’t worth more.
    UNLESS the MUSIC is NEW and AWESOME (not in 99% of all cases ,)

    Giving music away for free seems to work mainly in a zone, where music is just a wall color or a teenager item. Most of it plays in the “vain & fame zone.”

    Serious, passionate &/or professional musicians need to fill their fridges and feed their kids as much as everyone else and would surely only consider to give stuff their music for free, when it is about changing or widening your audience.

    Back to my cello. I am rehearsing the same piece since a day, and it still needs more shine.

    Greetings from Berlin, jayrope

  2. tericee

    13. May, 2009

    There are musicians like Tim Reynolds, who is a frequent guest guitarist for Dave Matthews, who are *very* good at what they do, but are also willing to give away their music for free. Tim is serious and passionate. But he still gives his music away.

    He posts audio files online where his diehard fans can download them the instant they’re available. (http://www.timreynolds.com/audio/) He allows people to record audio and video at his concerts (unless the venue says no) and even offers advice on how to make good quality recordings. (http://www.timreynolds.com/taping_policy/) And he independently makes CDs that he sells — and people actually buy — when he’s on tour.

    He’s probably not making the same amount of money as DMB, REM, or U2, but he makes a living, and he plays the music he wants to — without a bunch of “suits” telling him what to do. I guess you could say he’s the GNU kind of musician!

  3. refe

    13. May, 2009

    Jayrope- good to see your comments here, I’ve been enjoying our exchanges on Twitter. Musicians do of course need to get paid, but there are more sources of revenue for an artist than just the sale of recorded music. Record sales have not traditionally been very lucrative for the artists anyway – the labels are the ones who made money on records. They have always been primarily for promotional value, as they are in most of the Free models.

    And tericee – you bring up a good point. Most fans are more than willing to support their favorite artists finacially through purchasing their music even when it is offered free. Even the so-called “pirates” that the industry is so concerned about have proven to be some of the highest spenders when it comes to recorded music. (Check out my recent post that talks about this.) So giving away records doesn’t mean you won’t still sell records – it just recognizes that there is more profit to be made elsewhere (such as touring and merch, custom packaging, etc.)

  4. Jayrope

    13. May, 2009

    Refe, tericee, i was sure i had pointed out, that i don’t dislike free giveaways at all. Excuse my Denglish, eventually. Freebies are a good means of promotion, and i enjoy them from others constantly.
    It would be most interesting to know, though, what other sources of income you are referring to. Playing live in the USA is both almost impossible legally for any non-US citizen, and when i did it still it almost always was a “Tips for the band” thing, besides one very well paid festival show ages ago. The concert situation over here in Berlin (or Europe in general) is pretty much the same regarding payments, although not restrictive against one’s nationality at all.
    Still, the average listeners are so worn out (i guess mostly by their own consuming manners), that they start complaining about the slightest bit of entry fee already.

    So, uhm I’d love to hear your suggestions. :)

  5. refe

    13. May, 2009

    First of all, I checked out the response you posted on your blog – I had to use Google Translator to read the German though, so I may have missed some things! If anyone wants to check that out you can find it here (it’s in German)- http://kliklak.net/blog/musik-die-dich-bezahlt.

    Gigging can absolutely be profitable, but it does take a lot of hard work. If a band wants to make the kind of money they would expect from a full-time job, they should be working full time hours. That means playing shows 4 or 5 times a week, honing the songs, recording new tracks, etc. If you do that and have used your recordings to generate exposure for yourself, you should be able to make money for each show you play. You have to be good, of course, but if you’re bringing in the head-count the venues will pay you.

    Then you should be thinking about creative merchandise options. T-shirts, pins and patches and all that are fine, but what about custom artwork? Elaborate packaging for vinyl or CD copies of your album that are sold at a premium? DVD collections of music videos you shot, etc. There are all kinds of different products out there – find something you think your fans will like and sell it to them. Sell invitation only house parties for an upfront fee if you want.

    As for your point that free devalues the product for the consumer, I will respond to that soon – that is a post in itself!

  6. Alexander

    20. May, 2009

    Nice post. I also arrived at “quality” as the means of standing out in a free economy. Significant differences exist in what I think of as “presentation” quality: file formats, tagging, etc. But of course the intrinsic quality of the music itself is what matters most. None of this contradicts Godin’s post; I think he was taking aim at the marketing types who seem to think that tacking “free” or “sale” or “special” on anything at all instills that thing with value.

    My full thoughts on the matter can be found here:
    http://www.ektoplazm.com/journal/free-is-not-enough-quality-matters/