Q1. What is your opinion of illegal peer-to-peer downloading?
I use it personally in a “try-before-buy” fashion. I then buy the music that I really love, generally direct from the artist/label, as I know how much expense and effort is involved in making a physical release! I also appreciate that downloading allows me to listen to a much more diverse range of music than might otherwise be possible, as well as to source rare and out of print music (e.g. I have a passion for gamelan music and regularly download obsure
Javanese tapes that have been ripped to MP3 by collectors). The downside is that I think that the general populace value music less, treating it as much more of a throwaway commodity that in the past, not paying independent artists, etc.
Q2. Does illegal downloading affect your business in any way?
As a label, we put all free and out-of-print releases into circulation on the main piracy sites, resulting in more people becoming aware of what we do. This has brought us some interesting connections with fans and other like-minded groups. We’re too ‘niche’ for people to have bothered trying to make money out of pirating our product (although a few have tried).
Q3. How do your artists (bands) feel about this?
Ask them! I know a lot share at least some of my opinions on this, but I can always put you in touch with a few if you need more perspective…
Q4. How do your traditional sales compare with download sales? Has this changed in the last few years?
We don’t currently sell downloads (we give them away) and have sold 99% of our physical stock so don’t do a lot of physical sales right now. The market for CDs has pretty much died a death anyway.
Q5. How do you recruit new bands to your label?
Mainly via friends, friends-of-friends, word of mouth, contacting artists we like. We do accept demos, although very rarely come across anything we want to release (with a very few exceptions). We receive an average of 50 demos a week and have only ever released (at a guess) five or so artists that we’ve met this way…
Q6. How do you use the internet effectively to market your products?
A6. Social media, email list, spamming forums, warez sites…
Q7. Do you feel you have an advantage in the marketplace compared with the big labels?
Yes and no. Low costs – freedom of expression – loyal fanbase as they know we’re in it for the love – less financial clout – no advertising budget – lack of ‘proper’ distribution – more able to adapt to changing circumstances – less attempts to pirate us, etc.
What is your opinion on illegal downloading?
That’s a broad question, and many different sub questions/angles within (see my further comments at foot of email). But, basically, if the music is not willingly being made available for free download by the creator or copyright owner then I don’t believe it is justifiable in any way to (illegally) download it. I think it is completely unethical and morally wrong. It is not a victimless act and just because it is easy to do, and basically untraceable doesn’t make it any less wrong. I don’t believe people should be prosecuted for it, it shouldn’t be a criminal offence as such, but it’s not a reasonable and honest thing to do. There’s many legal services available (download sites and streaming sites) – there’s no excuse anymore to take the illegal route.
Does it effect your business in a significant way?
It has effected my business in a massively detrimental way. Not everyone who illegally downloads our music would have paid for it legally, but I still believe we lose about 75% of digital sales to illegal downloading – maybe more. The Darwin Deez album was “leaked” before release, we clicked on one download link (of 100s that were subsequently posted the week before release) and it had received 32K downloads in 24 hours. That’s just 1 link out of 100s. We have legally sold 15K digital albums by Darwin Deez so far over nearly a year – less than 50% of the “sales” one illegal link did in 24 hours. We felt physically sick that someone thought it perfectly reasonable to upload the leaked album (they would have well known it was a leak) and share the link as if they were part of the creative process. An awful thing to do to us and it happens every day.
In addition what we are able to sell, physically and digitally, is now at a substantially lower price than we would like – we have to compete with “free” in effect.
What is the opinion of some of your bands?
The bands on our label mostly just want their music to be heard – they don’t really worry about illegal vs legal (as yet). Their desire to create art comes not from a desire to make money, so they tend not to focus too much on sales etc. However, they all need to make some income in order to have the ability and freedom to make music. They are however becoming conscious of the need to spend far less on recording and visuals (videos) as the sales aren’t there to support.
Do you have retail outlets and how do they compare to online sales?
Yes we sell physically to all the music retailers. At the moment it is 50%/50% physical/digital for our albums – but we do specialise in pop/alternative music that hits a young audience . Singles are 95% digital.
How do you find bands or do they find you?
In all instances to –date we have found them. We have sadly never signed anyone from a demo. The internet has been a fantastic tool for us in finding and communicating with new bands/artists.
Do you use facebook, myspace, youtube or twitter to reach audiences and to inform fans?
Yes all of the above.
How has the internet helped you to develop your business?
The internet has revolutionised my business – both good and bad. Mostly good, the bad is just the illegal downloading/sharing, Discovering new artists, digital distribution (legal), online promotion and engagement etc
How do you see the future developing? Will CDs become obsolete?
CDs won’t become completely obsolete but nearly yes. And very quickly for us – another couple of years or so. Vinyl is still very important to us, aesthetically, although it loses us money.
Sorry that there’s so many, you can just answer the ones that you’re most opinionated about if you’re short of time and there’s no rush for the answers.
One thing I think you should look at/think about is the effect illegal downloading will eventually have on the quality of music being released.
There will always be creative people making great music but if there are no “labels” around who can invest (as there are no “returns”) then artists of the future will either have to find themselves a rich benefactor or combine their artistic pursuits with a proper job. Or they will need to come from wealthy backgrounds themselves. How awful would it be if music, the finest of the arts, becomes solely in the control of the rich – be it rich benefactors or rich creators.
Another thing that you perhaps should consider is the placating role the ISPs and File Hosting Sites have played in illegal downloading.
Without a shadow of a doubt all the ISP’s are well aware that they have built their business’ completely on the back of their customers illegal downloading. 90% of the traffic must be illegal downloading/sharing of music (and nor films and games and soon books) – but mostly music.
Everyday we issue at least 30 takedown requests with file sharing services such as Rapidshare/Mediafire/Megaupload/etc/etc – every day these files are uploaded by either the same individuals and/or are called the same thing for search engine optimization (SEO) eg Darwin Deez album, Sebastien Tellier album. It would be incredibly easy for these file sharing sites (and the ISPs) to block these files from persistent uploading – they are completely unwilling to do anything about it as they well know that they would have no traffic otherwise and therefore would sell no advertising. All the people who illegally downloading are basically funding these companies business’s at the expense of the artists and labels who have created the Art. It’s a dirty, ugly business. Google could also do far more to either block the illegal links from it’s search results or at least promote the legal links. It is frustrating that the illegal links, due sadly to their popularity, dominate the search engine results.
The attitude to the record labels in the UK
When one looks at the rewards in this country, there are, obviously, prizes for musicians and their music. Meanwhile there are also prizes for live venues and for promoters. The question is: why not for the record labels. They are an important part of the process for the music’s development and survival. Are they regarded as too commercial or too parasitical? If so, this is an old-fashioned attitude that has to be corrected.
The new breed of record labels in jazz are not out to suck the musicians dry and work in partnership to develop their art!
Can small independent record labels make money?
It’s not necessary to trick people into thinking that Babel is just like a major label. It isn’t, and never can be. The associated costs would be prohibitive. I notice the tip of that particular iceberg when dealing nowadays with the retailers concerning albums such as Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland. It’s important to get them out there. But at what price to me? If they are going to be in the shops at £9.99, I earn £4 or less, which itself is a reason why I like to sell direct. From that I have to meet manufacturing costs, royalties, promotional costs and so. That leaves a very small margin for me. If the amounts were tens of thousands, then I’d be keen. But we are talking in hundreds or around a 1000 maximum. Is it worth it? Well, you can’t be in this business for short-term returns and to be part of a big bureaucracy. So, it must be done (within reason): maybe a few new people will come in, buy the albums and then look at the rest of the catalogue or just get into the music. It’s a hope and based mainly on gut feel, but with the bubble around that I wrote about before, more likely at present than even a year ago.
The perils of do it yourself
As a result of the current trends in recording and the record industry, there’s a new tendency towards the musician running his own label. It seems incredibly simple. Go into the studio, or even do it at home, press up the albums and then sell them. Artists always get driven towards the label because of the need for the money up front to actually go into a studio. Now these costs are dramatically lower. I have in the next room the original tapes from Huw Warren’s Barrel Organ Far From Home and Julian Arguelles’s Skull View recording. (Both took place during the same week in 1997 at Snake Ranch). The tapes make a pile 4 feet high and weigh a ton. I probably paid almost £1000 for the tapes alone. Nowadays, it’s recorded straight to hard disk. Cost of storage space is now certainly less than £100. Similarly, more can be done at home or in small studios with overdubs.
As a result, it’s easier to record the music at the time when the artist feels it’s ready and can meet those initial costs involved. Unfortunately, the industry itself doesn’t help get the music disseminated. Whereas before it was easy to go the distrbutor, get him to buy several hundred copies outright and pass on the problem of selling them to him, nowadays most sales are commission only (called “consignment”) and there is no guarantee even as to how many the distributor will take. Even getting a distributor isn’t the easiest job. While, just because your music is on iTunes doesn’t mean that anyone will actually know about it. Existence on its own isn’t sufficient for survival.
So there’s quite a juggling act involved still, and it’s no easier to be distributed and disseminated. I have been aware of some labels for some time, such as Iain Ballamy’s Feral and Paul Clarvis’s Village Life. Billy Jenkins’ VOTP has been around for quite a time of course. I am particularly brought to this thinking by recent discussions that I have had with John Dankworth about his own label Qnote I am just about to start work on helping develop the label. It has 10 releases, all very stylish and some intriguing (like Cleo Laine with Dudley Moore and Ray Brown). Started by the frustration with the mainstream record industry – both the fact that old releases have been deleted (or never reissued on CD), and an unwillingness to bring out new material by the larger companies, John formed the label together with his publisher. But do they sell? Well, of course the answer is “patchily”.
I see that the whole juggling involved is as much as ever. It goes in line with the Babel ethos, where releases have to respond to the requests from artists whom I know and trust, rather than being able to get them to record stuff that I want at any time.
Wolfgang Muthspiel played The Vortex. He has been going the same route. His own new releases are on his own Material Records label.He’s already done 16 and has realised that it’s quite an investment to keep it going. I was pleased to put him in touch with Proper, who are Babel’s distributor in the UK, and Peggy Sutton, who does the Babel press. It seems to work out, but he is aware that it’s quite a bit of work.
The power of the majors and the existing labels is therefore not really diminished, as they have the time, knowledge and resources to take the label idea further. I really like the idea of musicians having their own labels and doing their own A&R. They are their own best brands! Billy Jenkins is a better brand than Babel, as would be Iain Ballamy or Wolfgang Muthspiel. (That perhaps is part of the reason why labels like collecting artists with good names, to give themselves a boost?)
It clearly has its dangers, such as lack of quality control and a glut in the market, but it does also mean that on balance the amount of good music available is increased. I wouldn’t trust the major labels to bring out the music that should be heard as much as I would trust even myself. (A bit of humility never did anyone any harm.) Still, if we can somehow reduce the amount of also rans and keep up the quality as much as possible then we end up with a “win win” situation!
Gillett Square/Vortex update. Work has now started on Gillett Square. Diggers, portakabins, fences. What a wonderful view from the window of the club! I am reminded of a Fast Show sketch, where the engineers were more excited by the toys that the workmen were using than the actual job in hand. Will that be true for the Vortex?
FAT NORTHERNER
Research completed from a questionnaire answered by FAT NORTHERNER
1. What is your opinion on peer to peer (illegal) downloading.
As a label we have a very positive opinion of peer to peer downloading. As a small Indie, prior to digital distribution, producing, promoting and getting the music to fans was a very expensive business. As a result very few releases would ever break even. Aside from running the label we also set up a series of music conferences called ‘Un-convention’ and this subject is often discussed. There are of course two sides, the idea that p2p sharing is a great way of getting music ‘out there’ at very little, or no cost, and the opposing view that it means people are taking music for free and hence not paying for it, to the detriment of the artists and their labels. If you accept that sharing is going to take place, and instead of fighting it (someone once said, it’s like kicking a river to try and make it change course), you realise that it is simply another method by which fans can discover and enjoy what you are producing, you can then look at ways to make money around that. A good example of that is a company we know called Music Glue – they deliberately seed music on sites like Limewire, on behalf of the artists and then track where people are downloading the music from. They then use this data to approach booking agents to say, we know this bands has loads of fans in this city because we’ve had thousands of peer to peer downloads there. In this way, bands are discovering where their fans are much more accurately, and for free, and are using that information to sell out venues. Entire tours (all around the world) can now be booked on this principle (Mumford and Sons have just done so I believe). This can be very lucrative, and when compared to the tiny amounts receive from iTunes once everyone has taken their cut, very worthwhile. You need to sell 10’s of thousands of a track digitally to break even on a release, but there are many other much more direct ways to monetise relationships with fans (live, merchandise, limited editions, etc).
There are now some great sites (like Bandcamp) that allow labels and artists to put their music up, and let people pay what ever they like for it (including nothing if they choose).
2. Does illegal downloading effect your business in a significant way?
Yes, but in a positive way, because of the reasons above – it is far more lucrative to use a release as a means of promotion, or communication than it is as a retail product, especially in the digital market. ‘Real’ fans may take the music for free, but they will also buy vinyl, or a T-Shirt, or come to a gig. The more ‘real’ fans you can reach, then the better that can work, and by removing the barrier to them discovering your music it’s possible to benefit in that way. A sale on iTunes will only equate to a few pence in revenue, but if you can distribute 100,000 copies of something and from that attract a core of people that really like what you’re doing then it’s possible to make money that way. Especially when breaking a new artist, getting to peoples ears is the hardest thing to do, so the opportunity to do that for free is amazing. I’ve heard it said at Un-conventions that having 50,000 fans and no sales is a great problem to have, and that is true. Previously that would have been impossible. There has also been a lot written recently about how all you need are 1000 core fans to make a sustainable career for artists nowadays, and much of that stems from people initially discovering artists by taking music for free. There are lots and lots of new ideas and models coming together around this.
3. What is the opinion of some of your bands.
All of our bands think pretty much along the same lines. The reality for 99% of artists (and this was true before illegal downloading) is that they make the vast majority (if not all) of their money from live and merchandise, and not from selling records. A very few fat cats (particularly major labels) made their money that way, but no one else in the music industry does – there is a distinction between the ‘record industry’ and the ‘music industry’. The record industry had been hugely exploitative over the years. Most companies are now trying to be music companies rather than record companies – the ones that are struggling (most noticeably the likes of EMI are in dire straits). Hence it is them who are shouting the loudest, and lobbying for ISP’s policing people, etc. A huge proportion of independent artists and labels do not share that view.
4. Do you have retail outlets, how do they compare to online sales.
We rarely sell physical records nowadays – when we do it is distributed through Cargo to HMV and what ever Indie record shops are left, however this is expensive and becoming increasingly irrelevant. More often now we produce Vinyl for the purpose of selling at gigs, rather than through retail outlets. Digitally we still put all our release online via iTunes, HMV, etc, so if people want to buy them (many people still prefer too, and lots distrust p2P sites) they can. We also use ithinkmusic.com where we sell direct to fans (as opposed to digital retailers like iTunes who take big cuts), and we also give music away. It varies from artist to artist, but on the whole online sales out weigh physical (vinyl and CD), and on top of that p2p downloads massively outweigh both.
5. How do you find bands? Do they find you?
Most of the bands we find are through word of mouth. We still get hundreds of demos, which we try and listen too, but no one signs people of demos really – at best it just means that they come and see the band live and then perhaps make a decision. It does vary however. One time we were having a label meeting in a bar in Manchester and a band from Brighton turned up and started playing and we signed them on the spot. Recently we’ve signed relatively little though as we’ve been working on a project involving lots of bands doing a single track, so we don’t sign them as such, we just license the track.
6. Do you use facebook, myspace or twitter for ways of reaching new audiences and informing fans?
Yes, although the label isn’t very good at it! The bands are better (and so they should be, it is much more about fan to artist than label to artist). For the Un-convention events we also use Facebook, Twitter and wordpress. Myspace isn’t really much use except as a place to put your music so that people can have a listen. However, people don’t find music so much with Myspace – the social networking side of it simply doesn’t work like with FB and Twitter – so really it’s just a place to direct people once you’ve engaged them elsewhere online – the familiarity of the player still means people use it (particularly journalists) although I reckon it’s days are number. And with things like Soundcloud now linking in to FB people seem to be moving away from Myspace.
Hope that helps – sorry it’s taken a while to reply, been busy – but really happy to discuss anything further. Also, might be of interest, but we’re putting together an event soon called Un-convention Factory (it’s what we do alongside running the label) – some details are here.
http://www.pitchengine.com/free-release.php?id=50615
Cheers
Jeff
0779 599 1169
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