""Illegal downloading is killing indie rock. The signs are everywhere: bands are giving up, indie labels are shutting their doors, mom and pop record stores are closing, new artist development opportunities have dried up and touring is way down. Why would anyone steal music...especially from independent bands and labels that only survive on selling very few records in the first place? Illegal downloading is not right...and it's against the law."
Deep Elm's owner John Szuch, along with label representatives from Revelation, Lookout, 31G and Ninja Tune, were recently interviewed by the Norwegian music press regarding illegal file sharing."
You can read the entire statement and interviews Here
Personally I think Labels need to grow up and prepare themselves for the future. Illegal downloading is just not going away. The major labels have spent millions on the RIAA and they have still been unable to stop illegal downloading.
Indie labels need to find ways to make illegal downloading work for them. The future for Labels will be in Merchandising & Concerts and the future for Bands will be in both Merchandising & Concerts.
Here is an example:
Drive-Thru Records signed Hellogoodbye in 2004 and released their EP free. The EP had millions of downloads from both the Drive-Thru Records site, countless music sites, blogs and illegal downloading sites. The band became huge in the emo pop punk scene and went on to appear in the MTV Austin Real World, won the MTV2 "Dew Circuit Breakout", recently headlined the Myspace Tour.
The label & the band made a ton of money off all kinds of Hellogoodbye apparel and the band went on to release a successful album that reached the top 20 on the Billboard and a single that dominated the latter half of 2006 and the early part of 2007. The artist has made more money off apparel and concerts then they probably have lost due to illegal downloading.
A more recent example would be Radiohead. The band made more money off there recent self release then they would have through a label and now they will go on to tour & play all the big festivals which will pay them top dollar to perform.
A label needs to learn to view the free downloads as not lost business but free marketing. Your going to have consumers who pay for the album and go see the band live and your going to have free marketers which will be those that downloaded the album illegally, shared it with their friends and in the end become consumers by going to see the band live and maybe buy a shirt.
In the future your going to see more deals like the Livenation/Madonna deal. This quote from LiveNation CEO Michael Rapino pretty much sums up the future of the music industry
"(talking about the Madonna deal) will be "cross collateralized" across dozens of products -- ticket sales, DVDs, books, t-shirts, clothing lines, streaming videos, private concerts. "Anything you can think of we can do," said Cohl, who runs tours for the Rolling Stones, among other acts.
"Make no mistake," said Rapino. "We are not getting into the record business. We are not building a system to sell 6-inch discs....We're a marketing and distribution company.""
