Does anybody on this planet want to buy some good music from small labels, or are we sentenced to death? Do you like downloading only FREE music, either from legal or illegal resources?
Some of the small labels sell their music, but most of them have the recognisable artists. But still there are many labels like ETALABEL.com which goal is to promote young and unknown artists. If people don’t buy our albums, even if they are sold with huge discounts (see our summer sale and 50% discount), does that mean that they don’t need new artists and fresh music? I really cannot find the answer.
Since January ETALABEL has published 3 albums. 2 DigiPacks and one FREE EP (in August). And the most downloaded album is of course the FREE EP. And even if people get a discount password for our other stuff, they don’t use it! They try to find our music on services where people upload our stuff illegally. (I’ve already asked one of such services to delete our albums, cause somebody shared the music illegally). Does that mean that we must tour, and sell our music during the concerts? But everybody knows that not all artists have time to go on tour or they simply don’t play concerts for many reasons.
I must strongly agree with David Wenngren from library tapes. This is what he wrote:
“Over the last few year I’ve read or heard stories about musicians committing suicide, labels closing down, distributors going bankrupt or not paying the labels what they owe them. All of this because a lot of people don’t pay for the music they are listening to and stealing from artists they claim to love.
I’ve heard many excuses for this. Some say that a lot of listeners will make it easier for bands to tour and sell merch. This might be true for some, but not everyone are able to tour.
The last couple of years I’ve seen a decline in CD sales, not only through the labels that I run, but also while touring. It’s so sad to see great labels stop and it would be even sadder to see artists quit making records because their fans don’t want to support them. I understand it might be tempting to download music for free, but please think twice before doing so. “
And what do you think?
grzegorz bojanek 
I do agree that people will take something for free before paying for it. Does this mean that small labels are sentenced to death? Perhaps, but I believe it is up to the label. On one hand we have several sources for people to acquire music for free, while on the other hand we have several resources for labels to operate for free or for a very small fee. I believe it is up to the label to come up with an honest approach to their business plan, and utilize as many of the free and/or inexpensive resources as they can. A label will surely die if they put all of their money into one thing and it doesn’t work out. So as a label you must know your budget and not invest 100% in one thing. You have to decide what is important and if the cost really adds value. Another approach is to do as much as you can by yourself. If you have the means to do your own design or printing, the money you save can be used for other things. As a small label you really have to work hard and be more resourceful than ever . I guess I don’t believe that small labels are sentenced to death, but the odds are stacked against us.
Small labels are not sentenced to death, because there will always be people who are inspired to make music and people who are inspired to distribute them. However, the thought of making a reasonable profit from a small label may be gone. At this point it seems that anti-downloading pleas are ineffective, which still leaves a couple options. The first is to offer something extra with the physical release, such as distinctive and appealing packaging. The second is subscriptions ~ although the success of these depends on the marketing. Each option creates the “limited edition” buzz. Since a majority of new music is created in small runs, everything is a limited edition, but it doesn’t seem to register with consumers, so it still works. :)
I’ve stopped making music and erased myself from the net. Time to do something else
Pirate downloads and having too many options are the main reasons small/indipendent labels are closing down. In my opinion it’s part of nowdays society wanting to get things for free by downloading (music, movies, books, software and applications). Small/indipendent labels will always be around because there will always be people with “real” passion about music. I guess the best way to keep small labels existing is to release special limited edition in a small run, keeping prices competitive, and not having too many releases coming out in a short period of time.
This is a big topic, and too hard to fully cover in a comment… but for myself, I buy alot of music – mostly CDs, actually – from both major and small labels. I only purchase downloads when there is no CD, and the download has to be available in a lossless format. Otherwise, I don’t bother. But even this practice is probably going to run out, as hardly anyone presses CDs unless they’re in limited quantities. But I know I’m the niche-minority.
I read a long article by one particular music/gamer fan, who said hook him with something for free, and then he buys stuff if he liked what you gave away. However, not everyone is like that, as you already noticed, even with discounts.
I know I give away tons of free music, but sales of the few titles that aren’t free is almost non-existent. Why? I don’t know. But that’s not a complaint, it’s a fact – I already know I won’t make money doing this because the market is too over-saturated and there are too many options for people to spend their money on. If they choose to pay me for it, that’s great… but I’m not expecting it. The small labels that can make a living out being a label are rare and exceptional. For me, I have take my music down other avenues if I want to see anything financial from it.
Hi Greg – miss you! Send me an email if you want to keep in touch.
I really don’t think the situation is as bad as it appears. Or, at least, it’s no worse than it was, and it’s not due to illegal downloading. For one thing, this stuff about “musicians committing suicide, labels closing down, distributors going bankrupt or not paying the labels what they owe them” – that’s been going on since music first started to be sold as a manufactured product (i.e. when it was first recorded). Big, greedy businesses have ripped off musicians, small companies and independent labels since the beginning (how many blues musicians made a living from selling records? How many rock and and roll musicians, sixties bands, and heavy metal groups fell apart because they were screwed over?).
The system is at fault, not the customer. The big businesses blame the customer because they want a situation where they can make TOTAL PROFIT (i.e. every possible sale is made, with no losses) – but I don’t believe that illegal downloads are killing smalling labels; the problem is that there are too many labels, and there is TOO MUCH MUSIC. In that sense, perhaps illegal downloads play a part in killing small labels; people are downloading, or have downloaded so much stuff from the last 100 years of music that there just isn’t time to listen to anything new, unless it’s really amazing or unique. But I would point the finger more at Spotify, Grooveshark, et al – and at the huge marketing machinery of the major labels, which constantly diverts people’s attention from the small independent artists and labels.
Before the internet, running a label required a certain amount of money – and to make a success, it required a certain kind of business sense. But not any more. You can start up a web page, sell your products and be a label without even having a home or another job. And the quality has dropped off the scale. There are labels like yours that put out great music. But there are also hundreds of netlabels that put out great music for free, and there are hundreds more that produce what is, for a lot of people, absolute rubbish. This especially effects purely electronic music, as there is so much of it. The average person can’t tell one type of electronic music from another; genres like minimal techno or chiptune are niche areas that only appeal to a select group anyway.
How do you find the good labels and musicians? And when you do, why should you buy products from one and not another? There are as many answers as there are customers. And this is a problem that affects all businesses on the internet – not just labels and musicians.
The fault is not illegal downloads; they’re just a small part of the picture. Why would illegal downloads affect some musicians and labels, and not others? I think the above comments about packaging are right, to some degree. But I also think that the CD is dead, and it should be, along with the DVD. FLACs and WAVs point to the future, to a degree but I think that things will evolve further. Surround sound is one possibility. Larger files will be less convenient to download, and surround sound has a lot of potential for the ‘newness’ that people seem to crave so much. ‘Apps’ for iPhones, tablet PCs and so on are probably the most likely format that musicians will be able to make money from, if used creatively.
I always cite The Flaming Lips, Nine Inch Nails and Kristin Hersh as being examples of how to make it work so far. All of them give some stuff away for free, but have something to sell that keeps them in business and making music. But then, all of them were successful before the mass acceptance of illegal downloading. Magnatune is still going strong, and they have been going for years (and only started after illegal downloading had become popular).
Subscription services can work well, but the label needs to produce a regular, quality output for that to work. A good site design and a strong identity are still the staples of on-line commerce, and I think this has a lot to do with the problems for many labels (but not for yours!).
I think that many small labels would attract more paying customers if they teamed up with other labels; a larger site with more on offer will always attract more people, and, most importantly, keep them on the site. The cost of running the label and producing the music would then drop, too. Another solution is music curation; we need more reliable custodians of music who can point us in the direction of what we want to hear. We need music grouped with similar music in a meaningful way, and we need people to write about it with passion. If smaller labels got together and worked on these kind of things, combining their abilities rather than feeling that they’re competing with one another, I think many more labels and musicians would have a better income.
I for one am not at all depressed by the state of things; I think, in the current sea of mediocrity in mainstream music, this is the perfect time for creative, unique and interesting people to rise up and be noticed. It is the time to make a change, in music as well as society, the economy, politics, etc. All we need to do is fight side by side and seek creative solutions. We cannot tread the same path as our predecessors – we must seek out new paths!
Thank you for such a deep analysis. Yes. I have some friends in some labels and I was thinking about the same you suggest here. Maybe to create some kind of relationship between the labels? It would be good if each one issues slightly different genres. And than together such “company” can fight on the market. A brilliant idea!
After reading your post I must say, I am not as sad as I was a few days ago.