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 