Doing a research on netlabels. Share your thoughts. Discuss.

[jbible]

Think about it. Saying.... "Why bother making art if I am not going to get any money out of it." sounds kind of backwards.

My point is...if an 'artist' is making music with ONLY FINANCIAL GAIN IN MIND then they might as well just make generic television commercial music. Make art for art...if you get paid then thats just a bonus in the end. But I think if an artist goes into a project with only financial gain in mind then it is no longer art. The art should be the first priority...and any financial gain resulting from said art should always be second to that.

But pretty much in the giant growing scene of obscure strange electronic music there is little promise of financial gain yet people still do it...therefore most people involved in this scene are making art for arts sake. Which is why I love this scene and support it financially and promotionally.

[krank]

My point was...if an 'artist' is making music with ONLY FINANCIAL GAIN IN MIND then they might as well just make generic television commercial music.

Then why make such a sweeping statement? As if you can't reconciliate the idea of having artistic integrity with the need to make money from your work.

This 'underground' idealism leaves very little room for serious, hard-working artists with bills to pay. People who would rather not make commercials, do live shows, seek funds or sell out their integrity in any way, but would simply like to make a living from selling their work, like artists have done for centuries.

[luke]

i agree with my homeslice Jbible.

making art for the sake of making art; it's what humans were meant to do, and it's what we're best at, in my opinion. it's the most beautiful side of us.

net labels are just an outlet for that, and as an owner of a rather successful project myself, i can vouch for the intense amount of quality control i use for it.

of course, art is subjective, so you'll have to decide for yourself. - www.earstroke.com

at any rate, my opinion about net labels is of the idea they are to be used as a step up for new artists who wish to further their career. there are many great artists whom i've seen get hard copy label attention because of net labels. to name a few: Wisp (just recently signed to Sublight) Milieu (recently signed to Infraction/U-Cover/many others...) Skytree (made an appearance on the Benbecula label) and even myself!

i hope this opens the door for a few.

hello, by the way! this is my first post. i was directed here from experimedia by jbible, i think i'll have a poke around!

[krank]

Think about it. Saying.... "Why bother making art if I am not going to get any money out of it." sounds kind of backwards.

Jbible, you don't have to tell me to think about it, I know where I'm coming from.

The example you give is not representative of any real artist. The kind of statement you should be considering in this context is:

'I've spent so much effort creating this great piece of art. I also need to pay rent this month. I will sell my work of art to enable me to continue to have a place to stay without having to spend time on a more or less meaningless job, which would leave me little time to be creative'.

[jbible]

This 'underground' idealism leaves very little room for serious, hard-working artists with bills to pay. People who would rather not make commercials, do live shows, seek funds or sell out their integrity in any way, but would simply like to make a living from selling their work, like artists have done for centuries.

Yes and thats fine...in this case......art comes first...try to get money second to that so you dont have to work at a job you dont want to do therefore creating more time to work on your art. Which is fine. Money should be a bi-product of art and passion....it doesnt work the other way around.

Even Ableton and other passionate software/hardware developers...their financial gain is a bi-product of their passion for music...a bi-product of their art......the art and passion came first and hopefully always will. But of course with all things involved money in time it is easy to lose focus of those original ideals.

If you think I am saying it is wrong to make money from art then you are misunderstanding...I am simply saying that financial gain should simply be a bi-product of passion. The people that follow those ideals are the ones that truly deserve financial gain in the end anyways.

[jbible]

'I've spent so much effort creating this great piece of art. I also need to pay rent this month. I will sell my work of art to enable me to continue to have a place to stay without having to spend time on a more or less meaningless job, which would leave me little time to be creative'.

Which is exactly what I have been talking about...money comes second...as a bi-product. In this example the artists put their passion and effort into the art for arts sake...after the fact they thought maybe I can use this to help pay the bills while sharing it with the world. Which is perfectly legitimate.

I think my statements must be coming out wrong. I am not trying to be confrontational at all. I am simply supporting the netlabels against people who feel the art is not legitimate or as good because its given away for free when I think it couldnt be further from the truth. In the end I think to focus is being put on my defending examples and not the point at hand. Which is

"I dont feel music released and distribtued freely on netlabels should have any less opportunity at gaining artistic respect than music released commercially."

[krank]

This 'underground' idealism leaves very little room for serious, hard-working artists with bills to pay. People who would rather not make commercials, do live shows, seek funds or sell out their integrity in any way, but would simply like to make a living from selling their work, like artists have done for centuries.

Yes and thats fine...in this case......art comes first...try to get money second to that so you dont have to work at a job you dont want to do therefore creating more time to work on your art. Which is fine. Money should be a bi-product of art and passion....it doesnt work the other way around.

Even Ableton and other passionate software/hardware developers...their financial gain is a bi-product of their passion for music...a bi-product of their art......the art and passion came first and hopefully always will. But of course with all things involved money in time it is easy to lose focus of those original ideals.

If you think I am saying it is wrong to make money from art then you are misunderstanding...I am simply saying that financial gain should simply be a bi-product of passion. The people that follow those ideals are the ones that truly deserve financial gain in the end anyways.

Of course - I agree that art comes first. I fuckin' *hate* commercialised art/being driven by ego instead of soul/selling out.

I'm just arguing that traditional copyright has a place - if not, we'd need some kind of sponsorship to remain productive, and might soon find ourselves subject to regulations beyond those of the market. Which is why I countered your statement about 'making tv commercials'.

And sorry if I came off confrontational too. I just felt a need to add to what I saw as a very square point of view.

[jbible]

I'm just arguing that traditional copyright has a place - if not, we'd need some kind of sponsorship to remain productive, and might soon find ourselves subject to regulations beyond those of the market. Which is why I countered your statement about 'making tv commercials'.

Of course. The commercially driven scene and the free scenes need to co-exist and work together. I am not arguing that all music/art should be freely available. Its completely up to the artist either way. I just feel the music distributed through both methods should be approached artistically with the same respect without prejudice.


HI LUKE!!!

[krank]

HI LUKE!!!

Huh?

[jbible]

Just saying hello to my friend Luke who made a post above.

[luke]

hi jeremy.

it all boils down to this: net labels are just something to be freely enjoyed by everyone. it's simple. have fun!

[tomperson]

Well, I finally have some quality time to check all the posts. Thanks a zillion to all who have contributed to this thread. I knew the abletoners had something to say!

There are, indeed, a lot of interesting points here, and some legitimate questions. I'll try to check all the points that brought my attention.

Most commercial labels nowadays are afraid to take chances with new music therefore the new music available on CD and Vinyl has become rather stagnant.

I guess we have always had two parallel scenes running at the same time, Commercial/Mainstream electronic music and "Underground". It strikes to me the fact that with internet and lower costing / free hosting as well as the simplicity to distribute digitally, this "Underground" is everyday more and more open to the general public, it's easier and easier to get in touch with experimental electronic music, which, as you stated, wouldn't have got a place in the commercial circuit. Would you agree with this statement?

IMO some of todays most talented electronic music artists are releaseing their music freely on netlabels. The integrity of these artists is also impressive.

Could you name a few of the "stablished" artists that have a well known reputation which has grown through the netlabel world? Like pheek, for instance.

Some critics will complain"mp3, compression, sound quality, etc" but at experimedia we are distributing releaseing in the downloaders choice of FLAC (lossless), MP3, and Ogg Vorbis. We also try to distribute through multiple methods.

There has been so much talk about this. I guess we should be over the mp3 quality talk. Many people has misconceptions brought by early-days 128kbps mp3. Anyway, as bandwidth costs decrease, we will more and more get full-quality releases that will be bit-to-bit identical to the original. You wouldn't get that even with Audio CD, which, due to the limitations of the media, get scratched, damaged, etc, losing quality in the end.

vinyl is a sure fire way to fleece bands of their money, netlabels should be more proffitable. There is no reason why a netlabel cant pay an artist 50% of their net sales every month.
A vinyl label will usually pay a lot less than that and a lot less frequently.

As far as I know, the "standard" agreement for COMMERCIAL (i.e. not CC/free) netlabels is something like that. And there are much less intermediary people on the selling chain. It can only be better for the artist. It's no secret that "vinyl" labels have really small profit margins, and are more and more turning to the digital download.

Many artists dont care if they ever make a dime off of their music. They dont even try.

That's another interesting thing. I guess we are all changing our minds. I dare to say that internet has got a lot to do with it, as it responds to a different way of dealing with stuff. We are so accustomed now to getting all kinds of quality data/services for free. That just don't happen in the "real" or "analog" world. In a really big portion internet, money has no interest, no meaning. We just exchange bits and bytes. And the open source community has demonstrated that people are willing to do wonderful and complicated software just for the love of it. Beautiful. As the anti globalization activists say, another world is possible.

And I mean how much money can you really be making since the release of your first pressed album? I know from experience that releaseing a record on an obscure electronic label isnt going to pay the bills.

I guess most of us should agree with this. How many of the electronic artists can make a living out of it. Not many, for sure, just a tiny percent. So, many of us wonder...Why even bother selling our music? Just release it for free, with a potentially bigger audience. And nevermind about those few hundred dollars you would have made for a "proper" vinyl release. For what i know, a really successful vinyl release sells like 1500 copies. Not a lot.

There are other points to discuss.

First of all, a lot of the preconcepts/assumptions we have used here come from the electronic scene frame, where we could say artists work in small "niche" genres. Then, we can say numbers of sales are small anyway, so why sell music, and we can say that the promotion got out of free download is well worth the money "lost" by not selling. But what about mainstream music? Pop, rock, all that? How does it fit within this world? Its not a surprise that the netlabel world is mostly concerned with electronic music. How do you feel the mainstream music will evolve regarding this? Do you see the next "Robbie Williams" being made a mega star out of netlabel releases?

Then, there's the phisicality many people miss. Its incredible how many people still feel attached to the phisicality of a CD or vinyl. I guess we all agree that the graphics of a CD or vinyl are in some cases artwork in themselves, adding to the concept the artist wanted to express. But do you think is is worth all the extra cash needed for it? Or can the music still stand on its own and without the need of extra stuff? You can always include extra info with your digital download, such as images and stuff, but it seems its not the same, is it?

Thanks again guys, this thread is really important for my research. By the way, i posted the same on NI's Traktor forum...no one even cared to answer...A different way of thinking in ableton forum?

And, how much do you think portable digital audio devices such as mp3 players have boosted this phenomena?

[Angstrom]

And, how much do you think portable digital audio devices such as mp3 players have boosted this phenomena?

I've done a bit of future-gazing on this issue myself, I work in internet by day and used to have a net label way back before it was even vaguely a good idea.

Looking a few years into the future as the major companies are, you can see where someone like Apple thinks the future of media delivery lies. They license media, hold it in a storage account and deliver it 'on demand' to a user account. So if you subscibe to 'phil collins greatest hits' you have access to listen to it in your car, in a bar somewhere, anywhere. Anytime you 'use' the track some publishing is payed.

so great, users get media streamed via next-gen internet and charged on use .. what's wrong with that.
Mainly that by owning the distribution, filetypes and media players - certain companies are locking us out of the next generation of getting payed for our music.

Think I'm exagerating some ipod threat?
here's something lifted from a recent boingboing article purely to stop me having to type!

If you amass a video collection of DRM video from Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo or other restrictive suppliers, you're dooming yourself to either throwing out all your movies when you want to change platforms, or keeping multiple players and libraries from these competing companies that are attempting to woo the entertainment companies to licensing content for their locked-down platforms by promising ever-tighter restrictions in their players.

thats the problem of iPods. Thats why I stun 95% of the population by not owning one and not using iTunes

[tomperson]

Anyone else want to jump to the conversation?
This is a very important issue for us digital musicians...

Share your thoughts...

[Emissary]

As someone who is going to be starting a net record label very soon here in North Wales I am very interested in this thread. I think that the internet is a wonderfull thing and its great that I can listen to music from all over the world by people I have never met or seen. On the other hand I dont quite connect with it in the same way as I would with someone from my own area. My Label is going to be targeted at my surrounding area as a way to premote local acts as opposed to a global business. Even though everything is becoming more globalised I get the feeling that people are losing their souls somewhere along the way and we need to get back to basic communities (something that is dying here in Wales). Normal people dont have anything to aspire to nowadays as it all seems so out of reach. Talented people are being overcome by debt and depression and its only the really hardcore focused artitst that seem to make it. Is this a good thing? or do we need people like this

http://gimpy.homeunix.com/~llion/music.html

this is my mate Double L who uses live and writes some of those most god awful music alive, but he enjoys it , knows its shit and he makes us laugh.
Music seems to be becoming more and more like Formula 1 racing. With people ever more eager to get that higher defenition or "better" sound. But hey let us not forget that formula 1 is as boring as hell after you've watched a couple of laps.

I belive that we should be using net labels not as a way to promote are stuff all over the world but as a way to showcase talent to your surrounding community. If everyone had this opportunity we would again start to see more and more really exciting , funny, emotional and beautifull music.