An op-ed piece in today’s New York Times by Damian Kulash Jr., who is the lead singer for a band called OK Go makes the case that copy protection embedded in CDs hurts musicians, or at least those trying to make it to the big time. “It’s much better to have copies of albums on lots of iPods, even if only half of them have been paid for, than to have a few CD’s sitting on a shelf and not being played,” Kulash writes.
Kulash is actually touching on a much bigger trend that seems to be affecting all intellectual property. A certain amount of free, unfettered access is actually good for business. The rise of the open Internet and the abundant amount of access to written, filmed or recorded content actually spurs sales, as many writers, artists and filmmakers have discovered.
The truth is that the more a record gets listened to, the more successful it is. This is not just our megalomania, it’s Marketing 101: the more times a song gets played, the more of a chance it has to catch the ear of someone new. It doesn’t do us much good if people buy our records and promptly shelve them; we need them to fall in love with our songs and listen to them over and over. A record that you can’t transfer to your iPod is a record you’re less likely to listen to, less likely to get obsessed with and less likely to tell your friends about.
Cynthia Brumfield at 9:59 AM|Comments(3)
Ooops, sorry for that, I stand corrected! And I don't disagree with Kulash either. :)
I think it's a matter of finding a balance, and keeping up with the changing of the balance. One solution doesn't fit all.
For an artist "under development" by a rich label, free trading is good. For an established artist with huge income (and huge expenses), free trading is unacceptable. For a "start-up" artist without much budget, free trading seems like good promotion, even when it deprives the artist of any real income. None of this makes much sense, but I guess that's music business.
Posted by: Niko at December 6, 2005 3:04 PM
Niko, to be clear, the quote you attribute to me is actually a direct quote from the op-ed piece. Still, I don't disagree with what Kulash is saying (which doesn't mean I entirely agree either :).
Posted by: Cynthia Brumfield at December 6, 2005 1:45 PM
I don't think the marketing 101 works quite that way. More and more exposure creates excess availability, which eventually lowers the value of the music. Please see my blog post for a more thorough reply (trackbacks don't seem to work).
Posted by: Niko at December 6, 2005 1:40 PM
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