I am strongly against illegally downloading media. Things such as movies, music and games are items that I will never ever consider downloading. The reason is that for any product to be produced it takes a huge amount of effort to produce and a huge amount of risk and investment to even get the project started. To simply have all this effort and risk not rewarded by having an individual go through some obscure computer website to look and find content to download illegally to me is a little unethical and a little selfish.
In saying all this unfortunately I feel that I am in the minority. Many people think it is perfectly okay to illegally download mediums like books, games, movies and music. This puts a huge dent into the revenue stream of companies that put the money in to create content. You may not care about the revenue stream of a company but you will definitely care when the quality of music, movies and games start to deteriorate. For todays blog topic I wanted to focus solely on the music industry first. Although sales of a physical CD is declining this has meant other streams of revenue have become more important in order to slow or even halt the decline. It means more effort and more work though but is a necessity in todays digital age.
Alternate Ways Help Record Label keeps Open
– YouTube: Sharing your video work can and does allow you an additional revenue stream. If the quality is good enough then YouTube allows you to share your video with adspace. When these ads clicked by viewers enough times then YouTube sends you a cheque.
– Licensing for public broadcast: Always been around as a revenue earner but rarely enforced in the past. So for example a shop broadcasting the latest pop song, or even an underground Indie song. Well this shop is liable to pay the artist and record label a fee.
– Rdio, Pandora, MOG: Subscription music services. A low fee gives you access to millions of songs. I cant imagine labels and artists getting a lot out of this but its a revenue stream nonetheless.
– Live Concerts: How music originally was made and broadcasted back in ancient times
– Legal downloads: Apple itunes store for example
– Vinyl discs: No longer a niche. Mp3’s sound bad. Anyone who has heard an vinyl disc even once knows this. Therefore its popularity is increasing. Pour marketing dollars in the vinyl medium and not just to the Dj’ing crowd
– Last but not least custom branded merchandise! Tee shirts are ordinary, but make the design cool, how about bomber jackets?, caps, beanies, singlets, sling bags, calico bags, yo yo’s, frisbees, mugs, mobile phone accessories to name a few.
Merchandise is a great revenue earner but as an absolute necessity you must select the type of product that is appropriate to both the genre and also age appropriate to the music. Having a hip-hop band on the cover of a sublimated mug is not a good idea. Having the same hip-hop bands logo on a bandana, a beanie, sunglasses would be a smarter idea. Pop music? how about a Katy Perry Yoyo? So think about the image of the artist and work with it to select not just the right product type but the right colour and look.
Merchandising in today’s age has become quite an essential stream in maintaining declining revenue. Some artists have taken this very far by literally having their own clothing label, whilst others have lent their image to merchandise such as headphones (Just Beats – By Justin Bieber, Lamb Perfume – By Gwen Stefani to name a few). For new artists starting out the easiest way would be to approach a company like ours just to get some small runs of product which does not cost a lot just to test out the waters. For more established artists we can also help out as we have been doing merchandise for a few music artists already and we would be glad to share our experience on what works and what does not work with you.
