GeekLimit and the music biz
Posted by The Technocrat | Filed under Web
I’ve been away for a bit playing in GL’s sandbox and working on a new theme. I think I have the layout set, but I’m only about halfway through the CSS. It’s a work-in-progress, but feel free to check it out.
Anyway, I wanted to throw an idea out there and see what people think. If I get some support, I think I’ll do it.
GeekLimit Records
If you’re into the digital music scene, you’ve probably used iTunes and their locked-down, DRMed music. You may have even heard of allofmp3.com, a Russian site that offers tracks for about US$0.10. IMHO, iTunes sucks for many reasons, and although allofmp3 is a great service (and a good lesson in the viability of micropayments) its legality is in question. In fact, the RIAA here in the US is using its political influence to block Russia from joining the World Trade Organization until allofmp3.com is shut down. Nothing like stalling world economy to protect your dying business model…
Anyway, I’m debating building a web app that allows the artist to have an account, upload music, set pricing, and set what % of the sales go to whom. Also, you could have separate licensing fees for each song. Just off the top of my head, when you went to go buy a track, it would list this in the checkout for the pricing.
These prices would have been set by the artist who uploaded their music, for example, here is what I would have set my prices at for the following licenses. I may do more license types, but the pricing is entirely up to the artist:
What type of license would you like to purchase?
$0.01 Lifetime Ringtone Use (This ringtone will be used by you, and only you. You may transfer this tone to a new phone)
$0.10: Lifetime Personal Use (This song will be listened by you, and only you. You may not share this song)$100.00: One-time Public Performance (You are allowed to use this song once in a public setting)
$250.00: One-time Partial Commercial Use (You are allowed one instance of commercial broadcast )
$500.00 and $50 per instance: One-time Full Commercial Use (You are allowed one instance of commercial broadcast use either partial or in the song’s entirety)
$500.00 and 0.5% of reported box revenue: for Partial Theatrical Use
$1000 and 1% of reported box revenue: for Full Theatrical Use
$0.00: First Year Traditional and Satellite Radio License (You are allowed to broadcast this song in its entirety for one year from its upload date)$100.00: Subsequent Year Traditional and Satellite Radio Use (You are allowed to broadcast this song in its entirety for one year following its first year)
$0.03: One time Personal On-demand Use (You do not keep a copy of this song, it is delivered upon request)
OK, so to explain a little, all of those licensing options would be listed for the artist when they uploaded their song. Come to think of it, they could upload video or whatever else they wanted too. Once the artist has their prices set, they would also get to decide what % of money goes to whom. They’d have to give the site at least 1% so it stays in business, but the nice part of this is that the artist gets to decide what to do with the money. And here’s the cool part – the person buying the music gets to see it also. So in the case above, let’s say I purchased a Lifetime Personal Usage license of a particular song for $0.10. On the next screen, or maybe in my cart, I would see the following:
[song name] by [artist name]
[license type]
[price]
Benefactors:
music.geeklimit.com: 5%: $0.005 (the artist is more generous than the minimum 1%)
Salvation Army: 10%: $0.01
[artist name]‘s mom, for all the inspiration: 10%: $0.01
Sal’s Recording Studio: 10%: $0.01
Wendy’s Music Marketing, LLC: 25%: $0.02
[artist name]: 40%: $0.04
TOTAL: 100%: $0.10
See, the part I like about this is that it makes the entire business transparent. The artist gets to decide where the profits from their art go, and everyone knows it. After the artist sets the prices for the different license types, they get to decide what % goes to whom. Of course, everyone who is designated here would need an account on the site. This also opens up an opportunity to have an open marketplace for services related to the entertainment industry. Just imaging if you could browse the database of music videos and find the stuntman for a particular video you liked, only to find another one that can do the same thing, but cheaper.
If some artist is marketed great, look up who markets them. If the recording sounds like it was done on a tin can and string, stay away from other recordings done at Sal’s. If the artist is getting ripped off on marketing fees, everyone will know it. If the price of the song is high, you can see if it’s the artist that’s too full of themselves, or if their marketing campaign is to blame. Or maybe they just charge an extra $0.03 per song for their favorite charity!
Of course, other parts of the site would make sense too. File formats would be open and un-DRM’ed, etc. How would the site protect against piracy? It wouldn’t. By offering music/movies at a reasonable price, I have a firm belief that people would pay for high-quality, quaranteed-authentic recordings, rather than waste their time downloading inferior copies off of the P2P network. Even more so when they can plainly see and understand why a song costs what it does.
Any ideas, thoughts, volunteers?
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June 30, 2006 at 2:59 pm
The problem that comes to mind here is the public performance license. I work with a group of volunteers who run various events on a non-profit basis, and whilst most of our events are in already licensed premises (and hence any music played is not a problem), we occasionally run events elsewhere. ANY public performance license payments for such an event are impossible for us.
None of the other similar ideas cater for such a situation, either.
July 3, 2006 at 6:55 pm
You’ve brought some light into a strangely shady business. This would change the way people feel about purchasing music. Seeing the benefactors would be jawsome.
Would you then list the cost for the actual transaction (Visa/MC,PP…) and then charge that % to the buyer? I think that’d be understandable if you also just listed that cost in checkout. be reason to buy more.
I tried to play around with stuff and piece together a website that just supplied free music links to artists/PR/label’s free hi-qual mp3s, my attempt:
http://www.beatkids.org/pages/Site-Map
but i wanted to develop it into something like what’d you’ve said. it would nurture a strong community about it.
i’ve recently been obsessively shopping/selling at etsy.com and all i can think is, why doesn’t something like this work for music?
YAY i think its supercool!
July 5, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Chaz:
thx for the encouragement. Yes, the idea is 100% transparency. To me, this aspect is more important than the actual product being sold, be it movies or music, etc. It could be a million other things too, but I chose music because, as you said, it is a business that is notoriously shady and deceitful. In a way, this probably is what MySpace was supposed to be, a direct link to musicians. (That didn’t turn out so well – OMG LOL!!!11!!)
MooUK: Good point. I don’t seem to be accounting for non-profits using the media in my app there. One question tho – how do you license it now? If there a model for using works in a non-profit, public setting? How would you imagine this would work, since you’re the one using it?
July 7, 2006 at 12:19 pm
[...] P.S. Read GeekLimits blog post “GeekLimit and the music biz” , I already commented because it’s pretty much a genius plan. Filed under: Brooklyn, Music, Holiday | Tags: No Tags. [...]
July 29, 2006 at 3:47 am
There isn’t any way of using works as a non-profit without paying stupid amounts. Most of the time we rely on the venue’s license (since bars and so forth play music anyway); if necessary, we ignore the entire issue and just go ahead. Which obviously is not ideal, but we don’t have a lot of choice.
For us, it works a bit like most small-scale cover artists – you’re not supposed to do it without paying royalties, but nobody will likely get you for it. I’d much rather have a way of doing it fully legally.
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