Honestly, I don't think the 'donate' model is a viable one. Sure you can make <i>some</i> money off of it, but that cannot be the norm. I think. Maybe (hopefully) I'm wrong.<p>Now don't get me wrong, I think that <i>selling</i> music in the internet age is a fundamentally broken model, so much more than the <i>donate</i> one. At a time where distributing media is as simple as one click, trying to make money off of distribution is just wrong. Take into account how widespread internet access is today, and do the most basic ecnomical analysis, take "Porter five force" for instance and you'll quickly realize how non-viable this model is. Labels who act as middle men between the artist and their audience might have been needed 20 years ago, but today, what are their added values?<p>Now, if I do not believe that selling music is profitable, that doesn't mean that musicians cannot make money. Here's a simple business model for you: Make money off concerts and use your records as promotion units. Give your music away for free, hope for success, give a concert, make money.<p>Labels want to scare you into thinking that their distribution model is the only guarantee that music/art will survive. Let's not forget that musicians existed and made money long, very long before technology allowed businessmen in suits to make money off of them.
I once tried to buy a digital album from a local band, without using iTunes (just don't like it).<p>After searching around (which, to Benn's point, probably took longer than illegally downloading) I found it listed on Amazon. After I downloaded their ridiculous download software (just give me a zip?), I got right up to paying, when I was told that they were not licensed to sell to countries outside the US. Great. I can't buy my country's own product on Amazon. Nice one music industry.<p>At that point I gave up.
This is why I love bandcamp (for example <a href="http://ohdaughter.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://ohdaughter.bandcamp.com/</a>).<p>The first couple of downloads (I don't know how many, maybe the first 100) of a track/album are usually free, and after that you pay for the music. So when you suddenly go all Lady Gaga as an Indie artist you get at least something out of it, but when nobody knows you the can have a free listen.<p>If the free downloads are out, you have to buy the music. Some artists have a steady price like 8-10$ per album or 3-4$ for an EP (which I find <i>very</i> reasonable and am totally willing to pay if it goes directly to the artist, and it mostly does!) and some let you choose the amount you want to pay for the music. And if that wasn't enough, if you have paid for the download, you get the audio files in almost every possible format existing.<p>Ah, bandcamp. Music distributing done right.<p>/edit:<p>Some more info: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandcamp" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandcamp</a><p>- Pricing model: <i>Set by artists</i><p>- Available audio formats are MP3, FLAC, AAA (aka .m4a), Vorbis and Apple Lossless and even more<p>- About 4 million songs online, including music from Sufjan Stevens, Amanda Palmer (Dresden Dolls) and Coer de Pirate, and game soundtracks from Minecraft, Machinarium and Plants vs Zombies<p>And last but not least: <a href="http://bandcamp.com/faq" rel="nofollow">http://bandcamp.com/faq</a> (yes, they do cover <i>all</i> questions who could possible arise)<p>(And no, I don't work for them. I just love them, as do many others: <a href="http://bandcamp.com/testimonials" rel="nofollow">http://bandcamp.com/testimonials</a>)
This is exactly the way I want to buy media and other "soft" goods. I wish it was widely adopted already.<p>I want to know what I'm buying and iTunes previews, shareware trials, demo versions, movie trailers or what have you aren't nearly good enough to decide if I like something or not. Or someone just drags an MP3 on my Skype icon: "Hey, did you hear this song? It's really good!" -- "Wow, yes it is." (I'm a naughty pirate now, but if it weren't for piracy I'd never have listened to that song).<p>So when I do find something I really like, be that music, software or a TV show, I often _want_ to give the creators some cash. And it's incredibly frustrating to do that. Maybe the band is on iTunes, but that album with the nice song isn't (and as they pointed out, you'd end up giving cash to people who contributed nothing to the process of creating the stuff you like). Or the movie isn't available as digital download and you're supposed to buy a little plastic box with a disc in it that you have to dust off regularly and modern computers don't even have a slot for anymore. Plus, you already have the damn thing anyways, so all you really want to do is throw some money at people to show that you appreciate their work and want them to be able to pay the rent so they can keep making cool stuff. So why not make it as easy as possible to give you money?<p>Speaking of easy, my only problem with the above page is that I have a beef with PayPal and would greatly prefer them not profiting from anything I do (well, actually I would prefer for gaping holes to simultaneously open underneath their offices and suck them down straight to an equivalent number of burning, spiked pits in hell, but that's another story). So maybe provide some options here. Other than that, best of luck, and please let us know how it works out.
This reminds me of the game Darwinia by Introversion.<p>This happened years ago. After hearing about it and trying the demo, I downloaded what I thought was the full copy over a P2P network.<p>The downloaded game behaved like the full copy and contained the first 2 levels as far as I remember. After that came a sequence spoken by the scientist that went a bit like "Let's be honest. You and I know that this isn't a legal copy and I don't blame you." and went on about how supporting the developers was important. After that no further levels could be played.<p>Introversion seems to have leaked this version on P2P networks themselves. I bought the full copy a short while later.<p>It's strange that I have yet to find any online sources or Youtube videos about this on the web. I guess no one wants to admit having pirated Darwinia.
Very nice. This may be weird, but I totally enjoyed reading this.<p>However, I'm actually surprised they didn't mention their Bandcamp presence[1], where I bought something a few month ago and was very pleased with the experience. But then again, I don't know from when the "Hello Downloader" document is.<p>[1]: <a href="http://alphabasic.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://alphabasic.bandcamp.com/</a>
The album mentioned in the post "Soundtrack To A Vacant Life" came out a couple of years ago. So this post might be old.<p>Also, that's an excellent electronic/idm album to work to.
Heh I know. Donate isn't a very good model. Etc. I don't even especially like their music.<p>But I clicked the link. I read it. No fancy HTML. Strong points.
So I clicked donate anyway. It might not be much, it won't last, and I wont donate to them every month, but hey, for me it's more of a way to say "I support your point of view".
I'd be much more likely to donate money for a track/album if I had some automatic way of tracking which I had donated to. One way to do this would be a website that let you donate a suggested amount for a song or album. For each song/album you donate towards, you get some signed key that says you supported that song.<p>There's some interesting things that you could build off of this:<p>- Media players could show a little badge whenever you're playing a song you've donated to. They could also remind you (if you wanted) when you listen to a song frequently but haven't supported it.<p>- Hook into Facebook - when someone downloads a song, they can see which of their friends have donated to it.<p>- An additional metric for music suggestion services. What better way to show you like a song than by putting your money where your mouth is?
I am surprised more labels aren't doing this.<p>How much is a label spending combating piracy? How many labels have actually prevented an album become available via bit-torrent?<p>Few albums actually flop because they can be pirated. I think a viable strategy is for the label themselves to upload the album with a message like this. Its going to be pirated anyway. These people aren't going to go to iTunes or buy the CD. Why not just have a simple message which says something like:<p>"If you enjoyed this album please consider making a donation to the artist. The artist will receive 85% of your donation. The other 15% helps cover the cost of production."<p>I mean, its worth a shot isn't it.
I have no idea if what he's trying to do here will actually work out for him, but I went ahead and donated $5 because I have to respect him for at least trying.
Framablog, a blog about free software, net neutrality and popularizy these philosophie just published a french translated version <a href="http://www.framablog.org/index.php/post/2012/05/24/salut-a-toi-pirate" rel="nofollow">http://www.framablog.org/index.php/post/2012/05/24/salut-a-t...</a>
Why don't musicians just decline to license their music if they get tiny share? Can't they create some sort of union that would give them bigger negotiating power? Or just sell the music on the internet? I wonder why market mechanics don't work here.
Can somebody explain how a donate button like the one on this page complies with the PayPal TOS?<p>I looked into adding one to a site, but the PayPal terms seem to make it pretty clear they're for non-profits or giving money for a specific cause. If you get >$10k in "donations" they can/will even hold your money and require "proof" it's going to the cause you tell people it's going to.<p>I've seen the buttons on a number of sites, and they rarely seem to match up with the PayPal TOS for donations. Does PayPal not enforce that requirement?<p>In my case, I've decided to go with a small, one time signup fee, but I'm still curious.