As the owner of a small label here's my view:
Mp3's are a double-edged sword in that they are great for getting the music
heard and enticing people to buy the album or release the mp3 comes from
but also may result in lost sales, especially since this type of music
appeals to the computer geeks and the likes who do spend huge amounts of
time in front of their computers and hence the computer is there optimum
listening environment. Having said that we have unreleased mp3's on the AI
website @
http://www.aural-industries.com.au in the downloads section that
we use for promotional purposes and from the download statistics it would
seem they are very popular. We have no way of knowing how or if this
translates to actual sales of CD's but that's fine with us. What is not
fine with us is the blatant boot-legging in mp3 format of an entire release
(CD, album or 12") from the AI label.. if we had wanted the release to be
via mp3 we would have done it ourselves... quite simple really.
quoted 6 lines This isn't about the artists getting their due and it never was...if it
>This isn't about the artists getting their due and it never was...if it
>was, labels would be more concerned about the artists actually GETTING
>their due and less about taking as much from the consumer as they can
>get. Perhaps this happens with smaller labels (Does Warp or Skam or
>Ninja Tune give a higher % to the artist than, say, Capitol?), though I
>wouldn't know.
In Aural Industries case... as well as paying reasonable advances I then
actually split the money between the artist and the label on a 50/50 profit
sharing basis on wholesale. So I take the financial risk and the artist
takes the musical risk and as you can see, if their release sells well, the
artist can make a bit of money by releasing on my label. I deliberately set
it up this way in an effort to give more back to the artist. As I really
disagree with the big label models that have been adopted for the music
industry, with the artist only getting 1% or some such of each sale.
So in AI's case yes if you boot-leg the artists material via mp3 and like
it and don't buy their album you are financially hurting the artist. And
I'm sure the same goes for many small labels like mine. So please keep this
in mind when you hear an mp3 you like from a particular artist on a small
label and then support both by buying the release. Truly, it could really
mean the difference between there being another release or not for the
artist on that label or the label itself.
Regards,
John
Aural Industries Pty Ltd
http://www.aural-industries.com.au
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