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The Observer | Focus | Design your own revolution
Tags: article, community, innovation, network on 2006-09-28 and saved by4 people -All Annotations (0) -About
more fromobserver.guardian.co.uk
- A Guardian Media article about user driven, open, decentralized innovation.post by zoiberg on 2006-09-28
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Disquiet: interviews: Free as in Netlabel
Tags: community, discussion, distribution, netlabel on 2006-08-30 -All Annotations (0) -About
more fromdisquiet.com
- interesting discussion between three netlabel ownerspost by zoiberg on 2006-08-30
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Just like a collection of ones favorite books, a label is simply a collection of music that's available to the public. For me, I try to have each Dark Winter release be as original and different from the rest while sharing a similar 'something' that calls out to me.
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In my humble opinion, the current situation with the electronica majority at netlabels originated in the early demoscene culture (wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene)
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Do you think netlabels have been particularly popular with electronic music, versus say singer-songwriters, because electronic music tends to have a less copyright-derived understanding of intellectual property?
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The things that draw me to a specific net.label or another would be quality and style of releases, artwork, and the quantity I can download.
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I've been noticing that a couple artists each year, maybe more, are slowly getting some attention from indie labels like Warp, Type Records (a couple of role models for me), Merck (unfortunately closed down recently) and others. This is getting more and more people to believe in the solid quality -- artistic or whatever -- that net-based musicians are capable of. It makes me very happy when I see Khonnor selling hundreds of copies and playing live in Sonar and other important venues. Makes me think and believe that all is not lost in this industry.
My point is: We need to fight the music industry's corporativism. Every day one of the big ones (EMI, Universal & Sony/BMG) buys some little distributor or label and grows a bit more, halving the growth of small scale businesses that really believe in artistic quality and stand backing up for the independent artists. I could never agree with company ads supporting those small labels, even if it's the only way for them to survive. It's a matter of time before they succumb to the big ones. What's the point of that? I know this is not a simple issue, but it doesn't seem right to accept that anyway. I'm totally against.
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If things go well and I am in a good position to continue releasing physical works, my selections for release will be based on several things. First off, if it's an established artist, what do their download numbers look like?
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We always hoped that the next release would be the next 'big one' that would solve our problems and pay for future releases (including my own). The fact of the matter is, ambient and experimental music just doesn't sell like top 40 music does. Sure we sold discs, but never enough to totally pay for the next release without us pitching in. My partner demanded a release out (rightfully so) and because of this, it materialized. I kept putting it off hoping the next release would be the one to dig us out and find cash for my project, but it never happened. So I guess it was my fault for waiting!
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Our goal as net.labels is to promote the music and increase downloads, right? With increased visitors comes increased fees for more bandwith (unless you run your own server). As the numbers rise, are any of you guys thinking of ways to cover your expenses? That brings me to my topic: Advertising on your site.
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Then along came net.labels! What I really enjoyed about the majority of them was that they all seem to cater to a specific or similar type of music. When I find something that I like, I want to hear more similar stuff. I think net.labels really deliver that.
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As for the ones that go straight to MP3, well, actually I'm thinking of signing some of them to the physical label, because they have accomplished something important: a solid fan base. And that's a pretty good reason to issue a record. Also, they are playing live and their music is really getting somewhere and they really have something new to say.
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Well, the first thing that makes me pick one format or the other is market acceptance. Meaning: It's very difficult to invest money in a 100% experimental work that -- without proper distribution -- will be forgotten in most of the shelf spaces at record stores. And locally, the Portuguese experimental music market is very, very small... selling 100/150 copies of a release like Minus Pilots and Kenneth Kirschner, for instance, would be really great. And such small CD pressings are way too expensive to meet break-even. We would have to put a price tag abnormally high. I don't want to do that. I think a digital release will find more public than a physical one, in those cases. I don't care if I don't make money in the process, that's not at all the issue here.
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CD is becoming more and more a thing of the past. Younger generations -- and I have a 16-year-old kid at home... -- don't see CDs or vinyl records through the same eyes that we do. They want the music right away, as fast as they can, and in their minds, a physical medium is just an obstacle in their plans. They have to rip it out first, before they can use it on their iPods...
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Have you ever checked out the minusn.com netlabel? Some of its releases come with covers that move: small, square-format images that resemble the dimensions of a standard CD (or, I suppose, LP and single) release, but that are actually Flash animations that refute the idea of a static piece of jewel-case liner art. It's an interesting parallel to the MP3 experience -- saying, in effect, this is an inherently un-physical release.
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I can't say if this has ever really helped though. I find that where I live, most people catch on to what's going on after it's a bigger thing elsewhere. During the GHM years, we sold more discs out of state and out of country than we ever did in Minnesota. After a while we did sell more locally, but it seemed that the Internet was more powerful than local promotions.
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While Dark Winter currently operates as a net.label, I do plan to release in other mediums in the future (CD, vinyl, etc.). I am not sure if I will create a new label or just release CDs on Dark Winter (can I call it a net.label then?).
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But the biggest difference between a physical label and a netlabel (and the biggest problem too) is without a doubt, the distribution. With a netlabel, you control your own distribution, of course, making it very easy and lifting a huge weight from your head.
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There are a lot of net.labels out in the world these days and for Dark Winter I have tried to keep a consistent feel with the releases. I don't want to be a label that releases every style of music. I would like to stay focused on dark ambient. I try to treat every MP3 release in the same way I did while working the GHM label. Quality is very important to me and I feel that the releases on Dark Winter are very consistent with this while still being very different and original. That is my goal with Dark Winter.
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I was now not tied to financial obligations (other than server space) and I could expand as fast as wanted to. As soon as I converted to a net.label, people started downloading! That for me was the biggest excitement. The whole idea of having a label is to get the music out to people and with the MP3 releases the music was being listened to more than ever before!
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in 1999 I co-founded the Green House Music label. The label focused on atmospheric music and we released seven CDs by artists like Vir Unis, Alio Die and Antonio Testa. We had a good thing going but we still had to pitch in money for every release!
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"Complementary distribution in linguistics refers to the relationship between two elements where one element can be found only in a particular environment and the other element can be found only in the opposite environment. It often indicates that two superficially different elements are in fact the same at a deeper level," according to Wikipedia.
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With the continuous growth of the MP3 market and industry, people are beginning to realize what it means to be a netlabel, what's the cultural role of them, the freedom brought from the Internet into the creative minds of the musicians.
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After a couple of releases, I realized that 80 percent or more of the music that was arriving to the label as demos, was of the experimental kind, not likely mainstream material, not likely to sell enough to meet break-even, and pretty much impossible to make a profit on.
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